Tuesday, January 17, 2012

LOST ART (cross stitch)

So these are for the Losties, or anyone else who likes cross stitch. Enjoy knowing intimate details of how I spend my time (when I'm not actually watching the show or other films). I'll now be accepting my nomination into genuine Nerd-dom.

We have to go back! 
1. LOST Island Map, 2009. 22 count. I spent the summer with this one. I love maps and flags, so it was only natural that I throw together a little sampler of my favorite island, right? I debated for a while about including the black and red hieroglyphics, and almost didn't do it, but I think the finished piece would really have been lacking without them as a border and I'm glad I went for it.



I have no idea if the Dharma Stations are in the correct places, I patterned this after a map I found on DarkUFO.










2. Countdown to Death Hieroglyphics, 2010. Felt/embroidery.

I always felt that these were so ominous, only appearing briefly during the show's second season, but still---what they indicated turned out to be pretty major, right? For a while I used to refer to all chaos breaking loose inside my house as, "John Locke forgot to push the button." A great, great story line, wasn't it?



3. Moving On, 2011. 22 count.

There were hardly any decent (full) still images of the stained glass online anywhere, so I had to wait until I was able to get my own LOST box set to really plot this one out. It took a lot more work than anything else I've done---I changed the shape of the outline a bit, it's slightly more boxy than the real stained glass, and there was a pretty major oops on this one (bottom right yin/yang icon) that I took up after um, well, drinking a little bit one evening; you can probably see that it's slanted in a very non-circular way compared to the others, but hey. All part of the experience, I guess.


When I initially framed it, it was just the image on off-white fabric in the frame with the white mat, and something about it just didn't look right---too washed out or sterile or something, so I took it out a few weeks ago, cut the cross stitched image out and then stitched it onto the tan corduroy that it's in now and it looks much better. Does this do enough to cement and confirm that I absolutely loved the show's finale? I hope so.

4. Nine Dharmas, 2012. 18 count.

I originally wanted this to be a sort of tribute to not only the Dharma Initiative but also the blast door inside the Swan Station (that only John Locke sees during the lockdown) but once I got all of them finished, I just really liked the way they looked in a block arrangement so I kept them that way. I'll do a blast door, proper, in the future, don't worry.

When people see the stuff I do, the LOST pieces in particular, I usually get two comments or questions. The first is, "Oh Man! That's so dope that you do all this shit, but I still really hated the ending of that show!" Since I'm non-confrontational by nature, I'll just smile and nod, but just for the record, I did not hate the ending, thought it was brilliant, thought the entire show was brilliant, obsess over it at least once or twice daily (and usually tear up if I think about it too long). Yeah, I'm a crazy-ass fan.


The second bit of feedback, if you can call it that, is to ask me, "WHERE DO YOU FIND THE TIME TO DO ALL THIS?" Valid question, I have kids, I have a part time job out of the house, and I write, so time is always difficult to come by. My younger kids nap at the same time every day, and if I'm caught up on all my writing, I'll cross stitch. On the nights I don't work at my coffee job, I'll catch up on my writing, read whatever I'm reading in the bath for a half hour, turn something on to watch, and cross stitch. It's not just leisure or art, but almost therapeutic for me to do this, and if I go too long without it, I honestly start to get snappy. Most of my stuff was conceived/begun during subzero Minnesota winters, and I'll probably continue to do them until either my hands swell up or my eyesight fails, or both because it's something I just need to do.

There were some near-disasters with this last one, I won't lie; three of the last Dharmas were stitched onto their felt backings with a sick child sprawled across my lap, and the Looking Glass (rabbit) had an unfortunate collision with someone's pink marker but was cropped closely enough for it not to matter . . . but it's all good. I like making things; my kids see me making things and then go make their own things, too. They're not drawing Dharma logos or anything yet, but you know, I'll be extremely supportive should they start.

Should you be interested in getting a closer look of all this business, I'm displaying it at Starbucks, 54th and Lyndale in Minneapolis next Sunday for two weeks.


3 comments:

Jennifer Blattner said...

The 9 Dharma's is my favorite! Looks like a piece of art from another country. I love crossstitch too, but stick to buying the pattern. I made each of my kids a birth plaque (how you say?) and a few other things here and there. Make me a Keystone Kapers one, K? =)

Anna said...

OMG. KEYSTONE KAPERS! I loved playing that with you guys! I might just do that . . . (!) Now that I'm sitting here discussing options Matt just ordered up Q-bert, Megamania, and River Raid. Guess I'm not done, eh?

Unknown said...

These are amazing. I'm in Australia, can I buy the chart from you to give it a go?

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