Needlepoint Slippers c. 1940

LeRoy Griffith made these Needlepoint Slippers, and while we don’t know the exact date, looking at them, I can imagine the labour involved in making them, the patient stitching. They are made of such tiny marks! Crosses of different colours, building up a larger pattern of flowers and leaves. It’s not really painting. And yet, the artist is thinking about colour relationships and how different hues play together. He is thinking about how the different coloured marks can build up to a picture, and how the object itself can become a picture. I can almost see Griffith at work. The colours are very muted. It almost feels as though they are fading into the black, as the flowers give way to a black background. Needlepoint is interesting like that; it’s a very manual and domestic art form. But at the end of the day, it’s about vision and how we see. The artist is in dialogue with the medium and also the history of art, inspiring future generations.