New Artwork by Susan Hensel

FOLDS UNFURLED

a sad story with a happy ending

FOLDS UNFURLED, new artwork by Susan Hensel. Often things do not come out as expected, do they?  Sometimes the cake falls. Sometimes you are out of a key ingredient and need to improvise. Sometimes the unexpected outcome is SO MUCH BETTER than the planned outcome! That is what makes studio life so exciting!

About New Artwork by Susan Hensel

FOLDS UNFURLED by Susan Hensel is a luscious, utterly beautiful piece!  The color is rich and it glows as though lit from the inside. That is thanks to a knowledge of color and materials that are the result of a fifty-plus year studio career!  But there is serendipity as well.

With the confidence of years work, I take great pleasure in the mistakes or equipment failures that point me in another direction.

I started the stitching with the pink center.  It was intended to be a part of Chromatic Flutter.  But something happened!

There are screw clamps at each end of the hoop!

The machine was stitching away, for hours and hours.  It started making an odd sound, but I could not locate where it was coming from, nor could I see anything obvious going on with the stitching.

48″ hoop

I was stitching on the large machine in the 48″ hoop. It is held in the machine by 4 screws.

When I went to remove the hoop from the machine, all of the screws on one side of the hoop had vibrated right out of the machine!  As a result, the image had stitched out of registration in a way I could never have thought to design! It was beautiful! Take a look at the detailed shots and you will see what I mean. So, this piece was born of adversity. Originally it was to be folded. Instead, the folds remain unfurled. It is sunrise. It is sunset. It is an oasis of peace.

See more about FOLDS UNFURLED new artwork by Susan Hensel and other pieces in the special exhibition In and Out of the Fold