This week’s showcase artist, Sarah Hearn, recently portrayed Miss Marple in the OLT production of Agatha Christies’ A Murder is Announced. All great detectives are given by their authors a hobby or interesting past time to help flesh out their character and give them further depth for the reader to enjoy. We can definitely picture Miss Marple, as played by Sarah, stitching and giving a thorough explanation of what the craft entails, as I experienced in our recent interview.
With two degrees in History, including a Masters’ in Medieval History from the University of St Andrews in Scotland, and having retired from a career at National Defence, Sarah continues with her other pursuits including work at the Ottawa Little Theatre and stitching. She has acted in 28 OLT productions and directed 23. Her first play, entitled The Voysey Inheritance, dates back to 1990 when she acted alongside Geoff Gruson, Jane Morris and Bob Hicks (also in his first role). Back then, she reflects, the curtain went up at 8:30 PM (not 7:30 PM as is the case today), and that play was 5 acts long finishing close to 11:00 PM. She has acted in two plays with her partner of 27 years, Mike Kennedy, and has even directed him in 10 shows! How do they handle that director/actor relationship? She states that from the start, strict ground rules were set, no special privileges, and the same treatment as the rest of the cast (maybe even more notes)!
Sarah started stitching in grade 10 when visiting Colonial Williamsburg. While there, she bought a kit and was hooked (no pun intended). She did not actively pursue the hobby in earnest, however, until a chance encounter, strolling around downtown Vancouver, had her wander into a specialty store that rekindled her love for the craft. She remembered how much she enjoyed it, picked it up again and just kept going.
In the textile arts, stitching is the turning or lopping of thread or yard. It goes under a variety of names and techniques such as embroidering, cross stitching , Crewel work, crocheting, needle lacing and needle painting. The technique is a single turn or loop of thread, yarn, wool, cotton and silk.
Although very talented with the tools of the stitching trade, she herself proclaims that she can’t draw very well. That is not a hindrance to this craft, however, since most designs are sold with patterns that are reasonably easy to follow once you understand what you’re looking at. The needlework industry has changed, as have many others, whereby even though overall interest from practitioners has not diminished, the number of bricks-and-mortar stores selling patterns and equipment has decreased. All is not lost, however, since everything is available online including the patterns which can even be downloaded as PDFs. There are hundreds of colours of threads, and the final artistic results are limitless. While for some people, the traditional techniques of stitching are passed down from generation to generation, Sarah mostly taught herself. Thank goodness for the Internet, she states, because that’s where she learned about other stitching techniques.
The key to a quality piece is the hoop, the tighter the better. One circle of wood is positioned inside the other with the fabric placed between, and then and the whole thing is tightened with a screw. The tauter the fabric, the easier it is to stitch, and the marks of the hoop can always later be washed out. When stitching, particularly a large pattern on unmarked fabric, many people start in the middle and work their way out. You might focus on one colour at a time and then move on to the next or you might choose to stitch and “park”, where you have threads of many colours in play at the same time, and you work your way through the pattern overlapping and essentially weaving the threads around each other on the back. This technique uses up a lot of thread but also means the stitcher is not constantly starting, finishing, and restarting threads. Each stitcher has their preferred technique.
Sarah admits that she has a simple taste in art so abstract patterns and designs do not appeal to her. How long does it take her to complete a piece? Depending on the complexity it could take up to a year (naturally with plenty of breaks of course). Sarah has seen some patterns from one company that can easily take years to complete.
Sarah continues to hone her craft, trying new techniques. Her dream would be to one day go for some formal training over in Europe in order to take in the whole experience
Her favorite pieces on display are the big angel and the medieval illuminated manuscript pages. How does she determine which pieces to sell and which to keep in her personal collection? It’s a question of taste as well as sentimental value. Although she loves then all, some are extra special and she just wants to enjoy them at home. Others, like the illuminated manuscript pages, have a sentimental value since she stitched them and had them very particularly framed as they appear, for herself.
The craft, which dates back thousands of years, is still popular. On Facebook, for example, there are as many pages for stitchers as there are types of needlework. Happily, it is definitely not an exclusively female hobby; there are many men who post pictures of their work on these pages (and don’t forget that Sarah’s embroidery is sharing space at the OLT with that of internationally recognized Master stitcher, Mike Parr). In fact, Sarah explains, nurses during the First World War used stitching as occupational therapy for soldiers who were wounded both mentally and physically in battle. Many of the pieces these men produced had a religious theme, e.g., altar frontals, copes, etc., and they can still find some still in use in churches in the U.K.
The most famous piece of stitched artwork is probably the Bayeux Tapestry which is 70 meters long, 50 centimetres tall and dates back to the year 1070. It depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England involving William, Duke of Normandy and Harold, Earl of Wessex, later King of England and culminating in the Battle of Hastings.
If anyone has any interest in learning the craft, Sarah would be thrilled to share her experiences and point them in the right direction.
She can be contacted at sarahhearn57@gmail.com. Her display will be showcased at the Spotlight Gallery in the Janigan Studio throughout the run of Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley with many of her pieces available for sale.
-Albert