Ruth Miller
210 West 147 th Street, #4C
New York, NY   10039
Phone:(212) 368-2832
Email:luckymiller210@juno.com

My heart was captured long ago by the process of embroidering tapestries. Embroidery permits me to "paint" with dry wool, making concrete the understanding of how small strokes of color combine to create an image. Like all art - whether abstract or objective, intricate or plain, obvious or occult - my tapestries teach without words. The world is a complicated place and we should all let the next person know what we've seen around the bend in the road.    

©Ruth Miller, 2005.

Flower, Embroidered Tapestry 42"x66".

Tapestries are fun in the way that crossword puzzles and mystery novels are fun. I begin each one thinking I know how I'll go about translating the image from paper to yarn. Yet, each time, I have to find a new way to do it as I learn something new about seeing. Their construction is slow, meditative and feminine. My body sits passively as my hands guide thousands of stitches to find their places next to one another and my mind is free to wander where it wills. Their textural quality adds a third dimension so that, somewhat like a relief, the image advances, is more immediate - a surprise to the viewer used to paintings. And when I do figurative work, though I don't always do it, I prefer to work close to life-size to heighten that effect.