Process: Stitching Time

 

Over the summer months, I’ve been stitching tongues on cotton and linen with alpaca wool. I have never had particularly strong sewing skills so it is more of an idea of a tongue rug. Nonetheless, I enjoy the process. This time consuming activity leaves room for recollection, for meditation.

My decision to use words as icons was a good one. While numbering the tongues did not particularly help stir up memories, a few choice words for a waypoint  (lucie, gravel, bikinis, camero, heather) invariably brings up the experience like it was yesterday — even 10 years after the first bike trip (LE-3). I use the word experience because not only do I remember the physical environment of this trip  — how it was hot and I was annoyed by the flies, how the road was gravely in parts, how there was not much to look at as houses were few and far between — I can also recall my emotional state. I clearly remember my inner thoughts while cycling to my destination: my bruised ego at having to cycle with an old bike with a rusty, rattling chain; the anxiety about the thought that I was going the wrong way; the disappointment that the lake in question was a tourist destination once I reached Lac Legault. I can even remember the line I traced on the map by my passage. More of a scribble than an exact cartographic representation. Ten years from now when I look at the tongues, will the word-icons trigger the same memories?

Did traditional tongue rugs hold similar memories through iconic decoration or the choice of materials (the discarded clothing of loved ones for instance)? In comparison, my tongue rug seems to be more of a template, a blueprint; there is no meaning in the choice of materials nor is there any (sadly) skill or craftsmanship in its making. It is more about the time spent stitching the pieces; the hours spent reflecting on time and place.