When needleworkers look at particular panels of the Fort Vancouver Tapestry, they just might see themselves looking back.
No, there isn’t some odd mirror effect sewn into the tapestry, which ended a nine-day exhibit Sunday at the Vancouver Community Library.
It’s more along the lines of a hand-stitched selfie.
The creators exercised a bit of artistic license back when they crafted the 108-foot-long history lesson more than 20 years ago.
They found out-of-the-way spots to add personal touches. Linda Caton represented herself pushing a baby buggy through the farmers market.
“I had kids,” Caton said.
Eileen Ono put herself in a panel illustrating the Fourth of July fireworks show. Ono is wearing a salmon-colored blouse and glasses with metallic red frames. And Ono (along with other women on the panel) is shown working on a tapestry panel.
Team members urged Sherry Mowatt, the tapestry’s artistic director, to do something similar. But Mowatt had to do it under deadline pressure.
“Thirty minutes before it went on display, we kept saying, ‘You’d better put yourself in there,’ ” Ono said.
That’s why viewers can see someone looking out the second-story window of a house; it’s Mowatt. And it’s not like she’s trespassing, because the panel actually shows Mowatt’s house.
Honoring moms, dads
Some volunteers honored family members. On a panel showing Vancouver’s historic Telephone Exchange building, Marge English pointed to one of the women at the switchboard.
“My mom is the telephone operator,” she said.
Not all of the family references show family members. Ono called herself a brick person — one of the artists who stitched images of the many significant brick structures around Vancouver.
“This is so funny,” Ono said. “My dad was a bricklayer.”
Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.
