"Pricked: Extreme Embroidery," which opened last Friday at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), proves that whatever medium an artist chooses is strictly a matter of choice. The exhibition presents work by 48 artists from 17 countries, using everything from stone, comic books, discarded work gloves, and human hair, as well as linen fabric and silk thread, to offer provocative, and often satirical commentary about contemporary society, politics, and personal history.

Left to right: Sarki's Story, by Petter Helsing; Spring at the Pole, by Nava Lubelski; Count Your Blessings, by Tilleke Schwarz; She Wished She Never Married, by Andrea Dezso; courtesy of the Museum of Arts and Design.

Many of the artists exploit the linear quality of stitchery to explore the meeting of language and image. Elaine Reichek, who adopted needle and thread early in her career, is interested in the ways that changing technologies effect how people communicate. She used hand and machine embroidery to record the first telegraph message sent by Samuel F.B. Morse in 1844-"what hath God wrought"-on an 80-foot-long sheer curtain.

In an interview for The New Yorker, in conjunction with an exhibition of her work currently on view at the Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery, Reichek said, "Sampling, pastiche, appropriation-all those techniques that we think of as contemporary-have an ancient history," she explained. "Embroidery has been called the Hypertext of the Silk Route, and as local patterns traveled by caravan around the world they were 'downloaded' by people who didn't know where they came from."

Paddy Hartley, a London multi-media artist, uses his extensive research into the lives and families of severely disfigured World War I soldiers, who endured long and painful reconstructive surgery developed during the war. Their stories are retold, machine-embroidered onto uniforms based on those worn at the time.

Several artists have drawn upon traditional embroidered samplers for inspiration. Andrea Dezso, Assistant Professor of Media Design at Parsons, was born in Romania and used lessons taught by her mother for a series of sampler-like pieces that fill a wall here. Each of the whimsically stitched pieces begins with "My Mother Claimed That...", an ironic twist on the sentiments often found in samplers stitched by young girls during Colonial times, such as "When This You See, Remember Me." At the media preview, Andrea said that all the time she was growing up, she never doubted the truth of these sayings, many of which are based old wives tales. "My mother told me that if I sat on a cold rock I would get a female cold. I really believed this until I moved here to study art!."

Maira Kalman, widely known as an illustrator, took up embroidery following the death of her mother, herself an embroiderer. She explores the meaning of language in a different context, and said in an interview at MAD, " Embroidery is VERY slow work. I collect linens, napkins, fabrics and decided to sew sayings and quotes and then feelings. I do not draw anything first. Just go. [The Goethe quote in the art] expressed how I felt at the time and still often do. How are we to deal with essential tragedies of existence and then do a jig or sew something?"

Petter Hellsing, an installation artist from Sweden, started out as a sculptor but shifted his interest to textiles following a trip to Guatemala. His piece at MAD includes two embroidered chairs, a pillow, several hangings and a floor lamp. The environment creates a homey setting that speaks for the recollections of his neighbors, immigrants from the Balkans and the Middle East, about their old homes and the folk tales they grew up with.

The exhibition includes work of tremendous variety, from a sofa by Swiss designer Mattia Bonetti covered entirely with stitched recreations of pages from popular Chinese magazines done by master embroiderers in China, to "It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn," a stitched painting by feminist artist Judy Chicago. "Lying Booth," a multimedia work by Emily Hermant of Canada, is without doubt the most interactive and entertaining installation in the show.

"Pricked: Extreme Embroidery" continues at the Museum of Arts and Design through March 9, 2008. A series of public programs broadens the view of how artists work as well as offering a workshop for those who want to learn embroidery. Please check the website for details.

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