Interview with rebecca Levi
DandyCraft: Please tell us a little bit about yourself. What was your trajectory to becoming an artist? How did you settle on your preferred medium(s)? What drew you to traditional craft practice as a medium of expression?
I’ve been a bit of a genre skipper when it comes to artistic expression. I came to embroidery art via drawing and comics, which I came to via zines, via performance art – all influenced by the DIY ethos of 80s and 90s underground culture. I had planned to be a writer, but performance art came onto my radar when I saw Karen Finley’s performance in a film called Mondo New York. I was blown away. So I decided to try my hand at it, adapting my writing to the performance medium. I started when I was a student at McGill University in Montreal, and then continued in the underground queer performance scene in San Francisco. I also created a zine based on dreams, and my girlfriend at the time contributed illustrations. When we broke up, I lost an illustrator. Out of necessity, I started drawing. Pen & ink drawing evolved into my primary artistic expression, while writing and performance faded into the background.
I had never been a crafter. I didn’t even know how to sew. The domestic arts weren’t in my upbringing and sadly, not something I saw particularly valued in the home or culture I grew up in, which was 1970s and 80s New York City. I’d even say they were disparaged. My mother and her peers had largely turned away from the stereotypically gendered domestic expectations of the 50s culture they were raised in, so I wasn’t taught those skills.
But then in my 30s while doing a home decoration refresh, I saw an embroidered pillow that sparked my interest. It was more money than I wanted to spend. My DIY instincts kicked back in and I thought, “I’m not going to buy that, I’m going to make that myself!” I taught myself from books, blogs, and YouTube. I recreated that design. Then a light bulb went off and I realized I could use my own drawings and embroider them.
I started making embroidered pillows based on my drawings based on 1970s gay porn, 1950s Physique Pictorials, nudist magazines, and found photos of female pinups. I liked contrasting the soft domestic object with adult imagery. So I entered the realm of embroidery through a decorative arts and crafts urge. Eventually I transitioned to creating embroidery art to hang on the wall.
DandyCraft: Traditionally, there has been a scholarly divide between fine arts, the decorative arts and craft. How do you place yourself on this continuum? How do you define yourself as an artist, artisan, craftsperson, maker, etc.? Are these distinctions meaningful to you and your work or not?
I don’t think a lot about the differences between these terms or divisions. It seems to be more of an academic concern. I generally introduce myself as either an artist or an embroidery artist. An “artist,” because I’ve been involved in a number of different mediums, and I like to stay broad. I know things may organically evolve, which may or may not include fiber art or craft, much as I love these areas – I’ve been surprised before.
I also embrace my identity as an “embroidery artist.” That’s my primary medium right now, and it’s what I’m known for, passionate about, and what I’m most in dialogue about.
DandyCraft: Who are your influences? Who are the other artists or individuals your work is in conversation with?
A lot of my work involves queer portraiture, and Catherine Opie’s photography is a huge influence, specifically her early 90s “Portraits” series, and the gender non-conforming subjects in “Being and Having.” Her representations of herself referred to classical portrait paintings, offering a regal presentation of a queer body, a large body, a pervert body – on an epic scale. To see queer faces from my own community in art magazines and the Whitney Biennial was hugely validating and inspiring.
Bob Mizer of Physique Pictorial is one of my biggest influences. His obsessive dedication to documenting the male body, often in very playful even kitschy costume, influenced my “Bears” series, where I have burly models pose in classic poses, celebrating the bodies of both cisgender and transgender models. For embroidery, the pop-culture portraits of Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching influenced me and so many other self-taught embroiderers.
The other fiber artists I’m most in dialogue I’ve met through exhibitions like Queer Threads curated by John Chaich and Stitch Fetish curated by Ellen Schinderman, as well as embroidery artists I’ve met online through Instagram (and before that, Flickr and Blogger). I love Michelle Kingdom’s work, and enjoy seeing her process from conceptual iPad sketches to final embroidered pieces unfold.
Social media has been a huge benefit and I love trading encouragement, inspiration, and process tips. I’ve never had the benefit of a mentor sitting next to me imparting embroidery wisdom, so having this community is so vital. Sometimes it’s the little tips that that can transform your practice.
DandyCraft: Your work focuses strongly on queer interpretations of traditional domesticity, sexuality and gender. Was this always a facet of your work? How did it evolve? Have you found your work informed by or in tension with the traditional associations or history of your medium? What were the moments in your life that influenced this perspective?
