Maira Kalman’s second gallery exhibition features a new medium for the artist: embroidery. She has created 20 new works that combine image/drawings and texts, including a four-panel work quoting Goethe. Aphorisms include “seize the day,” “everybody should be who they are” and “good things come to those who wait”. The images themselves are based on photographs from Bellocq to snapshots. Although the text is determined in advance, the drawings are unplanned and embroidered directly on the fabric. The exhibition will also include dress/sculptures made by Kalman.

The interaction of image and text has been at the core of Kalman’s previous work in her many books and illustrations, but the embroidery is something new. “My mother and my aunt embroidered, and I love cloth” says Kalman. She often uses old linens as the support for her works and they have a meditative homespun feeling.

The exhibition coincides with the release of Kalman’s latest book project, Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style Illustrated (Penguin Press). She has also designed a musical production based on The Elements of Style in collaboration with composer Nico Muhly, which will premiere in the main reading room of the New York Public Library on October 19.