This work is a masterpiece of poetic embroidery with varied styles for the lettering. The phrases read as follows: 1) lifedeath, 2) heebiejeebies, 3) snuffflick, 4) zigzag, 5) duckyducky, 6) deadend, 7) gangplank, 8) zebrazebra, 9) lushlush, 10) be all end all, 11) finiteinfinite, 12) cockeyed & cuckoo, 13) homesick 14) BAH HUMBUG, 15) fuckyfucky, 16) 2010, 17) mamapapbaba, 18) zerozero, 19) hooplahoopla, 20) toom tchoop poom, 21) i cant sell it, 22) perky & chirpy, 23) sporty & forty, 24) holdminehand, 25) hubbahubba, 26) doublewide, 27) eyeball, 28) ojo por ojo, 29) davey crockett ma kettle, 30) i stand corrected, 31) wow, 32) gee, 33) holy cow, 34) la la, 35) dirty dip, 36) dog paddle, 37) sawbuck, 38) juicehead, 39) gummer, 40) gibberish, 41) invisible ink, 42) hotrod, 43) snap hold kick, 44) 2 sides, 45) sing, 46) alfalfa, 47) rhododenron, 48) i, and 49) croak. Sloy wrote to the Sackners: it took a long time to make. 'lifedeath' was embroidered in 2000. 'croak' was finished sept. '06. 'holdminehand' is an endearing sentence by our then 2 year old grandson. '2010' is a prediction from my son, that in the year 2010, he will be called upon to help humanity in some special way. 'sporty & forty' is my daughter's description of herself upon turning 40. each of the 49 pieces references some moment in my life at the time of creation and, serves as the inspiration for creating a 'shroud' from 'found' word shards. the 49 pieces can be layed out in a rectangle of 7 pieces by 7, forming the shroud, or they can be piled in one stack evoking images of tiny exotic carpets, or viewed in their own, original coffin/box nic is creating especially to hold them. each rectangular piece is made of vintage raw silk from the early 70's embroidered from a palette of 16 thread colors. the idea was to make no two alike, in color patterns. at some point my first printer died. i was, at the onset, hand stitching the raw silk onto typing paper and feeding it through my printer using a font called sand as the basis for the hand embroidery. this system did not always work satisfactorily as the printer would sometimes grab a corner and leave smudges on the fabric. my aesthetic is to believe in what happens, to go with what happens, and so i would embroider the piece as i would any other. the 2nd printer would not feed the cloth no matter what i did, so i resorted to transfers as are done on t-shirts. this 2nd phase introduced new challenges. i would have to type the word(s) by hand repeatedly in a word processing program, then translate the document to a jpeg, then turn the jpeg backwards, print it on the transfer sheet, cut out the rectangle of words and iron it onto the silk. i would then embroider the words over a thin, rubbery coating that lays on top of the shroud pieces that were made with this process. a 3rd evolution occurred when i decided to write directly onto the silk (an impossible task as the fabric is akin to cheesecloth or burlap, woven loosely with as many holes as threads). in this series my own hand or script informs the embroidered letters. one chance incident around 'invisible ink' happened in this series. i took pains to write 'invisible ink' using the thinnest dotted lines of indelible ink and then embroidering 'invisible ink' with only off-white creating an illusion of 'invisible' ink. i then, as i often did, ironed the piece using a steam iron. suddenly the ink sprang into a life of its own, making a mockery of my vision of invisibility. finally, the shroud began to let go of its linear right to left line and forms of embroidery one sees on lettermens' jackets appears, at once emblematic and readable. from first stitch to last the shroud has always been one piece, one work. -- Source of annotation: Marvin or Ruth Sackner.