
I spent a lot of my childhood around test patterns and it feels good to be back around them. I stitch a bit and go through phases. The ones I eventually finish are sayings, composed in Illustrator and exported with MacStitch, typically delivered months late to the recipient. The ones that have been going on for years are film and video stills, including a giant portrait of Nog from Deep Space Nine (RIP Aron Eisenberg) and a city scene from Blade Runner. I stitched a scene from The Thin Red Line that I had a blurry photo of on my phone.
Over the winter break I stitched everyone their Christmas gifts because I spent all my money on gas. My hand crunched up into a claw at the same time that Dustin started to recover from his various workplace-related repetitive strain injuries. He was heading to a job upstairs in the media library, where he could continue to live out his Gerry Todd dreams.
I received some unbleached 18 hole aida fabric for Christmas, so I got to work. Ruth Kitchin Tillman had just completed a pair of quilted test pattern pillowcases and I had time on my hands. Distinguishing the black patches from each other was the hardest part.
It is now temporarily framed but it got some bike grease on it, because that’s what living with us is like.
Here are some other weird things I’ve made.
from The Thin Red Line (1998) I had never seen a Star Wars film before I made this, but I knew I loved Chewbacca RIP NOG, FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS