Game Heroine Invades Bucolic Needlepoint Landscapes; Wreaks Aesthetic Havoc

One might imagine that Lara Croft, having already expanded her franchise beyond the boundaries of the pc/console arena and onto the silver screen, might be looking for ways to expand her realm of influence and extend her reign as one of the most recognizable female icons in gaming. But artist Becky Schaefer has taken her places she might not have imagined.

Schaefer's works--needlepoint kits and framed 'found' works with subtle additions--insert this game-world icon into a wholly different universe. Though she is still toting her gun, it's unclear whether she'll really need it. Rapelling down a large sunflower plant or from a rainbow-hued hot air balloon, posing with one leg on an old wooden fence in a farm landscape, lounging with her pistols by the ocean--not the usual day's work.

By bringing Lara into the traditional hobby-world of needlecraft, more particularly kits that were popular in the 70s, which provided a 'safe' and satisfying crafting experience for a generation of women, Schaefer has created a disturbing juxtaposition between the hobbies and mental media spaces of then and now. She feels it's exactly this breaking of the frame for the viewer--the moment of discomfort at seeing Lara in this alien setting--that help her to achieve the artistic effect she seeks.

Consider 'blowback', a kitschy stitched rendition of daisies and butterflies. Look closely and you'll see Lara, sans clothes but toting her gun and wearing her sunglasses and trade-mark braid, posed behind the plant. What sort of 'cover' can an embroidered daisy provide? How to reconcile the image of the pneumatic adventuress with that of the happily domestic scenery that these needlepoint kits planted in the sewer's mind?

Schaefer feels there are strong parallels in the 'boxing-in' of experience that craft kits and mass-release games like Tomb Raider offer. In both cases, a smoothed and prefabricated reality provides entertainment to fill and define idle time. Recombining the bucolic/domestic and the erotic/violent helps Schaefer to expose these similarities and to remind us that we've checked out of everyday messy existence, whether threading our needle, or booting up our pc.

Schaefer's Lara series had an unlikely evolution. While working on her graduate arts degree, she went through a period in which she was literally unravelling-mostly sweaters. She was going on frequent trips to thrift stores to gather more fodder for this surprisingly satisfying habit, and started to come across the needlepoint landscapes that eventually became the backdrop for the current work. She now collects them wherever she goes. For example, 'The Sowers' was a find on a trip to Hawaii.

Schaefer's work has drawn a disparate set of admirers-from gamers to traditional crafts aficionados to young DIY fanatics. A current exhibition at the Richmond Art Center (up through August 16) extends her craft and game juxtaposition into quilted and sewed elements in a twisted domestic landscape.

It's not too late to acquire a Lara original-interested parties can contact the artist directly: [email protected].

The artist:
Becky Schaefer was born in Japan in 1949. She has worked as a quiltmaker, teacher, writer and odd-jobber. She received her MFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in 2002. She describes herself as a tinkerer, a borrower, a parent and an artist. Schaefer resides in San Anselmo.

The author
Katherine Isbister is an avid fan of Schaefer's work, and has 'Lara's Initiative' in a place of honor in her home. She teaches a course at Stanford University on designing characters for video games, and runs a character and social interface design consultancy, KatherineInterface.

Comments

[Bowler]

While I'm slightly ashamed to say that I did cross-stich when I was very young, I would like to say that I would have *loved* to have done something as cool as a Tomb Raider cross-stich. All we got were Peanuts and R2D2 (granted, R2D2 is cool in his own right).

Someone should make some kits.

[katherine]

bowler,

amazingly, becky actually also makes kits... when I saw her MFA show at CCAC, it included kits (with thread in zip-locked baggies and a printed image on the front)

be careful what you wish for...

-katherine

[jane]

Katherine, this is a great piece. Thank you!

I bugged Katherine to write this up after I saw one of Becky's works, "Lara's Initiative", hanging in Katherine's room. The pictures don't convey the full stitchiness of these pieces - they are so tactile. I long to own one myself! Or to make one! I know how to knit, perhaps I will make a Space Invaders scarf!

Here's to bringing videogames to the realm of arts and crafts!

[melissa]

Those old game images would translate pretty well into charts for knitting/x-stitch/embroidery. I'm thinking a old-school Mario scarf, myself :-)

[Bowler]

Um, could we buy Space Invaders scarves from you????!!! :)

Or how cool would a big black scarf with just a line of dots on it ending in a big yellow Pac Man be!

