07.03.14
Laura Tarrish | Essays

Hunter | Gatherer: Text as Textile

Evidence of fabric embellished with needle and thread has been found as far back as the Cro-Magnon days (30,000 B.C.). The artists featured here, writing with stitchery, challenge our expectations of what is commonly considered a domestic art.

These samples from New York-based illustrator Andrea Dezso’s ironic series Lessons From My Mother illustrate the myths passed down in her Romanian family.

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer


Donna Rumble-Smith

Hunter | Gatherer
Shadows (2009)

Hunter | Gatherer
Effluence (2010) photography by Shot in the Dark

Hunter | Gatherer
Stationary Box (2009)


Heather Johnson delicately embroidered narrative fragments are ephemeral site-specific installations that explore ideas of place, time and memory.

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer
From The Pickup, a collection of works placed throughout lower Manhattan.

Hunter | Gatherer
Love Letter, which Johnson describes as “works that embody gestures of intimacy between the cities of New York and Paris.”

Hunter | Gatherer
Her current project in Mexico, In Search of the Frightening and Beautiful, is “a relationship between art and motorcycles.”


Effie Jessop’s interest in language has led to portraits created by meticulously stitched type.

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer


Art in the Woods
by Hannah Lamb reflected the sights and sounds of the forest landscape. The text was embroidered on a dissolvable substrate “intended to degrade in wind and rain, responding to the fleeting nature of remembered experiences.”

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer


In the 1890s, seamstress Agnes Richter was a patient at a Heidelberg psychiatric hospital. She manically embroidered her standard issue straightjacket, transforming it into a complex personal journal of her thoughts and experiences.

Hunter | Gatherer


Graphic designer Evelin Kasiko uses needlework to explore the foundations of type and printing with her CMYK embroidery.

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer

Hunter | Gatherer


And for a bit of fun….this music video using embroidery!



Posted in: Arts + Culture, History, Hunter | Gatherer, Typography



Comments [3]

These are great!
Betsy Vardell
07.03.14
11:23

If readers are interested in more projects like these, follow my Pinterest boards: Embroidery and Embroidered Type
Laura Tarrish
07.03.14
06:23

just picking my jaw up...so incredibly lovely!
Taposy Rabeya
05.12.15
06:38


Laura Tarrish Laura Tarrish is a collage illustrator and a compulsive ephemera collector currently based in Portland, Oregon. Her editorial clients have included Apple Computer, Chronicle Books, The Washington Post, and United Airlines.  As the founder of Bridgetown Papers, Laura has created custom work for individuals including Isabel Allende, Tom Brokaw and Bob & Lee Woodruff.  She has been a contributor to Uppercase Magazine and Felt & Wire.

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