Common Threads, vol. 132

Common Threads is artist Candace Hicks’s ongoing series of embroideries in the form of composition notebooks. The works subvert expectations for an object familiar to many, transforming rigid cardboard and paper into flexible cloth. Their covers vary to match their content, ranging from drones and dragonflies to lobsters, cocktail umbrellas, and purple crayons. On the interior “pages,” Hicks sews commentaries about her reading. This volume concerns coral; inside, the artist rendered the words: “Three corals in a row is already a lot, but then I read The Witch of Blackbird Pond. In it a young woman is reminded of her home in Barbados when she picks up a piece of coral in her friend’s (the witch’s) home in New England.”