Lindsey Ryer (Maine)

A Few Inches of Something

Embroidery
Designed and stitched by Lindsey Ryer / Ossuary design is adapted from a pattern from the crypt in Igreja de São Francisco in Évora, Portugal

“A quote from Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own inspired this piece. The image of unseen, unheralded labor accumulating to create something special–something beautiful and vital–seems to perfectly describe the act of cataloging. I wondered, where else might this happen? Each section in this piece is an example of the transformation of individual entities into a new, possibly unexpected design, some lasting only a moment, some a season, and some for generations.”

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Lindsey Ryer is the cataloging librarian at the South Portland Public Library in South Portland, Maine.

The quote on this embroidery is from Virginia Woolf: “It was as if the great machine after labouring all day — had made with our help a few yards of something very exciting and beautiful–a fiery fabric — flashing with red eyes, a tawny monster roaring with hot breath.” The MARC field for the author is at the end of the quote: 100 1_ |a Woolf, Virginia, |d 1882-1941.

Each image block includes the image and the subject heading for the image. The top image block has the subject term 650 _0 Murmurations. The second image block is 650 _0 Honeycombs. The final image block is of bones and skulls, with the subject field and heading for 650 _0 Ossuaries.