Pākehā Sampler wherein the Crafter Seams Research: An Ekphrastic Review of Christine Rogers's “The Needle as Medium: Using Embroidery to Speak to Ghosts”

This poem is an ekphrastic response to Rogers’s sampler. The author began by studying a photo of the sampler, and then wrote the first and last line of the poem using the following prompt: “Start by noting the emotional state of the artwork and conclude by looking back at the artwork and describing the pervading color.” The author considered their own use of knitting as a way to feel connected to kin, and how knitting as a form of crafting is a way to tell family stories (Faulkner, 2014). The author studied the photo more and wrote more lines that spoke to crafting as research method, imagining the artist as researcher as family story teller. The poem is an embodied presentation of the author’s response to Rogers, as poetry is the author’s art medium, words and language their paintbrush.