Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

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Artist: Rosemary Burd

Title: Where can we find light in this never-ending shade?

Attribution: Where can we find light in this never-ending shade? 2021, Rosemary Burd.

Year: 2021

Materials: Sashiko and embroidery threads, found objects, repurposed mixed fabrics, linen, hand-embroidered, reverse appliqué.

Dimensions: 40”x12”

Image Statement: February 2020, pre-pandemic. I found a tangled mess of thread, trim, and pipe cleaners in the bottom of an old sewing box, and started stitching them onto a piece of linen. Stitching down this jumbled mass felt like a stab at controlling the chaos of ill health and elder care that swirled through my life. So I kept stitching, not knowing where it might lead. January 2021. I celebrated the hopeful, inspiring words of ‘a skinny black girl’ by stitching a yellow silk circle into the middle of a black linen square - finding my own light ‘In this never-ending shade’. And I kept stitching. May 2021. Mary Oliver: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave it neither power nor time.” And so I stitched some more. I stitched through illness and death, pandemic and pandemonium. I stitched listening to poetry and podcasts. And as I stitched, I felt something rise within me.