Needlepoint Panel c. 1939

This needlepoint panel was made by Phyllis Dorr, sometime between 1855 and 1995, using thread to build up the image, stitch by stitch. I am imagining all the decisions Dorr had to make, what color, what direction, what tension… Decisions which would slowly conjure this pastoral scene into being. You can almost feel the texture, the give and take of the thread as it finds its place on the canvas. A woman in a red dress sits holding what looks like an umbrella, while a traveler approaches with a sack on his back. Two sheep are also present, as well as a building, and some birds… but the stitching of them is somewhat abstracted, with areas of the image dissolving into a mosaic of color and pattern. The process of making something like this is an act of devotion and attention, something made in a specific time with a specific amount of focus, the result speaking to a wider history of decorative craft and the act of image making itself. I feel like I am in conversation with Phyllis Dorr, imagining what other art forms she loved and where she was trying to take this one.