Inside Out I

I've written about the process so far; this is the finished piece. I think. I have been very selective about adding stitch, placing it only in the 'dark' areas of the piece, and to delineate the eyes, which I thought were the most important part of the piece, and the scar running down the side of the face, which is quilted using zigzag stitches; shades of Frankenstein's monster?

I found it remarkably difficult to stitch into my own face...until I started, and then it became just another piece of quilting, to be considered from the point of view of technique, structure and meaning. Emotionally, though, it was very difficult. I've made a lot of work about depression, but never directly used an image of myself to express feelings. It's as if I've been hiding behind abstraction, but am now coming out into the light, and letting everyone see how much darkness I carry around with me, regardless of how 'light' I appear. I'm crying as I write this, so it must be true... a therapy joke; I always weep when something is painfully true.

It will be interesting to see everyone else's posts, and the varied ways we have approached the challenge.

I'm Working On It...

...honest I am. I thought I would show you the revised photograph, here, and make you wait a bit longer to see the stitching, which I started today. I decided that the first version of the photograph I selected was just too dark, and decided to go with the one above, instead. I'm also showing you the original image, or at least, one of them, taken by my friend, Haydn. It's difficult to lay your hands on pictures of people who aren't smiling, or at least looking reasonably happy. Photographs are taken on happy occasions, to freeze a memory. Depression isn't the kind of thing people want to commemorate,or even dwell on too much. Hence, no miserable pictures. So I asked Haydn to take a series of miserable pictures. I was mildly alarmed by just how easy it was to drop into depression, or at least into depressed mode, if you like. I tensed up, hunched my shoulders, dropped my head, tried not to look up...and there I was. A clear lesson, if I needed it, and a reminder of the strong connection between the body and the mind.

As you can see, I cropped the image, and then added a couple of additional layers. One of the layers is a manipulated shot of moss; a rolling stone gathers no moss, but a depressed person slows down so much that moss is a distinct possibility. There is also a layer depicting a crack in a pavement, which seemed appropriate... depression often feels as if I am breaking.

This is the first in a series called 'Inside, Out', which I have been circling for some time now. Sitting down to stitch, today, I realised just how difficult it was to work on an image of oneself, particularly one which is attempting to depict depression. Obvious, huh? Well, yes, but the truly interesting thing was that once I'd started to work on it, and made the key decisions, I relaxed into it, and the image became exactly that...just another image to explore. I'm glad I started. I'm not entirely sure that I have finished, but there's time before the end of the challenge. Watch this space!