Styx, The Grand Illusion

Embroidery stitched directly through a vinyl record sleeve.

12x12x2 inches, framed in acrylic.

     The Grand illusion by 70’s progressive rock band Styx contained some of their biggest hits with 'Come Sail Away' and 'Fooling Yourself.' There wasn’t a rock fan around in the 70’s or 80’s who wasn’t a fan of the band, myself included. This album was created as a commission and it features one of the most difficult graphics that I've attempted so far. The cover is a painting of a forest scene with a silhouette of a horse and rider superimposed over the background. The horse consists of psychedelic colors and a Dali-esque face. I knew this piece would have a lot of challenges. I started by stitching the forest in multiple colors of rayon thread. There are over 80,000 hand placed stitches in the forest alone and over 20 colors of thread. For the horse and rider I decided due to the detail, to create them as a patch. There are over 40 additional colors and over 60,000 stitches in the patch. The shading and detail in the face were extremely difficult to achieve. The patch was stitched, hand trimmed and then collaged onto the album as a final step.