On an amble through an Arizona art cooperative, I found an emerging artist’s gallery offering hand-embroidered clothing.
‘Cool!’ I thought, stepping close enough to see details. I am a sucker for embroidered clothes.
‘Awww, dammit,’ I thought next.
The stitches were large and roughly spaced, an effect probably meant to be charming and rustic to the casual observer. To someone with even a passing knowledge of current and historical (worldwide) embroidery, they looked clumsy. Even so, their stripes and swirls occupied a large area of cloth.
I know why the artist chose this technique: big stitches work up faster, cover more fabric, and offer more (apparent) visual impact from a distance. Big stitches may cost more in material, but less in time. If materials are cheaper than labor, many artists focus on speedy work.
Less working time means the artist can charge lower prices for individual pieces. Most of this artist’s shawls, shirts, and dresses sell less than $200, which is barely fair for even more-quickly worked tambour hook or punch-needle embroidery. For handwork stitches, that is astonishingly low (Third-world sweatshop low).
I can’t fault the artist for making the same economic gamble I’ve had to make many times. We all want sales and clients. It’s a staple of Etsy and other online craft sales platforms.
But there are dangerous side effects.
Low (so-called affordable) pricepoints can initially drive up sales, but may cost the artist more in the long run.
Workload can outstrip supply and the artist’s ability to restock at sane schedules. That can lead to lower quality craft work, as the artist struggles to catch up. There’s also the temptation to outsource more manufacturing to cheaper suppliers (see Etsy’s notorious manufacturing partnerships).
Uninformed clients may begin to expect a downward spiral of cheaper and cheaper prices, with the open or unspoken threat of ‘I can always go to a foreign source’.
The only way domestic embroidery workers (or any crafters) can compete is to go above and beyond. To fearlessly embrace high-quality work and its attendant prices. Better work opens up better markets and better clients, as well as better promotional/portfolio opportunities. Think of it this way: most museums and well-heeled private or corporate clients aren’t often interested in cheap single-stitch acrylic crochet doilies, but they might be more appreciative of masterclass beaded cotton/linen/silk crochet wearable art. The artist might then include those sales in their CV or portfolio, to drive more awards and sales opportunities.
There’s also the possibility that this particular artist simply doesn’t know they’re operating at lower technical levels. For this, I blame famous contemporary embroidery artists who’ve embraced large-stitch methods as a philosophical denial of traditional embroidery pathways (women’s work, colonial slavery, patriarchal artisan guilds, etc.)
Perfectly valid critiques, of course…but not when they primarily serve as an excuse for sloppy work. (One reason I’m reluctant to group or critique therapy writing and art with commercially viable art and writing.)
Could I sell a hand-embroidered shawl or dress for under $200? Sure, but I’d know it was either poorer work or a complete loss-leader.
Is it worth my time or theirs to critique this particular artist? Absolutely not. The most I’d do is post links to some of the world’s best hand-embroidered clothing and fabric, to gently offer ‘See? This is what you *could* be achieving.’ Irish crochet from the Edwardian era. Central and South American embroidery or knitting. Asian examples of silk and bead embroidery. Fashion couture embroidery at high-end online resale sites. The HBO ‘Game of Thrones’ costumer. Scholarly coffee-table art books on these subjects. Folk art and craft museums. A local university or public library, which is how I learned about hand embroidered clothing in the late 1970s.
Then again, effective artists need to develop their own Google-Fu and other research skills.