Elsa, like many New Yorkers, has a love/hate relationship with the subway. When it works it’s great: inexpensive, borough-traversing, relatively energy-efficient, democratic. When it doesn’t work, which seems increasingly to be the case, it can turn a reasonably sane, polite individual into a raving, shoving, sweating lunatic. Because all you’re trying to do is go somewhere, not even somewhere very far by the rest of the world’s standards. Why is NYC trying so hard to thwart you?

Elsa similarly has a love/hate relationship with subway art. It astonishes her that there is such a thing. On a bad mood day, when she sees art in the subway, she thinks yes ok, art is nice, aren’t we civilized, but couldn’t that money have been spent on TRAINS THAT WORK? Art exhibited in a place where people are by definition in transit, headed somewhere, running behind, a place where for a variety of reasons they would rather not linger (in short, the polar opposite of where you might think art would want to be exhibited), seems like a taunt—see what you don’t have time to see? Or even a rebuke. Elsa gets that we should learn to live in the moment, stop and smell the roses, be mindful. But in the subway?

On a day when the world is behaving benignly, however, subway art seems like a respite, a window, an opportunity, a gracious invitation.

Elsa has friendly encounters.

She tries on a number of hats.

Her favorite piece of subway art is called REACH: New York, and if you did happen to see it, just above your head on the NQRW platform at 34^th Street, you’d probably think it was a functional beam. You have to reach up and wave at it, thereby setting off lights and sounds that are duplicated on the opposite platform. If you keep at it, eventually, the hope is, someone on the other platform will notice, and respond in kind. Elsa has watched this in action. It takes a while for people to notice the lights and the sounds, and there isn’t that much time between trains. Sometimes no one will even notice. Sometimes people will notice but not respond. But every so often, someone will notice, look up, look over, and smile. And then reach.

Elsa is the third of the three sisters made from my friend Lauren’s collection of her grandfather’s ties. Elsa is made from a silk Schiaparelli tie that looked like cream being stirred into coffee. Her ears are lined with the tie’s pink lining. Her jacket is another tie with a purple elephant motif, her dress a lavender print tie, her boots are from that same suede tie that produced Bianca’s boots. I’ve learned a lot about miniature cobblery. I’m sure this knowledge will come in handy some day.

Her purse is made from still another tie, with a handle and clasp from Elizabeth V’s Ziploc bag, and the elephant charm on her necklace also once belonged to Elizabeth V. Her scarf is scraps of tie lining pieced together.

I’m very grateful to Lauren for this project. I started making the stitch faces only to please myself, and that was fun, but making them for Lauren made me want to do better. That’s been good for the stitch faces. By which I mean, it’s been good for me.

Special thanks to Melanie Adsit—contemporary art expert, educator, tour leader, and lovely person—for showing me what I’ve been missing (meladsit@rcn.com).