Photos by Jenny Simm

The last days of june 2012: I was working intensely to finish the last drawings in air for Bergebo Barnehage in Oslo. Sewing and painting the last ones and preparing them for the journey to Oslo. Glued them a little to make the process of glueing them onto the wall more easy. Jenny came and took some photos. Following the process.

Sewing. Getting the work off the dissolvable cloth. Pin it. Let it dry. Cover it with emulsion (with soda for the fixation process). Let it dry. Paint it with pigments for textile. Let it dry. Fix the colours through steaming. Let it dry again. Check what it turned out like. Yes! It worked.

I love this process. It is the total transformation of ordinary sewing thread into something completely different. The tensions of the threads and my intention plays and the pictures do adjust themself through the process. I have to find the picture again and again. This process is impossible to control. I just stretch for my intention and accept what is coming. If the intention is clear I often find an expression for it but sometimes something unexpected comes, a face might have a new expression after the last wash.

Once I exhibited in an old crypt where the air was very humid. The small selfportraits of sewingthread was turning slightly during the days there. The tension in the threads + humidity made them turn first in one direction, then the other. This very small change was enough to change the expression of the faces. I had not expected this to happen but was happy it did.