I am very pleased to announce our second themed gallery exhibition, Sewing Circle.  I have been enchanted by the wave of embroidered and cross-stitched art that has been popping up in the crafty community over the past few years.  The pieces in this collection juxtopose seemingly familiar domestic arts with a modern longing for connection, gender roles, and personal discovery.

Needle arts have been a past-time of women for ages, a necessary domestic skill for mending and sewing clothing and other household sundries.  Traditional samplers provided practice and quiet occupation to prepare girls for marriage and motherhood, and to keep their idle hands out of trouble.

In the age of irony, this art has been flipped on its head to become a means of personal expression–even rebellion!   This domestic, predominantly female art comes of  age in a time when female roles are confusing, complicated, undefined.  These modern works show us that the strange comfort of this traditional medium can help us reconnect our modern soul-searching to the struggles and triumphs of our mothers and grandmothers, and bind our generations together with a common thread as we craft a more meaningful future.

Sewing Circle will feature the creative works of Gillian Bates, Gemma Rodrigues of Amorandstitch, Kimberly Scola of Chez-Sucre-Chez, and Cindy Steiler of Marysgranddaughter.  The show opens with a reception at Hello Bluebird during West Reading’s December First Thursday event (December 3rd) and runs until January 31, 2010.