Needlepoint c. 1937

This needlepoint piece was made by J. Howard Iams; we don't know exactly when, but I love thinking about the time and labor involved in each tiny stitch. Look at the way the colors are built up, almost like pixels in a digital image – but made with thread! There's a real commitment here to the slow, deliberate process of image-making. The texture alone makes it feel so different from a painting or a drawing. My eye keeps getting drawn to the hunter’s bright blue trousers, and the way the shading is achieved with subtle variations in the blue thread. It’s an unexpected choice, but it really makes the figure pop. It also reminds me of the kind of playful color choices you see in Henri Rousseau's paintings. There's this kind of naive, almost surreal quality to the scene that I find incredibly charming. It reminds us that art doesn't always have to be slick or polished to be powerful.