I am I

What

“At 71 I asked, who am I? At 74, I am I."

I Am I is a wall hanging tapestry, 6 ½ ft wide at the top, 3 ½ ft wide at the bottom, and 7 ft tall. It is made up of 97 individual quotes, each independently beaded. It was completed over 3 years minus 3 days, begun when Nan was 71 years old.

Woven together, one individual word at a time, it comprises hundreds of thousands of beads: seed beads in 831 different colors as well as several thousand special beads, Swarovski and other crystals, and other decorative and memorial objects. The beads are strung together by 2.2 miles of fishing line.

Each quote is decoratively strung together, word by word. and attached to a backing of Indian sari silk that is glued to elver netting (traditionally used by fishermen in Maine for catching tiny eels called “elvers”). Safety pins, glue, duct tape, drapery rods, and sailboat halyard allow it to hang in four separate sections, appearing as one contiguous piece.

“I Am I” hanging in our cottage hallway.

Why

"It’s like a spirit to me."

This could be said about all of Nan's works, but especially so of I Am I. All her work flows from what's going on in her world, interior and exterior. This one is of the interior. The creation of I Am I was a process of self-exploration, a meditation on 70 years of lived life, from age 71-74 in colors and words, a three year long asking of the question, "Who am I?"

I Am I was born of a desire for self-understanding, a desire to be known, a need to recognize and make concrete a sense of self-value, by creating something of herself that could be shared. Being a lifelong lover of words, color, and texture, beading was a natural medium to explore this question of identity, these three elements woven together in I Am I.

Most simply put, "I just want someone to know I was here."

“Collateral Necklace” for “I Am I.”

The Quotes

As she walks by the piece in her hallway, sometimes touching the “I Am I” tapestry, just lingering over it for a moment. When asked which quotes stand out to her on the day we talked, she replied:

"Acceptance isn't settling for less. Acceptance leads to further movement. Settling makes the other grass forever greener."
-The Artist

Take some time reading the quotes. One of the things Nan is most interested in for viewers of the piece is

"Which quotes strike you?"

The Quotes

How

“I keep the quotation in my mind as I work. I try to think about each word as I make it and what it might really mean in someone's life, and in my life.”

The raw materials of a word or a phrase to be created with hundreds of colors arrayed in front of her, the process of bringing the right ones together is where the magic happens. As it was beaded, each word offered a unique moment of self-reflection and expression. As words or phrases were completed, they were then was set aside while the the creation of the next one received the same attention.

Bead colors needed to be selected for each word. (The bottom half and the top half of each word are stitched in different colors, and the color of the beads used for the letters for each word keeps changing.) Tiny triangles holding the selected colors for each word are stitched to test for contrast. The triangles are strung together as they are created. These ropes are then strengthened with additional beads, and decorated. Nan refers to these as “Collateral Strands.” The one for “I Am I’ is over 22 feet long. “I Am I” is made of more than 830 individual colors of seed beads.

As the project progressed, Nan realized that it was turning into an engineering-size project. As she joined the phrases together, the sheer weight of the beads became a concern. (It makes for quite a metaphor for our lives, stringing together the myriad thoughts, experiences, events, and people that have shaped us.) With the steady, ever-present help of her husband Tom, (fortunately an engineer) solutions were found. The quotes were stitched together into four separate panels and hung, becoming the kaleidoscope of color and words that it is today.