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The Site of Big Shoulders > Art >

Reading Between the Lines

Published August 1, 2000

Embroidered Works by Karen Reimer

Equal by Karen ReimerMy recent work examines the relationships between beauty, value and meaning by exploiting the tensions between copy and original, object and process and fine art and domestic craft. It demonstrates the out-of-control nature of language and the provisional quality of meaning.

The embroideries are laboriously produced copies of pieces of text taken from sources ranging from great books to candy wrappers. Generally speaking, copies are of less value than originals. However, when I copy by embroidering, the value of the copy is increased because of the elements of labor, handicraft and singularity - traditional criteria of value. The copy is now an "original."

Minimalism by Karen ReimerUsing a different but equally familiar criteria, the value of the object as a copy is decreased by the technique of embroidery. Not only is it inefficient in terms of time and labor, it also produces a bad copy; it makes the original partially or completely illegible.

Of course, in the case of the "trash" pieces (fragments, product packaging, etc.), the original that is copied has no recognized value to begin with. Only the copy has value. In this way, the trash pieces function differently from the book pages. In the embroidered book pages, the illegibility of the text poses a loss. It is no longer possible to be certain of its meaning. The embroidered text teeters on the edge of legibility, relying heavily on pattern recognition, personal interpretation and guesswork. In attempting to decipher the ambiguous text, the reader projects him/herself into it. The piece functions like a Rorschach blot.

In both the book pages and the trash pieces there are words that are legible (usually echoed in the titles of the pieces). In most cases, these 'readable' words can be understood to somehow refer to the object itself, or its making, or its relationship to the viewer, lending the work a level of reflexivity. Once the meaning of those words has moved beyond the original intent (advertising slogans, pieces of fiction or textbook, business documentation, etc.) they, like the less legible words, become open to a much wider play of possible meanings that depend on who is doing the reading.

– Karen Reimer