Mostly I prefer reading to listening, but when I am sewing I find I enjoy listening to various podcasts. On the fairly new NPR podcast, Wild Card with Rachel Martin, for each round Rachel asks her celebrity guest to pick a number: 1, 2, or 3, which reveals the question she will ask. One of the questions that comes up is, "How do you connect with someone you've lost?" Because there is no right answer, the question may be interpreted however the guest wishes. As I sewed I thought about this question. A word came to me: footfall. Footfall: the sound of footsteps can evoke both happy anticipation and dread, pleasant memories or feared ones, footsteps familiar and unfamiliar. Memory. Memory of a life, memory of a death. That was my own answer to the question. And somehow the two words stayed connected for me to inspire this piece.
Footfall
28.25"w x 45.5"h (72 cm x 115 cm)
Hand pigmented, letterpress printed from wood type, and hand-dyed cotton, linen, and velvet; seed beads; hand quilted with cotton sashiko threads
Details:
Seed beads are the little white dots on the brown, which is modified from "crossed flowers"; a "parquet" or "tumbling blocks" stitch on the gold; "rising steam" slightly modified on the dark blue; stairs on the dark green; more steps and beads on the purple
Look closely to see the letterpress printed words, "Memory" and (a partial) "Footfall," on the purple.
More Memory and Footfall on the brown.
And the back:
(It does have a poem to go with it, but I am holding onto it for now.)
For me the upper brown section is a door partially open (coming in or going out); the gold is the lit wood floorboards; the rest are abstract stairs; the "rising steam" pattern like the newel posts on a staircase railing. But it doesn't have to be. It may speak to you and your memories differently, in your own way.
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