Jill A. Vendituoli

       For nearly twenty-five years, I’ve been hand stitching needlepoint tapestries that have spanned the ages from Byzantine mosaics to Medieval stained glass and Renaissance paintings to 21^st century nature pieces.  It feels as though I have traveled through time to arrive at Sunnyfield and now have all of the inspiration I need when I look out the windows, sit by the barn, and walk through the fields and woods around our 18^th century farm.  Having been drawn to nature as a child, I’m producing work now that seems like “coming home.”    And it is also very exciting to approach nature using this medium that feels alive with its vibrant color blending potential, its physical flexibility and the endless possibilities of needlepoint interpretation.

     Needlepoint became a part of my life the way many take up a hobby to fill the long Maine winter nights, but I am not exaggerating when I say that it was love at first stitch!  I completed the “Goddess of Music,” my second tapestry, as I was finishing nine years of giving private piano lessons; and in another life, I also managed my parents’ boarding kennel for twenty years before I started to work on my tapestries full time.

          Since beginning my needlepoint odyssey, it's been a joyful challenge to unite my creations with those of my stitching forebears. But, unlike these women, I have operated under the liberated assumption that if I can see it in my head, then I can stitch it with my hands: contemporary vision meets historical technique. By blending 450 colors of thread I can create a palette as extensive as a painter's. However, because of the slow and labor-intensive character of tapestry making, my art defies the high-speed confines of our postmodern world and connects us all to a past that endures. 

     In my self-portrait, “A Tapiter’s Life,” I have “collaged” the components of my life.  They are stitched in fragments, and only the dragonfly is a completed form.  The dragonfly is a symbol of transformation, and my life and its work were forever and beautifully altered when I met my husband and started my new life at Sunnyfield. Over the last decade, I have begun to explore the creative possibilities of re-inventing this traditional woman’s craft.  I have ceased to view my art as limited to a two-dimensional plane and now envision it overhead, incorporating found objects from nature and in shapes and forms that re-define needlepoint as we know it.  Recognizing that every day is a gift, I want to make every tapestry a stitched adventure.