Helen M. Stevens' Embroiderer's Year

2009 is the 28th anniversary of the year that Helen M. Stevens gave up her 'day job' and devoted her life to the art of silk embroidery. This book explores a year of this artist's life via gorgeous silk paintings, most of them taken from nature, although one particularly striking design was copied from a Viking gravestone: it features an eight-legged stallion with its phallus tied in a knot (embroidery at the level to which this author takes it, is not for sissies or dilettantes). Stevens reminds me of my favorite watercolorist, Charles Burchfield in her use of natural themes that are suffused with inner light. Her silken oak leaves, squirrels and spiderwebs conjure up visions of the seasons. Snowdrops and winter aconites emerge during a January thaw, clear quartz crystals scattered like ice under their leaves. A mouse examines February violets, and Brimstone butterflies flutter near a daffodil. When speaking of the daffodil, the artist states: "as with all floral embroidery, finding the `core' or `growing point' of the bloom is all important in creating a successful interpretation." If you look closely at her flowers, butterflies, and creatures you can see the core of each, spun with different shades of silk as a musician spins variations of sound from an original theme. This book also includes entire landscapes as well as small vignettes from each month of the year. The accompanying text discusses embroidery techniques, as well as the symbolism of the creatures that she chose to represent the seasons of an English year. September, for instance "is the time when Herne the Hunter appears to the unwary lost in autumnal woodland" and can be symbolized by a stag. October features a dormouse sleeping in a nest of oak leaves, "with a touch of metallic gold and silver [to suggest] the frosts to come." This author has a website at helenmstevens.co.uk where you can view more samples of her work, and buy embroidery supplies or sign up for classes. "Embroiderer's Year" will join the art books on our shelves, rather than mingle with the craft volumes.

This book is fabulous! The pictures of her work is absolutely exquisite! Her discussion of how to observe nature as it truly is and how to achieve an accurate "picture" is great. I love the book!

A BEAUTIFUL book. If you like Helen Stevens' work, you will love this book.

I am always fascinated with Helen's works. This one particular. I should say her technique is not that complicated and subtle compared to Chinese SuZhou embroidery's. But her ways of interpreting country creatures like flowers, plants, birds, animals are so vivid that they seem to come to life. Her stitches are just like impressionists' stroke, which capture the every essential piece of natural beauty. I love her landscape works especially. I regret not seeing so many landscape works in this book, but her two works of the same scene in late spring and early winter already ensnare my heart and I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves embroidery and nature.