Updated May 2,2023.
Several years ago, Orna Willis wrote a blog post about snobbish and close-minded attitudes in the needlepoint world. They make her mad and they make me mad as well. Orna rightly points out that far too many people in needlepoint are concerned about following the rules. Far too many teachers concern themselves more with imposing the rules than with inspiring people to love needlepoint. Far too many shopowners turn new stitchers away because their work isn’t perfect or because they bought a stamped canvas at a garage sale.
I find snobbery, as Orna did, all around me in the needlepoint world. It’s in the professionals who look down on people different from them, whether in dress, hair, taste, or training. This is even though they know perfectly well that much great art and great needlepoint comes from those who aren’t like them (‘outsiders’ in art world terminology). I find it in shopowners who don’t work hard to encourage new stitchers. I find it in stitchers who have been so conditioned that there is a “correct” way to do every blessed thing in needlepoint that they are afraid to take a stitch or pick out their own colors.
I have a news flash for you — art doesn’t have hard-and-fast rules; it has techniques. It has principles. It has guidelines.
Following these rules can make your work more beautiful or more skillful. But not following them can open new worlds. Here’s a little story to illustrate this. Let’s think about Picasso. You’re thinking of something like the picture above. But did you know that the picture below is also a Picasso? Yes, he could draw conventionally, and very well. He chose to break the rules. Many see this as the beginning of his great art.
Could he have followed the rules and made a living? Probably, but no one can deny that he did OK by following his non-conventional path. What can we, as stitchers, take from this?
Being freer, less rule-centered, less snobbish about our art, and needlepoint is art, helps us.
Why then do we hold onto our close-minded attitudes and close ranks against the new, young or different so strongly?
I’m with Orna; it doesn’t do us one lick of good.
About Janet M Perry
Janet Perry is the Internet's leading authority on needlepoint. She designs, teaches and writes, getting raves from her fans for her innovative techniques, extensive knowledge and generous teaching style. A leading writer of stitch guides, she blogs here and lives on an island in the northeast corner of the SF Bay with her family
Sylvia Perez-Hardy says
I’m with you. I am fortunate that my LNS owner encouraged me to try by coming to one of her classes. I didn’t realize I was doing needlepoint until after I started. She knew I was a cross stitcher and she said it was similar with a different ground cloth. So I tried it and liked it. Then I tried a painted canvas class. While I am more comfortable with counted needlepoint and geometric designs I have done a few painted canvas designs as well. I have practiced stitches and substitute stitches and change colors as well. All along the way she has encourages me. I have been very fortunate indeed.
Janet M Perry says
Certainly I would never have loved needlepoint the way I do if it weren’t for the encouragement of great shopowners.
Keep Stitching.
Janet