PROJECTS > Everybody Hurts (2004 - 2012)

Andrea
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
9" x 13"
2012
Don Draper
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
14 x 10"
2011
Laura Roslin
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
13.5 x 15.5"
2011
Claire Fischer
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
10 x 16”
2011
John Locke
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
11.5 x 11”
2010
David Fischer
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
13.38“ x 16.38”
2005
Barb Henrickson
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
14” x 18”
2010
Barb Henrickson
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
Detail
2010
Bill Haverchuck
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
15.62“ x 13.56”
2009
Inara Serra
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
10.25" x 14.25"
2009
Bette Porter
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
13" x 17.25"
2008
Callisto
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
12.5" x 16"
2008
Starbuck
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
10.56” x 9.81”
2008
Buffy Summers #2
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
17.5” x 24.63”
2007
Buffy Summers #2
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
Detail
2007
Buffy Summers #1
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
21.5" x 30.75"
2006
Willow Rosenberg
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
11.44” x 14.81”
2008
Spike
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
Detail
2007
Spike
Cross-stitched Embroidery
17.56” x 17.25”
2007
Fox Mulder
Cross-stitched Embroidery
13” x 17”
2006
Dawson Leery
Handmade cross-stitch embroidery
11.5” X 12.5”
2004

Everybody Hurts (2004 - 2012)
While watching television characters experience the cruelties of their lives, the tears we cry are as much for ourselves as for these fictional characters. Humans have told and heard stories throughout history. TV shows are contemporary myths, which help us to define who we are, individually and in relation to our culture. Emotions mediated through stories are not “unreal” emotions. They are conduits to those who tell the stories and to others who experience them. Feeling this sense of connection in what is often a solitary action is an example of the transformative power of art.

The embroideries in the series are reproductions of television screen-captures. The experiences of sadness, guilt, terror and hopelessness are frozen on the faces of fictional characters, opening them up to a voyeuristic inspection of pain. The act of cross-stitching further cements these endless moments of torment for our viewing pleasure/discomfort. To slowly reproduce a single moment from a time-based medium by hand is an act of contemplation and commemoration.

Each stitch is a badge of endurance: of the glacial process of art-making and of the pain shown in the image. Each stitch challenges me to keep going and distracts me from the overwhelming whole. Each stitch symbolizes the arduous task of continuing to exist from second to second, in the face of the supreme dread that is registered on the faces of Buffy, Mulder, Spike and others. The process of embroidery, like that of existing, goes on and on. Every moment, or stitch, requires a choice, a commitment to the difficult task of continuing on.

Work from this project is contained in MP3: Volume II, the second installment of the Midwest Photographers Publication Project.