I’ve long been an avid collector of vintage ephemera--pinups, physique magazines, LIFE and National Geographic, gay porn, and lots of found photos of domestic scenes of families I didn’t know. I started collecting in my early 20s, when I was newly out, and thinking a lot about gender performativity, including my own. I was interested in representations of gender, domesticity, and queer lives – figuring out where I fit into all of this – and sometimes willing myself to see queer narratives in between the lines when nothing was explicit.
When I started drawing, and then embroidering, I turned to this trove for my source material. For my most recent series, I’m working from different image sources – photos I’ve taken myself (Flower Beards) and images from the internet (#100tumblrbearscantbewrong).
I enjoy playing with the tension between the traditional medium of embroidery and adult sexual and gender expression – as well as the differences between photographic & digital source material and fiber art.
DandyCraft: Craft is frequently associated and lauded for its strong emphasis on community, in terms of communal production/creative processes in domestic or studio environments, or generating community participation/action around a particular issue. Do you find this to be true with your process and work? What community do you envision as the audience for your work?
I haven’t had the pleasure of much in-person community interaction in the act of creating art. I’ve taken a few patchwork classes at local quilting stores, and there’s nothing like being around others while stitching – it touches some blissed out nerve inside of me. But I’ve only done embroidery art side by side with others a handful of times. And I’m hungry for it. I get that support on social media, and bonding at openings.
DandyCraft: The last decade has brought significant societal and political change for the LGBTQ community with the advancements in marriage equality, but there are still important advancements to be made. Have you found your work addressing or evolving in light of these the social and political changes? What do you see as the new front-line for the LGBTQ community and do you intend to address it in your work?
Working for years off of vintage ephemera, most of my body of work hasn’t directly responded to contemporary societal or political change. I’d say it has responded more to technology. The source material has evolved from scouring flea markets to scrolling through Tumblr. Cell phones appear as props in nude portraits.
The piece of work I have that most explicitly represented a contemporary moment is “Michael Sam Kiss” which is an embroidery based on an video of the first out NFL draftee kissing his boyfriend Vito Cammisano on ESPN – quite passionately, though the remaining versions on YouTube have edited it to a watered down version.
A lot of my other work addresses body size and queer self-expression, including the series #100tumblrbearscantbewrong, which is Sashiko-style embroidery based on imagery from Bear Tumblr blogs. So I’m using contemporary digital source material, but doing a play on classical poses.
I’ve been a bit of a genre skipper when it comes to artistic expression. I came to embroidery art via drawing and comics, which I came to via zines, via performance art – all influenced by the DIY ethos of 80s and 90s underground culture. I had planned to be a writer, but performance art came onto my radar when I saw Karen Finley’s performance in a film called Mondo New York. I was blown away. So I decided to try my hand at it, adapting my writing to the performance medium. I started when I was a student at McGill University in Montreal, and then continued in the underground queer performance scene in San Francisco. I also created a zine based on dreams, and my girlfriend at the time contributed illustrations. When we broke up, I lost an illustrator. Out of necessity, I started drawing. Pen & ink drawing evolved into my primary artistic expression, while writing and performance faded into the background.
I had never been a crafter. I didn’t even know how to sew. The domestic arts weren’t in my upbringing and sadly, not something I saw particularly valued in the home or culture I grew up in, which was 1970s and 80s New York City. I’d even say they were disparaged. My mother and her peers had largely turned away from the stereotypically gendered domestic expectations of the 50s culture they were raised in, so I wasn’t taught those skills.
But then in my 30s while doing a home decoration refresh, I saw an embroidered pillow that sparked my interest. It was more money than I wanted to spend. My DIY instincts kicked back in and I thought, “I’m not going to buy that, I’m going to make that myself!” I taught myself from books, blogs, and YouTube. I recreated that design. Then a light bulb went off and I realized I could use my own drawings and embroider them.
I started making embroidered pillows based on my drawings based on 1970s gay porn, 1950s Physique Pictorials, nudist magazines, and found photos of female pinups. I liked contrasting the soft domestic object with adult imagery. So I entered the realm of embroidery through a decorative arts and crafts urge. Eventually I transitioned to creating embroidery art to hang on the wall.
DandyCraft: Traditionally, there has been a scholarly divide between fine arts, the decorative arts and craft. How do you place yourself on this continuum? How do you define yourself as an artist, artisan, craftsperson, maker, etc.? Are these distinctions meaningful to you and your work or not?
