Rhonda Stien
Rhonda a storyteller and artist joined me for a two week stitch school. Her work has flourished from personal natural and familial resources. Using my course structure as a guide, she developed the following works. She said this of her time spent learning with myself:
‘I really enjoyed the first Stitch Club workshop you did several years ago. There was a significant breakthrough for me, as I am normally precise and particular. If you look at Blue Woman, I started being very precise with the hair but because of your encouragement I just “went for it” with the face and became really loose with the machine. While I did not initially like the results, other people responded to it, especially the bars across the mouth. Interestingly I hung it in an exhibition and an acquaintance who teaches at an art school bought it because it had emotion. That gave me a lot of confidence. I did four birds and accompanying limericks for an exhibition and three of them sold. The cassowary was a bit scary!
I was initially lukewarm about the second workshop and queried whether it had anything new to offer. However, I have to admit that I was quite amazed at some of the work that others produced from it that was clearly meaningful to them. It touched a chord. I decided to do some pieces to accompany a story I had written about lollies. It was more related to the first workshop than the second. The first piece with the fairy floss was meant to have a child looking happy and excited. Instead she looks angry and miserable. I could not believe what a disaster it was and posted it on the SC site to encourage people to share their failures as well as successes. However, she helped people have fun. She was a child having a tantrum. So I have come to trust that free motion embroidery will produce interesting results…even if it’s not what you’re expecting.’