bas relief, trapunto, and....

Trapunto is a form of sewing that has depth. The surface is not flat - sections are stuffed to create higher areas. Trapunto is what first made me think that if cotton and cording can be embedded under cloth, why not buttons, and pins and all the many, many objects I sewed under cloth. My faces are another form of trapunto, really….

Then there’s bas relief, which also has raised areas. Bas relief is traditionally done with ceramic or stone. But the effect can be much like trapunto.

While some bas relief is very shallow…..others are more like sculptures without finished backs…

Years ago, in Barcelona, I saw these images that don’t have raised features so much as textured background.

It appeared that the textured covering was painted on (applied to?) a plank of wood. The areas to be colored were left flat.

Bas relief can hold many figures, depicting whole big scenes of battle…

…or scenes from the Kama Sutra

Looking at the variety of figures for sale in Turkey, I imagine bas relief figures have just walked off the wall.

Which brings us to ushabtis (also known as shawbti and shabti). Ushabtis are funerary servant figures that, in ancient Egypt, accompanied the deceased to the afterlife. So…little figures buried along with your corpse to help you after you die. This website https://howardnowes.com/articles/articles.cfm?article=208 tells you all about it.

This is what I’ve been thinking about as I stitch the faces together.

More next week

Stay safe. Stay sane.

Diane