Embroidery c. 1936

This is Ann Gene Buckley's Embroidery, made with thread on fabric, though we're not sure when exactly. There's something so direct about the way the stitches build up the forms, like a drawing with thread. The texture is everything here, isn’t it? Look at how the green stitches of the leaves all run in one direction, creating a kind of flow. The pink carnations feel softer, maybe because of the color, but also because of the way the stitches are worked, creating a kind of fuzzy edge. And those little blue forget-me-nots, so delicate and precise. It's as if Buckley is not just depicting flowers but recreating them, bit by bit, with each careful stitch. Buckley reminds me a little of Bill Traylor, in the way that she pares things down to their essence, finding beauty in the simplest forms. Artmaking, at its heart, is a conversation, isn't it? A conversation across time, across materials, across the very stuff of experience.