Mama merit badges: cute. What a great idea, I wish I’d thought of it.
Breastfeeding Female Merit Badge by Mary Yaeger
Actually, about a year ago I tried out commercially producing some other types of badges for moms and kids, like
A New Pea in the Pod! by Mary Yaeger
A badge for celebrating a new child, that can be customized with name and birth date.
I stitched this patch before breakfast this morning. I’m reading Lynda Barry‘s What It Is.
Here are my three merit badges for the show at Gallery Hanahou:
If I Only Had a Brain
If I Only Had a Heart
If I Only Had Some Guts
The Forget Me-Not embroidery show at Gallery Hanahou in SOHO opens Feb. 6.
When Shelley Savage Caw turned 40, her family decided that my merit badges would be a great way to help her celebrate. I created these two pieces:
Ovaries:
Shelley’s Grey Hair:
for a woman with one of the loveliest heads of salt-and-pepper hair I’ve seen. Thanks to the Savage family for thinking of this one.
In 2006, I was asked to create a hysterectomy merit badge. At the time I couldn’t believe that I had never thought of this one, but it was in fact missing from my series of merit badges. I intend to include every significant event that could be seen as a female rite of passage, and will continue to create images like this. I appreciate being reminded that there are many life events that deserve to be celebrated or commemorated through my work. Here is Hysterectomy, stitched in 2006:
Here is my latest embroidery, Pablo’s Baby:
This is embroidery #2 in what will be a series of images depicting the babies of some well-known painters.
Thanks to Carolyn Guillot, I have my first art exhibit in Oxford, albeit very informal. Six of my series of “pressure point” merit badges will be on display at a group show in the Psychiatry Department’s Common Room, Warneford Hospital, through mid-June.
The images are framed in two’s:
Migraine Pain and Frown Lines:
Ovaries and Brain:
Brain (different view) and Intestines:
Menopausal symptoms, such as depression, migraines and IBS, are caused by hormonal changes that interact with the brain and other organs in the body. This is just a representative example, or my “favorites.” I haven’t stitched a TMJ or hypothyroidism patch yet, or a host of other related conditions, but there are so many possibilities. I love browsing the health and beauty web sites, and always look for pamphlets in doctors’ offices to add to my research files. I have way more material than I can stitch, and there are other subjects I’m just as interested in, but I do find medical conditions fascinating.
Stabbed! 