Danielle Shelley
Black Lines 8 (detail), 2019
Thread, linen blend Aida fabric 4" H x 4" W (embroidery dimensions)
Thread can fill space with color, but it can also form lines within color. The drawings in my “Black lines” series often evoke architecture for viewers, layering their response to the modernism of colored stripes with suggestions of the audacious, even monumental forms of contemporary buildings. Such is the power of fiber that a small square of interlocking threads can become a window onto the larger culture.
Danielle Shelley
Black Lines 9 (detail), 2019
Thread, linen blend Aida fabric 4" H x 4" W (embroidery dimensions)
Thread can fill space with color, but it can also form lines within color. The drawings in my “Black lines” series often evoke architecture for viewers, layering their response to the modernism of colored stripes with suggestions of the audacious, even monumental forms of contemporary buildings. Such is the power of fiber that a small square of interlocking threads can become a window onto the larger culture.
Danielle Shelley
Black Lines 10 (detail), 2019
Thread, linen blend Aida fabric 4" H x 4" W (embroidery dimensions)
Thread can fill space with color, but it can also form lines within color. The drawings in my “Black lines” series often evoke architecture for viewers, layering their response to the modernism of colored stripes with suggestions of the audacious, even monumental forms of contemporary buildings. Such is the power of fiber that a small square of interlocking threads can become a window onto the larger culture.
Danielle Shelley
Modern Chair Sampler, 2018
Thread, cotton/rayon/linen Aida fabric 18" H x 18" W
More than anything else, classic modern chairs evoke for me my childhood home, which was filled with Mexican Bauhaus furniture collected by my parents, an architect and a weaver. My favorite was the loveseat, in which I spent hundreds of hours reading. “Modern Chair Sampler” includes chairs I grew up with, chairs from my own home, and others whose shapes I love. Some of the hours I spent in the Bauhaus loveseat were probably taken up by cross stitching, which I taught myself from the Girl Scout Handbook. Now I use cross stitch to play with traditional sampler forms, express myself politically, and bring concepts of modern abstract art into the world of needle and thread.
Danielle Shelley
What Unites Us (panel 4 detail), 2021
Thread, raw linen Aida fabric 45" x 12" x .25" (embroidery dimensions)
This 4-panel stitched work combines contemporary political button slogans with decorative motifs from American and English samplers of the 1690s up to 1820—the period whose ideals and contradictions form the background of our own troubled time. The slogans range from Lincoln and Washington quotes, to the Bible, to topical issues. I chose them not to reflect my own politics but to suggest important ideas Americans might be able to agree on. Panels 1 and 3 use the Quaker sampler style; 2 and 4 use the band sampler style. I hope the ideas in this work remind Americans who see it that both sides in our divided nation share a history and values that can bring us back into community.
Danielle Shelley
What Unites Us, 2021
Thread, raw linen Aida fabric 60" H x 98" W x .25" D
This 4-panel stitched work combines contemporary political button slogans with decorative motifs from American and English samplers of the 1690s up to 1820—the period whose ideals and contradictions form the background of our own troubled time. The slogans range from Lincoln and Washington quotes, to the Bible, to topical issues. I chose them not to reflect my own politics but to suggest important ideas Americans might be able to agree on. Panels 1 and 3 use the Quaker sampler style; 2 and 4 use the band sampler style. I hope the ideas in this work remind Americans who see it that both sides in our divided nation share a history and values that can bring us back into community.
