About this Event
Class length: 4 hours
Skill level: All levels
Guest Instructor: Marie Cameron
Instructor Profile: Marie Cameron is a narrative painter and mixed media assemblage artist based in Los Gatos, California. During the pandemic, she took to embroidering rainbows onto vintage photographs, longing to find an intimate connection to hope and wonder in dark times. She would share these #morerainbows! pieces on social media almost daily and has collaborated with author Christy Ann Conlin to create postcards from these embroidered images, mailing them out all over the word to anyone who needed a rainbow.
Many of the #morerainbows! pieces have been included in nationally juried shows, (New Museum Los Gatos, Jen Tough Gallery’s Artist Alliance, Cabrillio Gallery, Photo Trouvée Magazine, and featured in Stanford University’s Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere’s website (2020).
Born in New York City, Marie Cameron grew up in Maine and the Canadian Maritimes and earned a BFA with distinction from Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, majoring in painting and minoring in sculpture.
Since moving to California, she has exhibited widely, including the following: Pacific Art League, Triton Museum of Art, Marin MoCA, SOMArts, Saint Mary’s College Museum of Art, Santa Clara University Art and Art History, Las Laguna Gallery, Sanchez Art Center, New Museum Los Gatos, Whitney Modern, Arc Gallery, Woman Made Gallery, Curated and de Young Museum of Art, Photo Trouvée Magazine, I Like Your Work Podcast, and Cabrillo Gallery.
Class Description: "Rainbows seem to me a manifestation of hope and wonder. I like to add them into vintage photographs, as a way of highlighting the feeling we experience when we are connecting to ourselves, to each other and our world with our heart wide open." - Marie Cameron
The act of embroidering rainbows on timeworn images works on several levels. It’s a means of reflecting, honoring or embellishing the past to better cope with the present and to feel hopeful about the future. The color and physicality of the silk thread against the black and white (or otherwise vintage) photograph can feel transcendent, and depending on the context, these rainbows can read as a revelation, an intention or a prayer.
In this workshop we will discuss how we can use the rainbow a compositional device to direct attention, or to become the actual subject itself. It can be used highlight or obscure.
On a technical level, we will navigate the delicacy of working with vintage photos by carefully planning and plotting our rainbows with the use of tracing paper, light tables (or windows), soft 2B pencils and kneaded erasers. We will make light sketches on the back or front of photos as required. We will make pre-pricked holes or depressions for our stitches. The right angle of a cardboard base will be used to provide a parallel guide to maintain stitch precision as well an a puncturable working surface. The use of a ruler might be helpful for those uncomfortable with eyeballing it. And an extra pair of eye glasses might help for the super detailed nature to this work. We will work on carefully guiding the tread so it doesn’t knot up and pay close at-tention to the correct tension so our photos will not tear.
By the end to the workshop everyone should have a completed piece!
Kit Contents: hand dyed pure spun silk 2/60 fine weight from Paint Box Threads, UK, sample pack of 6 shades, 3 meters each color, embroidery needle for pricking guide holes, beading needle, 2B pencil, kneaded eraser, cardboard square or rectangle for lining up stitches while working, tracing paper, light table or a light filled window will be available for workshop use.
Supplies: All materials will be handed out to you at the start of class. You will need to supply a pair of scissors, photograph(s) or postcard(s) from home, eBay or antique shops
Optional Supplies: Self healing cutting mat, a pair of magnifying glasses, and ruler
Class Minimum: 3 students
Registration for this class closes 1 day prior to the start date. If you would like to inquire about the possibility of late registration, please contact [email protected]. Late registration will be accommodated when possible.
Cancellation policy: SNAD will refund tuition less a $25 processing fee up to 3 days (72 hours) prior to class start time. No refunds for cancellations with less than 3 days notification before class start time.
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
San Francisco School of Needlework & Design, 850 Battery Street, San Francisco, United States
USD 0.00 to USD 145.00