Stitching is a private and intimate practice often used to deal with difficulties or monotony of life. Stitchers are often practising an alternative view from mainstream, and labelled as outsiders, standing alone with a individual perspective on the world, informed by an embodied experience. Outsider art is often made by socially ostracised people, and are created by inwardly oriented people, who have agenuine, raw, pictorial language (www.outsider-artworld.com. [Accessed 20/1/17]. Outsider art; Demirel collection). Stitchers creativity 'emerges in their inner world and imagination. The purpose of the work is in its own creation". This fits with my experience. The output is quite incidental to the thoughts during the input. Stitch provides the creative avenue by which mediation of the inner world takes place.
There is something in here, about how I don't really care what my output looks like. I need to stop worrying what the intuitive design decisions will look like (which is what I do when I think about whether my work will get a good mark for my degree!) and just get on with expressing my thoughts through my fingers.
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| Agnes Emma Richter, Embroidered straitjacket. 1894 Thread on hospital linen. Prinzhorn Collection, Centre for Psychosocial Medicine, University Hospital Heidelber. Sammlung Prinzhorn, Inv. Nr 743 |
Nice quote from Caren Garfen: "The practice is the embodiment of the research".
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