Home is where the heart is

Alison Lee Schroeder

Mixed media hand-embroidery, 14” diameter hoops, 2019.

Gallery view at Mexican Cultural Institute, Washington, DC

This piece is about my experience living between two countries and cultures. While I agree with the basic idea that "home is where the heart is," I do not feel any consolation, fading of homesickness, or reduction of loneliness because of it. If anything, it is a reminder that just as my home is stretched out and never all together in one place, so is my heart.

Two circular hoops hold separate embroidered cloths, united by interconnecting strings that hold them together from behind.

For the Stateside half, I used a combination of cross stitch and continental stitch, both traditional in embroidery of the United States, to depict my mother's large home in the suburbs of Washington, D.C.. The architecture is measured, symmetrical, and a bit sterile, echoed in the pristine garden and even gray road. The blue sky has slight variations in color, but overall, the image is void of movement.

To illustrate my mother-in-law's house in Temixco, Morelos, I used a typical style of Mexican embroidery. The architecture of the house is a collage of form following function in waves of available money, urgency, and ingenuity. I added flowers and a canary in the way that plants and animals occupy both Mexico's textiles and homes: in a harmonious jumble of color and life.

A number of strings thread through both images, connecting the hoops from behind.

Using a style of embroidery common in Mexican handicrafts, I created this image of my mother-in-law’s home in Temixco, Morelos.

Using a combination of cross stitch and colonial stitch, I created this image of my mother’s home in Bethesda, Maryland.

Because the viewer can perceive both front and back of the embroidered cloths, the technique used in each is totally visible. I believe that this emphasizes the emotional and psychological aspects of the different approaches to embroidery.

Some strings hang loose between the hoops. I like to think of these as the memories and connections that get lost between two realities.