[jane]

brilliant, bowler! i think i have a new project for this winter ....

[sushiesque]

Splendid article.

Game graphics do indeed translate really easily into cross stitch patterns. But be warned that they take longer than you'd guessed (longer than I'd guessed, anyway), even the 8-bit ones.

(Your article made me want to post [on my blog] some of the NES cross stitches I did during a long dull summer a couple years back. They're mostly unfinished; in the future, I'm sticking to Atari.)

[Jony]

Hello I'am spanish that read your wep page is very very GOOD.

Jony...KIss xox

[Requiem]

I love that kind of ideas, LOL juxtaposition rules!

Really i like the style, very inspirating

[Azrael]

it seems my original post was deleted. hmmmmm.

anyways, yeah, screw this "artist", she's just trying to milk videogames for all they're worth, using lara croft on some stupid cross stitch thing.

"Schaefer feels there are strong parallels in the 'boxing-in' of experience that craft kits and mass-release games like Tomb Raider offer. In both cases, a smoothed and prefabricated reality provides entertainment to fill and define idle time. Recombining the bucolic/domestic and the erotic/violent helps Schaefer to expose these similarities and to remind us that we've checked out of everyday messy existence, whether threading our needle, or booting up our pc."

so basically she wants to sell cross stictch with videogame characters. bucolic/domestic and erotic/violent? who gives a damn? i'd like to swear my ass off on how everyone buys into this crap and makes some dumbass a millionaire, but i don't want any more of my posts deleted.

hell, why not make toilet papaer with lara's face oon it? IT COMBINES THE EROCITC/VIOLENT NATURE OF LARA WITH THE DIRTY/SMELLY NATURE OF YOUR ASS. for crying out loud...

[neener]

i hate to say this (that was a rather offensive comment) but i have to agree.

lara croft? sexuality and violence made purty?

there are much more affective ways to combine concepts then rather mediocre needlepoint with a mediocre video game character stitched in.

it seems just like a cheesy ploy to sell her product. reminds me of the girls who wear really tight linux shirts and talk about how cool old school NES was...and have no clue about either.

extra annoying because i would appreciate a cleverly done embroidery piece featuring video game characters. but i think there is way too much social commentary or something read into these.

[neener]

i hate to say this (that was a rather offensive comment) but i have to agree.

lara croft? sexuality and violence made purty?

there are much more affective ways to combine concepts then rather mediocre needlepoint with a mediocre video game character stitched in.

it seems just like a cheesy ploy to sell her product. reminds me of the girls who wear really tight linux shirts and talk about how cool old school NES was...and have no clue about either.

extra annoying because i would appreciate a cleverly done embroidery piece featuring video game characters. but i think there is way too much social commentary or something read into these.

[Azrael]

ah, nice to see someone agree with me.. sort of, anyway. i can't help it, i swear a lot, it's strogner than me.

i myself used to own a super mario sweatshirt, but the diffference is that Nintendo sold it as a FUCKING SHIRT WITH SUPER MARIO ON IT, they didn't fool me (ok, my mum) with any of that fake art crap. just a damn shirt with mario on it, they knew it and my mum knew it.

man that shirt was cool. wonder if i can find one my size.... (i was 6, now i'm 17).

[john]

Yup, have to agree with the other two posts + I've seen this done before. From a very bad memory I think it was with Pacman doing something weird. The exit strategy is ok but Sorry the laura croft just smells of $$$$ing in on some-one else idea.

[Corrie]

I dunno, to me it doesn't really smack of "trying to make money" - mainly because if that had been the case, yeah, maybe 3 years ago it'd make sense.

Besides like it or not, Lara Croft is an iconic-ish figure in gaming, and is alot more recognizable as a subversive/interesting needlepoint peice than, say, the lady from Syberia.

[Tomb Raider Cheats]

Hey!

That's a great piece of work!

[Tomb Raider Cheats]

*ADD

I wish I could knit!

[Crowbeak]

I did two cross-stitch kits, small ones, before I realized that they're woefully expensive. Then I decided to cross-stitch a chocobo for myself and call it Bob the Door Chocobo. Since then, I haven't cross-stitched anything that didn't come out of a video game, though I do have some nice (and rather large) cross-stitch patterns I'd like to do that aren't video game related at all. I've done a lot of single characters (most of which I have given to friends). When I get back to America from my student exchange here in Japan, I've got plans to start work on a couple of screenshots I want to turn into cross-stitches.

[kuwang]

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