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Birds, keys, and other subjects typical of samplers share the field with items more specific to her convent education: a ladder, an incense burner, altars, and a cross.
While the pieces in Leila Williams’s collection tend to be representative of the genre— florals, pastoral scenes, and allegorical figures—Blackmore said she found herself drawn to those more out of the ordinary, such as a mid-19th-century interior scene in which two girls tickle a sleeping boy’s nose with a feather.
A rendition of a curious abstract painting, atypical for its era, hangs on the wall above the children and invites the viewer to wonder what it depicts.
Carrier enjoyed working with the mixed-media pieces, both for their aesthetic qualities and for the challenge they presented. “The hard ones were fun, like figuring out a puzzle,” she said. The most difficult piece to digitize was an allegorical scene with four women dressed from different centuries. “The thread is so fine,” Carrier explained. “I had to get the camera really close to get things like the cheekbones and the jewelry, the detail of the sandals. The woman is breastfeeding, maybe? I had to go back and do it again—I wasn't happy the first time.”
A needlepoint depiction of a beggar, created in 19th-century New Orleans, presented a 21st-century problem: the thick worsted wool used to create the stitches resulted in squares that behave like pixels when the image is rendered digitally. The result was a disruptive moire pattern in the image. The solution was to take several photographs at very close range and merge them.
1 he embroidery project was “different from what I’m accustomed to shooting,” Carrier said, pulling up an elaborate 19th-century landscape on her monitor. “Look at the texture. Someone went to all that trouble to make the side of a cliff—you want people to be able to appreciate all that work.” —THNOC STAFF
B.	Pastoral scene with chenille trees
between 1800 and 1830; embroidery
The L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Founders
Collection, 7973.31
C Children at play
mid-igth century; embroidery
The L. Kemper and Leila Moore Williams Founders
Collection, 7973.70
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Fall 2015	9