In October 2020 I took part in an experiment to see if we could communicate through stitch. I had a week to make this postcard-sized response to the previous embroiderer’s work. It travelled from Cornwall to Scotland and is on display at the Barony Centre, West Kilbride until early 2022.

Whilst I don’t have contact details or permission from the previous person to reproduce their work here, you can see the conversation in the slider at https://www.stitchedstories.co.uk/a-stitched-conversation.

I am responding to Sue Arran, no 10 on the slider. Sue’s work suggested to me a nested owl asleep by day in a countryside depicted with rough surfaces evoking countryside textures.

I responded with smooth textures and small stitches, using net as a point of material correspondence with the previous work. The owl awakens in a crepuscular urban setting, having travelled in time, space and position. As the closed eyes were the central focus of the previous work, I positioned the head in the same place with the eyes opened and focused. The wings are less worked to give a sense of movement, with the manmade elements in the scene visible beyond suggesting its fleeting, ghostly nature.

Having come from a very different point of view, the corresponding placement of opposites becomes a form of agreement with the previous work.