Strong Words, 1998

36" x 36"

Stenciled cotton fabrics. Machine pieced, hand appliquéd, hand quilted. Photo credit: Karen Bell.

Detective Frank Pembleton and William Shakespeare get in their licks on truthful self- examination, occasioning strong language. FYI: The foreground, appliquéd text is the beginning of Shakespeare's Sonnet LIII; the text stenciled onto the pieced background is an excerpt from "A Many Splendored Thing," an episode of NBC's late, great detective drama, "Homicide: Life on the Street":

Det. Frank Pembleton: "Okay, let me tell you something. We're all guilty of something, cruelty, or greed, or...or going 65 in a 55 mile-per-hour zone. But you know what? You wanna think about yourself as the fair-haired choirboy? You go AHEAD."

Det. Tim Bayliss: "All right. Okay, so, uh, what are you saying, huh?"

Pembleton: "I'm saying you got a darkness, you, [Tim Bayliss], you got a darkness inside of you. You gotta know the darker, uglier sides of yourself. You gotta recognize them, so that they're not constantly sneaking up on you. You gotta LOVE 'EM, 'cause they're part of you. Because along with your virtues, they make you who you are. Virtue isn't virtue unless it slams up against vice. So consequently, your virtue's not real virtue. Until it's been tested...tempted."