There is something satisfying about finding the space in the Venn Diagram that is both.
Jordan Cunliffe of @artisan_embroidery creates work that lives in that space. Where data visualization meets fiber, beading and memory. Her art invites you to explore the “both” : logic and creativity, structure and softness. It asks you to think. It asks you to feel.
One piece called linear time holds a single stitch for every day of her life.
According to the CDC, an American woman lives on average 81.1 years. This would be rounded to: 29622 days. I am 35. This means I am approximately 12800 in. 16822 remain.
If this were stitched at 14 stitches per inch on a generic aida cloth, a lifespan is about 58 yards long. Stretched nearly halfway across a football field. (This is all I know about football) I’m standing halfway in the middle of that, looking back and looking forward.
That stayed with me. And later, holding a brittle thread and scrap of cloth, I felt a similar pattern emerge. I wonder, what other numbers need to be seen to be understood?
What are inconceivable numbers? Dunbar says we only get to know 150 people.1 Are we failing to understand information because we can’t understand what it means to see 150 people on your phone before you even wash your face in the mornings? How do we hold empathy in a world like this?
My stitches broke, the thread is a cotton rescued from an estate sale, so heaven knows how old the spool is. It feels tenuous, like my understanding of the count. I have to keep recounting to see where I am. Threes by threes. Things often happen in threes.
Following curiosities:
- More stitches next time I find brittle thread
- Number visualization
- Ribbon as embroidery canvas
- Slow Stitch spool journal
- Dunbar’s Number: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number ↩︎
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