Kiki Smith
b. 1954
Sampler
Dimensions: 61.12 cm x 45.56 cm
Medium: photo relief etching on paper
Date Created: 2007
Sampler is one of 206 photo relief etchings made by Kiki Smith inspired by the poems of Emily Dickinson. An etching accompanies every poem in the book of Dickinson’s poetry titled Sampler, holding two-fold meaning as containing a curated selection–or sample–of Dickinson’s poetry and alluding to the embroidered samplers sewn by women to demonstrate their domestic skills in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Smith employs the practice and imagery of the craft, using a needle and other sharp-pointed tools to scratch the lines in the emulsion of photographic negatives. This allows light to pass through the images when making the photopolymer plates for letterpress printing. Kiki honors the contributions made by women to art and literature and makes the private, primarily educational practice of embroidery visible for interpretative analysis.
