In Progress: Based on a True Story

I have said before, the problem with taking pictures to remember things is that the picture never looks like what you were seeing. There really isn't much you can do to share what you saw, what you felt, what made that particular moment something you wanted to remember. Previously, I did a project with shadowboxes trying to fill in the missing pieces of a photograph. This time, I am trying something else.

First, I went back & found a photo that I took some time ago of a friend of mine while we were in San Francisco (to see Owen Pallett!).


It is a simple picture, not that exciting, & probably would have been best if I'd have moved a bit, but at the time I was more like, "whoaaoaoaoaoaaooaoaaaa there are so many homes here & people & lives & things I will probably never know about & this is kind of insane". I liked it up there a lot. I remember being asked where would I live if practicality weren't an issue & I didn't have an answer because I wasn't sure what I wanted yet. I felt like my future was this big huge question mark & I wondered if the people I were with felt the same, but I didn't really want to ask at the time. I wanted to look & reflect & think.

The girl in this picture is really quite an awesome person & was really great to talk to during my big time horrible breakup (that now actually seems like nothing, a brief rough patch, isn't it weird how that happens?). Anyway, she is also quite creative & while I don't know what she sees for her future, I see something less ordinary.

So I decided to take this image & bring it around to what I saw & felt at that time. I chose embroidery as my medium, something that would look obviously handcrafted, possibly a little rudimentary.

So first, I needed to make a drawing. The photo was super detailed & while I did want to keep a good measure of details in, I wanted this to be a smaller scale image. Sometimes I feel like keeping things small is the best way to let people know these are only one of a zillion fleeting thoughts I have in a given day.


I went over my drawing with an Indian ink pen so it would be nice & dark. Then I simply found the right light, draped a piece of fabric over my sketchbook, & traced.


I am aware that there are iron transfer pens available, but I have always been bad at getting myself to draw mirrored versions of what I want, plus I feel that tracing allows another point where I can pause & make any alterations to the drawing. Currently, I am stitching away. The reason why it's taking so long is because I switched colors so much! I have to get my needle ready all over again with each new color.


It looks a little smooshed here because I decided to stick it in my parents' scanner instead of taking a picture & was lazy about it. There is still a lot to be done!