It was truly my honor to accept the commission for this unique Found Object Mandala from Margaret Wunderlich, gallerist and director of Chaos Contemporary Craft in Columbus, Ohio (a place that recently started representing my work!) The process was straight-forward and even the shipping went well! Below is part of the documentation PDF that I supplied with the artwork.
After receiving the branded American Express Monopoly Game, I laid out a suggested design on top of a piece of lavender colored mat board. This image was sent for approval and with the plan to add additional objects after these elements were firmly stitched to the selected vintage quilt top.
The photo above shows the selected vintage quilt top. This was placed on top of a piece of 100% cotton batting and a piece of a vintage tablecloth. These layers created the quilted surface for the piece. Over the top went a piece of an orange tulle/netting to protect any fragile materials/seams on the quilt top.
Twelve property cards, all the yellow "service" cards, all the orange "planning cards", and six of each monetary denomination were then laminated and then cut out. To avoid the attempt to stitch through
1) multiple pieces of lamination, 2) the game board, and 3) the underlying quilt layers, the following process was done:
A piece of Pellon's 806 Stitch-and-Tear (a tear-away stabilizer generally used to back dense layers of machine embroidery and other decorative stitching) was cut and lightly taped to the game board. Rings of "service" and "planning" cards along with two pieces of each monetary denomination were tacked/lightly hot-glued to the Stitch-and-Tear.
Anefil Poly thread (an extremely strong, twisted nylon thread that appears as a thin brown line attached to an almost camouflaged skinny needle in the photo above) was used to stitch the elements to the Stitch-and-Tear.
After the stitching carefully linked all the elements together, the Stitch-and-Tear was removed. This created a circle requiring fewer holes through the game board for its attachment. This was important as the design required 234 holes drilled through the game board!
There are four holes per green "house", nine per side or 144 total. There are five holes for each of two dice; forty-four holes along the perimeter for attaching the board to the quilt; and thirty-six holes used with small, silver beads to attach the circle of laminated cards/money to the board! Four holes were drilled through all the green “houses” and the red “hotels”.
Once everything was attached to the game board, the game board was stitched to the quilt.
At
this point, additional objects were laid on the surface. These
include keys, golf tees, miniature plastic crowns, and assorted
buttons and beads. This image was sent for approval. Once approved,
these things were stitched in place.
After the last stitch, the piece was ready for mounting. The red “line”/thread shows the perimeter for the final presentation. The artwork was removed from this larger stretcher bar and stapled to one with an outer measurement matching the dimensions of the red “line”/thread. Before doing this, the final stretcher bar was covered with a piece of acid-free foam-centered board. Using the same drilled holes for attaching the game board to the quilt, the work was stitched to the foam-centered board … through the foam board, through the quilt, and through the game board. This is done to distribute the weight of the elements across the foam-centered board, thus avoiding any potential of sagging in the future. The piece was then put into a black floater-styled frame. The only glue on this mandala was used to attach the metal game pieces. It was simply too risky to attempt drilling 1/16th holes through the metal pieces in ways that could be used to stitch them in place. This is the only mandala I’ve ever made that includes any glued elements.
Finally, the work was carefully packaged and sent via FedEx to Columbus. Happily, I received the photo above from Chaos Contemporary showing it hanging in its new home! How grand!
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