The poems from The Small Door of Your Death, are all written in what I might call a minimalist style. Because they dealt with the death of my son, I couldn’t bear to imagine ornate poems that pointed more to the skill of the poet than the subject of his death. The title comes from a line from an untitled poem [it comes down to this] about the moment of his death:
you choose the vein
in the back of a hand
to carry
this last intimacy
a puncture mark
the small door
of your death
I imagine, here, that small mark in his vein, as a kind of door to his death. I have thought a lot about this image and wanted to render it in cloth. I’ve made some thirty or so pieces that contained the door as a symbol, but none of them felt right. They were somehow too busy, too elaborate, too forced. I have cut up or discarded these pieces, so I can’t show them to you here.
But a few months ago, in a class with Claire Benn on working with earth minerals, I painted a piece of canvas with black ochre. I meant for it to serve as a background to another piece, so the edges were darker than the center:
But with the help of others in the workshop, I saw that there was something happening in the cloth that I hadn’t intended. There was the suggestion of a door. I decided this piece might work on its own with only minimal stitching. Here it is with one line of hand-stitching. Today I quilt it with black thread that mimics some of the lines–like veins–that are the result of wrinkles in the fabric. Then I’ll iron it and see where we are.
Penny Gold
2 Sep 2022This cloth is such a beautiful, haunting composition all on its own. I’d be tempted to leave it as it is, an abstract painting. The wrinkles in the cloth give it texture as well as line. Is it possible that stitching distracts from it rather than adds? I don’t know.
Sheryl St. Germain
3 Sep 2022You’re probably right, Penny. I have been struggling with how to finish these pieces that I made with Claire. It’s hard to put a hanging sleeve on them (although I did with one of them), because it’s difficult to hide the stitches because there’s no backing. With another one I used the “pillow case“ method, and that was OK but since there was no quilting it still didn’t seem to hang right. I could use Velcro sewed to cotton and then sewn to the back – that is how Claire sometimes does hers – but again the stitches would show, even if I was very careful. So I decided to try very minimal quilting in black following a few of the wrinkles to see what that would do. Will post when I’m done.
Penny Gold
3 Sep 2022There are other ways to display the piece, too, and I’m thinking Claire has done these as well. If you would like to preserve the raw edges of the fabric, think of the cloth as a piece of paper. It can be affixed to a mat for background support (with the equivalent of double-stick tape) and put in a picture frame (or not). If you’re OK with straight edges, one finish I’ve done a couple of times and really like is to stretch the cloth on stretcher bars (like it’s canvas to be painted), either as is, or by adding an extra rim of fabric that will be around the side and back of the bars. When I’ve done this, I’ve layered the piece with another layer of plain fabric, just to give it extra strength over the bars. About double-stick tape: there is a double-sided fusible tape for fabric that I’ve used. You can also get sheets of double-sided fusible if you’d like to use larger pieces. Wonder Under, by Pellon I think, is good.
Sheryl St. Germain
6 Sep 2022Thanks much for this, Penny. I have used Wonder Under before but I never thought to use it in this way. I’ve never tried stretching the canvas on stretcher bars, but will look into that!