Poking Serious Fun with Needle and Thread

They are like mug shots with soft, frilly edges rendered on soft cloth. The faces are famous: Martha Stewart, Naomi Campbell, Imelda Marcos, Hillary Clinton. The list varies widely: Strom Thurmond, Thomas Jefferson, Mary Boone, Courtney Ross, Leona Helmsley and Gordon Ramsey.

What each has in common is a reputation for being extremely difficult, even abusive, to those who work for them. Driving that point home is the presentation: Each face is embroidered onto a doll-size maid’s outfit slipped over 18-inch lamps.

The series is called “Servitude,” and it was created by East Hampton artist and filmmaker Christa Maiwald.

“They are set on top of lamps and they can be lit,” Ms. Maiwald said. “It’s a bit cliche, but it’s like the light is saying, ‘Here’s the light of reason and it’s shining to illuminate the horrible way each of these people treat those who serve them, who are essentially powerless.’ I put the portraits on maids’ uniforms because they are the quintessential employees.”

“Servitude” and her other embroidered artworks are part of a group show Ms. Maiwald curated at the Sara Nightingale Gallery. The exhibition, “Maker/Taker,” tackles topics like class and race inequality, financial industry hardships, and cultural mores regarding women, power and desire. It features sculptural artwork by Laurence Hegarty and Jennie Nichols.

Lifting an embroidery needle to make art out of bad guys is nothing new for Ms. Maiwald. A recent series, “Garden Party,” featured 13 portraits of ruthless world leaders. Each portrait was embroidered onto a girl’s dress and set atop lamps. The series was part of the exhibition “Pricked: Extreme Embroidery,” shown at The Museum of Arts and Design in Manhattan.

The lineup includes Kim Jong-il (North Korea), Jean-Claude Duvalier (Haiti), Ariel Sharon (Israel) and Saddam Hussein (Iraq). Also making the top 13 are George Bush (United States), Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic), Omar al-Bashir (Sudan), The Shah of Iran, Meles Zenawi (Ethiopia), and King Mswati III (Swaziland), King Abdullah bin Abd al-‘Aziz (Saudi Arabia), François Duvalier (Haiti) and Bounnhang Vorachith (Laos People’s Democratic Republic).

“I was thinking that girls in the countries with these rulers wouldn’t be able to have a garden party,” Ms. Maiwald said. “Their faces are like stains on these beautiful little dresses. At least, that’s how I saw it.”

Other series have portrayed adolescents in the throes of dangerous or intimate exploration, mental illness, children who grow up in war zones shown clutching guns and weapons, and portraits of political or art stars throughout history.

The new series she is working on explores fantastical possibilities of cybrids, a technology where an embryo is created by injecting human cell nucleus into an empty animal egg to form an embryo that’s mostly human (99.9 percent, according to some sources).

In this series, she combines fairy tale imagery with political players. For instance, Bill Clinton is portrayed as half man, half pig in a hand-holding trio. The pig motif will continue with Donald Trump and Eliot Spitzer. Another motif will have Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama playing leap frog.

“It’s so much fun,” Ms. Maiwald said. “I really enjoy making them.”

Part of the artwork’s power comes from harsh political or social commentary juxtaposed with traditional embroidery that can conjure images of domesticated ladies with embroidery hoops clutching a store-bought sampler. Another twist is the contemporary commentary transformed into art by a labor-intensive ancient craft technique.

To create her art, Ms. Maiwald works steadily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. every weekday with an hour break for lunch. “I have my own embroidery sweatshop,” she joked. “Treating it like a job and showing up for work every day is the only way I can get the artwork done. In reality, I’m always working. I take it with me everyplace.”

Her persistence in making her art gave rise to a short film titled “Thread Head.” Shot by her husband, Mark Segal, the film features Ms. Maiwald having to finish a body of work for a show and then taking it places like the doctor’s office awaiting surgery, on the Hampton Jitney going to New York, baby-sitting, walking the dog and other tasks until her work has been completed.

Ms. Maiwald has been behind the camera to make three films of her own in the last several years. They include “War Babies,” “War Zone” and 
“War Dance.” The films have been exhibited at Sara Nightingale Gallery and other locations. The “War” series will screen at The Fireplace Project in Springs.

Her art has been exhibited at the Whitney Museum of American Art, MOCA-DC in Washington, D.C., the Parrish Art Museum’s 39th Juried Exhibition in 2005, and at juried shows at Guild Hall. Her art also has been exhibited in Brussels, The Netherlands, Sweden, Paris and Lyon, France and other places. She is represented by Florence Lynch Gallery in Manhattan.

Ms. Maiwald said she doesn’t mind if 50 or 100 years from now, viewers won’t recognize or even know who the portraits depict in her contemporary social commentary. “I’m having fun doing them,” she said. “I think they’re along the political cartoons line. I think it’s enough that I’m doing art that I care about.”

“Maker/Taker” will remain on view at the Sara Nightingale Gallery, 688 Montauk Highway, Water Mill through May 15. The gallery is open Fridays and Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and by appointment by calling 726-0076. Ms. Maiwald is also curating an upcoming art exhibition, “Orbiting Abstraction,” at the Surface Library in Springs from May 31 to June 22. Call 291-9061 for information.