I don’t think a lot about the differences between these terms or divisions. It seems to be more of an academic concern. I generally introduce myself as either an artist or an embroidery artist. An “artist,” because I’ve been involved in a number of different mediums, and I like to stay broad. I know things may organically evolve, which may or may not include fiber art or craft, much as I love these areas – I’ve been surprised before.
I also embrace my identity as an “embroidery artist.” That’s my primary medium right now, and it’s what I’m known for, passionate about, and what I’m most in dialogue about.
DandyCraft: Who are your influences? Who are the other artists or individuals your work is in conversation with?
A lot of my work involves queer portraiture, and Catherine Opie’s photography is a huge influence, specifically her early 90s “Portraits” series, and the gender non-conforming subjects in “Being and Having.” Her representations of herself referred to classical portrait paintings, offering a regal presentation of a queer body, a large body, a pervert body – on an epic scale. To see queer faces from my own community in art magazines and the Whitney Biennial was hugely validating and inspiring.
Bob Mizer of Physique Pictorial is one of my biggest influences. His obsessive dedication to documenting the male body, often in very playful even kitschy costume, influenced my “Bears” series, where I have burly models pose in classic poses, celebrating the bodies of both cisgender and transgender models. For embroidery, the pop-culture portraits of Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching influenced me and so many other self-taught embroiderers.
The other fiber artists I’m most in dialogue I’ve met through exhibitions like Queer Threads curated by John Chaich and Stitch Fetish curated by Ellen Schinderman, as well as embroidery artists I’ve met online through Instagram (and before that, Flickr and Blogger). I love Michelle Kingdom’s work, and enjoy seeing her process from conceptual iPad sketches to final embroidered pieces unfold.
Social media has been a huge benefit and I love trading encouragement, inspiration, and process tips. I’ve never had the benefit of a mentor sitting next to me imparting embroidery wisdom, so having this community is so vital. Sometimes it’s the little tips that that can transform your practice.
DandyCraft: Your work focuses strongly on queer interpretations of traditional domesticity, sexuality and gender. Was this always a facet of your work? How did it evolve? Have you found your work informed by or in tension with the traditional associations or history of your medium? What were the moments in your life that influenced this perspective?
I’ve long been an avid collector of vintage ephemera--pinups, physique magazines, LIFE and National Geographic, gay porn, and lots of found photos of domestic scenes of families I didn’t know. I started collecting in my early 20s, when I was newly out, and thinking a lot about gender performativity, including my own. I was interested in representations of gender, domesticity, and queer lives – figuring out where I fit into all of this – and sometimes willing myself to see queer narratives in between the lines when nothing was explicit.
When I started drawing, and then embroidering, I turned to this trove for my source material. For my most recent series, I’m working from different image sources – photos I’ve taken myself (Flower Beards) and images from the internet (#100tumblrbearscantbewrong).
I enjoy playing with the tension between the traditional medium of embroidery and adult sexual and gender expression – as well as the differences between photographic & digital source material and fiber art.
DandyCraft: Craft is frequently associated and lauded for its strong emphasis on community, in terms of communal production/creative processes in domestic or studio environments, or generating community participation/action around a particular issue. Do you find this to be true with your process and work? What community do you envision as the audience for your work?
I haven’t had the pleasure of much in-person community interaction in the act of creating art. I’ve taken a few patchwork classes at local quilting stores, and there’s nothing like being around others while stitching – it touches some blissed out nerve inside of me. But I’ve only done embroidery art side by side with others a handful of times. And I’m hungry for it. I get that support on social media, and bonding at openings.
DandyCraft: The last decade has brought significant societal and political change for the LGBTQ community with the advancements in marriage equality, but there are still important advancements to be made. Have you found your work addressing or evolving in light of these the social and political changes? What do you see as the new front-line for the LGBTQ community and do you intend to address it in your work?
Working for years off of vintage ephemera, most of my body of work hasn’t directly responded to contemporary societal or political change. I’d say it has responded more to technology. The source material has evolved from scouring flea markets to scrolling through Tumblr. Cell phones appear as props in nude portraits.
The piece of work I have that most explicitly represented a contemporary moment is “Michael Sam Kiss” which is an embroidery based on an video of the first out NFL draftee kissing his boyfriend Vito Cammisano on ESPN – quite passionately, though the remaining versions on YouTube have edited it to a watered down version.
A lot of my other work addresses body size and queer self-expression, including the series #100tumblrbearscantbewrong, which is Sashiko-style embroidery based on imagery from Bear Tumblr blogs. So I’m using contemporary digital source material, but doing a play on classical poses.