The Persistence of Pattern

I read an interesting article on THe Textile Blog about pattern. It got me thinking.

In it, the author comments: “decoration . . . is everywhere.”

Being people of the Early 21st Century, we’ve lived in a world that seemingly turned its back on decoration. While my 18th-Century equivalent might have walked the streets of Annapolis and seen fanciful brickwork, windows in graduated sizes, towers and domes, when we walk down a modern city street do we see decoration? Not really. We see straight-sided large buildings, or a rectangular block that has some decoration pasted onto it.

The point of the post is that in spite of modernism’s efforts to stamp out decoration we still craves it and seek it out. WE buy calendars with illustrations on them, our new commuter mug fir our coffee isn’t plain, it has a pattern on it. We wear multiple patterns in our clothes, we make gallery walls in our houses and even the most pedestrian of mass market stores bursts with items of all kinds that are colorful and patterned.

But we also see it in our urge to stitch. Needlepoint has many layers of pattern and decoration. There is the pattern of the original design, underneath everything you do. There is pattern in the stitches you choose, both individually and as a whole. There is pattern in the texture of the threads. There is decoration in the finishing. Finally there is decoration in the way you display it.

All this adds beauty to our lives and nourishes our spirits.

We’re not just making needlepoint, we’re creating a more beautiful world, a world of richness and pattern.

PEASE NOTE: The Learn-a-stitch Owl for August will appear Saturday, August 17.