About Robinsunne
copyright 2007 Robinsunne
Robinsunne did start embroidering when she was four. That little apple, carefully stitched in red thread, hangs in her mom's house. She moved on to troll clothing, (remember them?!), and began a series of embroidered jean jackets when she was a teenager that she has continued to this day.
This is from the first jacket, which was originally my dad's Army Air Corps Jacket. He was surprised to see the embroidery on the jacket he had given to me, and hurt too - as if my sewing disrespected his honorable intentions in going to war. He was in WWII. By the '70's we had started putting daisies into the guns. And sunrise rainbows on military gear. I didn't mean disrespect, I meant that I wanted new answers.
In San Francisco the first time she made a dragon out of teatags. It was that magpie/found object thing beginning to take root.
The gold ones came from a college cafeteria, the silver teatag in the eye was a gift from a friend who worked for the State Department.
In Boston she sewed quilts and clothes.
Back in San Francisco she drew, and made hats to wear at her job on Thursdays at Just Desserts.
This hat is made of the silver bags that potato chips come in. It was machine embroidered, layered with tulle to help it stay together in case the needle holes just made a "tear-here" perforation. Old earrings and silver beads complete the look.
Finally she moved home to a place she'd never been before: Maine. She wrote her first book, Nannee, joined some artist groups, and kept on sewing. She taught herself to sew Quilted Vessels, and applique all manner of glass, plastic, stone, bone, paper, metal and whatever else kind of bead and, well, we like to call it "trash", onto Art Quilts.
This is one of the panels from "I Will Embroider My Grief". A mistress-work of trash embellishment, it includes foam packing sheet, bubble packaging, a bottle cap and a plug prong protector, and well as sterling silver and glass beads. You'll be able to read much more about this in my book due out next year.
Art became a lifestlyle in her childhood, and though she managed to get a B.A. in History from Mills College, she's just never been able to shake the need to converse in the arts. Fifty years ago her room looked like an explosion in a confetti factory. Same, same, today.
When the Quilted Vessels had their first national show this is what people said about them in the comment book.
"They are just spectacular!"
"Wonderful!"
"They're fun."
"Original designs."
"It begs to be touched."
"I've never seen anything like it."
"My God!"
"I gotta get my wife."
"They're really ... incredible."
"Very cool."
"You should be in American Craft Magazine. I'll look for you there."
"These are georgous."
"It's candy!"
"Wow!"
"Thank you so much. You made my day."
ROBINSUNNE ("That's it?")
I bet that you would like to know a little bit about my name. You'll agree with me that it isn't so common to have a one word name. There are only a few of us in Maine. But this is the truth about me. Just one word.
Well, I was born with three names as so many of us are: the first two were my mom's, and her mom's, and her mom's great, great grandmother's, and the last one was my dad's. It was a pretty name, very anglo, which was fine, as I am pretty anglo myself. But ... but, I was living in San Francisco, and I was becoming who I was imagining I was, and I wanted a name that sounded a little more like me.
My middle name was Robinson, and I was beginning to like using the whole name, not just my childhood nickname of Robin. I had never used the first name that all my foremothers had used, and many women do not keep their fathers' names, so I thought about letting them go. I was almost going to find another last name - but if I wasn't going to use my father's last name, I couldn't think why I would use some other father's name - and then I got it: one name was what I wanted.
I checked out the law library and found that although it is illegal to change one's name to commit fraud, there isn't a law defining how many names one must have. So I respelled myself so that I wouldn't get lost in the phonebook, and here I am.
In her dark grace
Look up "crayon papers" on my blog..
