Westward Expansion

Almost done. 7.5 more states to go! I will be ready to start adding other people's hair within a week or so.

Had a thought: why is it that more people seem to be grossed out by human hair detached from a human head than are grossed out by fur/skin detached from the animal? (Just for the record, neither of the above particularly bother me, until you get into the ethics of the thing.)

I will be posting some video footage soon, hopefully. A high-resolution scan will be posted after I have the ground done, removed from the embroidery frame, and stretched over a piece of glass or acrylic.

20+ States!

Huzzah! Putting in some serious time and getting some serious results:

There are an assortment of netting stitches in use here: multiple uses of the same stitch, but no repeats in neighboring states.

  The effect is like a crazy quilt of textures. Victorians had the habit of preserving little sentimental remnants of their loved ones and compiling them into carefully crafted arrangements such as wreaths made of hair from everyone in the family, or the aforementioned quilts.

  Perhaps my map can find similar purpose, once the ground is finished and I begin adding people's journeys to the map, using their hair to (re)create their paths. So far, I have received hair from only people I know and people I have met. What would it be like to chart the courses of many strangers, but all together on one map? We create a similar but invisible map everyday, just by moving about in this country.

During the intermittent periods of my life when I have had a regular commute, be it by car, subway, bus, or on foot, I have noticed many others who share the same timing: we see each other each day, but never interact beyond a glance. How many people would it take, moving across a map in records made of hair; how many stories would it take before two people (by accident) realize that they have shared the same path, or commute, or journey, and finally say 'hello'?