Raymond Materson

b. 1954 · Milford, Connecticut, USA

He unravelled his socks for thread, bent a plastic jar lid into a hoop, and stitched miniature masterpieces at 1,200 stitches to the square inch, all inside a prison cell.

The life

Materson was born in Milford, Connecticut in 1954. Addiction led to crimes and a prison sentence in the late 1980s, and inside he remembered his grandmother’s peaceful sewing from childhood. He began embroidering with threads pulled from unravelled socks and a needle obtained from a guard, first making sports patches for fellow inmates, then scenes from his own past, dreams and demons. After his release he built a life as a working artist, and in 2002 published the memoir Sins and Needles: A Story of Spiritual Mending.

The work

Miniature embroideries smaller than a playing card, sewn from sock thread at around 1,200 stitches per square inch: baseball heroes, theatre scenes, the wreckage of addiction and the slow work of redemption. His work is held by the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, the American Folk Art Museum in New York and the Bennington Museum in Vermont.

Why we love them

Redemption measured in stitches per inch. Nobody in art has ever made more from a pair of socks.

Go deeper

• Raymond Materson at the Outsider Art Fair
• American Visionary Art Museum
• Where to see outsider art, our full list of museums and collections.
• The glossary, if any of the terms here are new.

Kindred spirits

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