As a young child, Hannah Barker had the insatiable urge to create. She loved to draw, read, and write, and she even created a newspaper that she taped to her family’s refrigerator. It wasn’t until her senior year at UVA that she landed upon her medium of choice—embroidery.
During the summer before her senior year, Hannah purchased her first cross stich kit of pink and purple flowers. “My mother helped me to thread the needle, and I sat on my bedroom floor, determined to understand the pattern of busy X’s.” Next, she tried her hand at embroidery and was soon creating her own designs.
Hannah’s needlework projects are inspired by nature and by her love of the written word. The books she loves the most are heavily influenced by nature and landscape, books such as Lord of the Rings, Dune, Alice in Wonderland, and even Calvin & Hobbes comic strips. Birds, flowers, and landscapes, including aerial cityscapes, feature heavily in her designs. One of her favorite projects, an aerial view of Downtown Danville, was inspired by a camping trip Hannah took with her husband. “We were hiking when the idea of the flowing river, intersecting streets and shops, and a color palette of greens and browns struck.”
Hannah’s projects begin with a drawing. Once the drawing is finalized, she chooses her fabric, thread, and which hoop, and then traces the drawing onto the hoop. A single project can take several days or it can take months to complete, depending on the complexity. With a full-time job, finding the time to complete a project can be tricky. Embroidery, however, is easily portable, and so she often takes her projects with her so that she can get a few stitches in during lunch breaks. On her days off, she may spend an entire day working on a piece. “I find embroidery to be incredibly rewarding, as it will take hours to cover a small section of fabric, hours to thread and re-thread a needle. There is no rushing with embroidery. It is a slow process, with beautiful, textured results.” And even though many of her projects are intricately and intentionally planned, there are other times when she is not able to see her vision until the last piece of thread is stitched. “It’s a little like adding the final piece to a puzzle,” she says.
Though Hannah sells her pieces and even takes commissions, she never wants to lose the desire to stitch for herself and feels a deep resistance to the temptation to follow trends. “I want this art to be rooted in the things that bring me joy—even if I am the only one who might understand a piece.” To that end, Hannah hopes to pursue future projects that take her deeper into the complexities of creating detailed landscapes, those that are based on real life as well as those inspired by fiction.
Being a woman in the fiber arts, Hanah feels her work, and that of those like her, are too often dismissed as simple “crafts” or “hobbies,” but there’s nothing simple about Hannah’s creations; they are truly works of art. She uses Instagram to promote her work, but also as a way to record the development of her talent and skill, as well as to keep a catalog of her various projects. “Seeing past progress definitely drives me to try more detailed pieces or new techniques.” Even so, Hannah has not forgotten where it all started. “I still have that first cross stitch on my desk, where I work.”
See more of Hannah’s work, and to order a commission of your own, find her at Floras & Finches Embroidery on Instagram or visit her exhibit at the Rubie B. Archie Public Library through the end of May.
