The five dollar bill and the big black dog

2024

Relationships can be a source of fulfillment and heartache in life, and sometimes both at the same time. The five dollar bill and the big black dog investigates neglect, the act of putting more into a relationship than you receive, and the phenomena of still holding on to hope that the other person will return.

As I made both the poem and the embroidery, I didn’t have a particular person or set of circumstances in mind, yet the experience of creating it still felt cathartic. It wasn’t until after I reflected on the work, days after finishing it, that I realized what it had been for. I found the connection to a recently fizzled-out friendship in my life, and I saw all the pieces of it in both the written and visual work. Persistent efforts to keep a dying fire going that was once a beguiling source of warmth was wearing on my mental health, and it was clear at that point that any future waiting would be in vain.

This piece draws inspiration from traditional English folklore, where black dogs were historically considered bad omens and looming harbingers of depression, evil, and death. For my poem, I took this notion and translated it to a modern setting, set in a train station where the subject is stranded with a black dog and waiting for somebody to come back to them. The embroidery was then created to capture the surrealism and loneliness of the poem.

After bridging the piece with my own life, I was better able to understand the bittersweetness of the idea behind it. While loyalty is a strong virtue to hold in any relationship, it’s key to not ever lose the wisdom of knowing when it’s time to go.

This work was selected for a juried art exhibition and displayed at the Cora Stafford Gallery in Denton, Texas.