Embroidery Paintings – Ruth Miller

On display in the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino Gallery / Gallery of African American Art

Like many contemporary needle artists, Ruth Miller’s embroidery extends edge-to-edge and has little or no visible unstitched background, she calls them tapestries because of their resemblance to woven tapestries in which the image and fabric are created concurrently. Some of her embroideries appear to be drawings since large areas of the backing fabric remain visible when completed. 

Ruth likes the succinctness of drawing; the fact that the “blank” areas are alive with suggestions of what isn’t made explicit. Ruth composes the images based on drawings derived from photographs and works only with hand-held needles, doing all the stitching herself. She prefers life-sized figures even though they are more time-consuming to produce. This is because the large format accommodates a greater amount of detail and the texture of the wool doesn’t overwhelm the characters and objects portrayed.

Exhibition overview from museum website