Eline Gaudé-Hanses, Becoming Moss, cotton embroidery floss on cotton, 2021
“Embroidery comes with a loaded history, and a notable duality at its heart, which deep-ens the complexity of its meaning as a visual medium. Feminist critical reading of its history emphasized the dual nature of this craft, and the way in which it signifies both self-containment and submission. As art historian Rozsika Parker (2010) wrote:
Historically, through the centuries, it has provided both a weapon of resistance for women and functioned as a source of constraint. It has promoted submission to the norms of feminine obedience and offered both psychological and practical means to independence. (p. xix)
I see a striking parallel between embroidery’s physical imperative, which bends both neck and eyes towards the work at hand and the downward progression of my gaze, curved by my enduring interest and attraction for the mossy ground. For when embroidering, one must bend the neck towards the canvas, in a concentrated and contained effort, a posture which has often been associated with the embroiderer’s submission to socio-cultural norms. However, I am keen to offer a more nuanced and layered perspective of this reading. Far from being a mere illustration of feminine obedience, I believe that bending the neck while embroidering may also be understood as an act of devotion: devotion to one’s endeavor, and for one’s chosen subject (see completed embroidery in Figure 7).
My own bending gaze – and neck – stems from my sense of wonder for the mossy forest floor, and concern for its future. A future edging towards hardship and instability, which I experienced firsthand last summer: at the peak of the season, the combined action of heat and drought were tangibly felt and seen. Moss carpets particularly suffered from the absence of rain, and day by day I would witness the slow but inevitable departure of moisture and color from their brittle foliage. Cultivating the capacity to simultaneously feel wonder and concern – to embrace contradiction – seems essential now and brings us closer to the very definition of care: to think and feel that something is interesting, important, worthy of our consideration and concern (Merriam-Webster, n.d.).
While exploring different forms of thinking with care through a rereading of Donna Haraway’s work, María Puig de la Bellacasa (2012) takes a closer look at the concept of situated knowledge: in her own words, “that knowledge is situated means that knowing and thinking are inconceivable without a multitude of relations that also make possible the worlds we think with” (p. 198). She proposes that ‘thinking with care’ is an essential requirement of collective thinking in interdependent worlds, an assertion which points towards situated knowledge’s ability to ignite a sense of care in one’s thinking, be it from an affective perspective, an ethical obligation, or through practical labor.
These days, my feet tread the forest ground more softly than ever, my gaze wanders, seeking out those cherished flashes of green, cop-per, and gold. Moss, I realize, has developed a perceptible gravitas, a presence that can no longer be ignored; I am nowadays attuned to sensing it wherever I go. As I notice it in both familiar and odd places, I often wonder at its unique qualities: its resilience for one, and how it can bear the weight of our human bodies and persist long after we are gone; its creativity, and surreptitious appearance in places solely intended for us, such as the cracked pavement, the aging house, the silent monument; its tenderness, and how the gentle spreading of its shape encompasses rock, tree, soil, and bone, forming a lush blanket of greenery.
A sense of wonder and excitement still guides my journey into the world of plants, conjuring life and meaning into the vegetal and encouraging kinship across species divides. I have come to believe that embroidery allows for greater intimacy not only with moss, but with a vegetal existence itself. Deliberately engaging with a slow-paced artistic practice has also forced me to reconsider my relationship with time and productivity: by offering my own time and patience, I have come closer to moss’s own vegetal temporality, unbound from my human sense of time. The path to developing a kinship with moss has led me to delve deeper into matters of care, and to examine how artistic practices allow us to bridge the gap between human and more-than-human. I believe that my own creative process, which has found a multisensory outlet through embroidery, has encouraged me to become more attentive and attuned to my surroundings. In a word, it has made me more care-full.”
Gaudé, E. (2022). Yearning for Kinship: An Artistic Exploration of Moss and Embroidery. Research in Arts and Education, 2022(1), 13–22. https://doi.org/10.54916/rae.116992
References:
De la Bellacasa, M. P. (2012). ‘Nothing comes without its world’: Thinking with care. The Sociological Review, 60(2), 197-216. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954x.2012.02070.x
Merriam-Webster. (n.d.). Care. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2021, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/care
Parker, R. (2019). The subversive stitch: Embroidery and the making of the feminine. Bloomsbury Visual Arts.
