Jennifer Hunold

Passing fiber through the lens of painting births forms that invigorate the familiar understandings of both mediums. Here the storytelling ability of the tapestry is appropriated and re-imagined to create images that translate quotidian events into abstracted compositions.

Various “dream homes” are planned and rendered again and again in different incarnations, vestiges of hope and wanting, each better than the last but possibly never reaching their idolized status that has so captivated American sensibilities. Using dynamic color and pattern relationships the rigidity of an architectural floor plan is transformed with a delicate and detailed hand to envision visual interactions reflective of a domestic environment.

Through repetition and exploration, these works at once draw to mind both positive and negative associations: home design and planning, nostalgic embroidered objects, home-making and women’s arts... but also the housing crisis, the emotional complexity of domestic environments, the external appearance of perfection and the imperfection hidden within the home, and the dream versus the reality of home ownership.

The plans are infused with the language of embroidery, referencing the analog versions of both home and landscape design and embroidery templates. Coupling embroidery with architecture, the work connects the masculine and feminine, modern and historical, technological and handmade. This dialogue between the slowness of the handmade and the immediacy of modern technology in domestic architecture creates a new context for embroidery in today’s ready-made society. These fused elements address the constant struggle to attain the “American dream” while simultaneously seeking a fulfilled, meaningful existence apart from and along with one’s material possessions.

Twitter, Facebook, blogging, brochures and postcards are paired with the matriarchal sampler to draw a response which fluctuates between sincerity and cynicism. The objects’ positive yet mildly proselytizing and instructive tone bring a range of reactions to the Be Nice. project, indicating individual relationships with our society: defensive, suspicious, receptive, complacent, and so on. While irony and subversion come standard in contemporary imagery and communication, here sincerity is subversive.

The works in the Be Nice. project are embroidered by hand specifically for their duplication into brochures and postcards. Each piece is reproduced at a one-to-one scale with its paper counterpart. These ephemera are consistently distributed throughout the U.S. and abroad. The works operate as an introduction to the project, inviting the recipient to explore further online via a regularly updated blog at www.BeNiceProject.com. There the complexity of our social and cultural landscape is analyzed and reflected upon. Facebook and Twitter are also used to mobilize the project socially, involving a dedicated following of readers who also voluntarily distribute the materials.

LINK TO THE BLOG BELOW!

This project was made from 09/12/08 to 02/03/09. During this time, a form was embroidered at the end of each day to represent or transform the most resonant or important aspect of that 24-hour period.

This gallery contains my first embroidered piece, "Stitched in my memory". Also included are selected images from the "Leaf Embroidery Project". During a three-day period I collected the remaining leaves of fall and embroidered on them. Their pliable surfaces hardened under my hands within hours making it an incredibly delicate act. Equally fragile is an image of an embroidery on a facial tissue.