*post by Victoria Snape, images via:#1: Uye Surana Dress, #3: Eden Bella (Etsy), #5 Imago Drift (Etsy), #7 InfinitStyle (Etsy),
Wednesday 25 January 2012
Street Patterns: Vintage Romance
Street Patterns: Vintage Romance:
*post by Victoria Snape, images via:#1: Uye Surana Dress, #3: Eden Bella (Etsy), #5 Imago Drift (Etsy), #7 InfinitStyle (Etsy),
*post by Victoria Snape, images via:#1: Uye Surana Dress, #3: Eden Bella (Etsy), #5 Imago Drift (Etsy), #7 InfinitStyle (Etsy),
By Horst Kiechle, I think this is one of the more original...
By Horst Kiechle, I think this is one of the more original...: 
By Horst Kiechle, I think this is one of the more original takes on a standard anatomical organ composition that you traditionally get in a science lab. Beautiful architectural structuring of geometric shapes that transforms the paper into something really amazing, the best part is that you can take each organ out and reassemble it all over again!
By Horst Kiechle, I think this is one of the more original takes on a standard anatomical organ composition that you traditionally get in a science lab. Beautiful architectural structuring of geometric shapes that transforms the paper into something really amazing, the best part is that you can take each organ out and reassemble it all over again!
Future Heirlooms- Rebecca Ringquist
Future Heirlooms- Rebecca Ringquist:
I remember the first time I saw the work of Rebecca Ringquist was when I was curating my very first fibers show. I also know that I was blown away and loved it immediately. Her work is dense and heavy with stitches, a combination of hand and machine work. I have had the privilege of exhibiting Rebecca’s work twice, visited her beautiful and cozy home studio here in Brooklyn, and even casually hang out a bit. The best thing is that Rebecca is a super talented artist and teacher but also a genuinely sweet and warm person. She recently had a solo show in Chicago and has lots of cool things coming up. I know you will love learn more about her work as I did. Let’s go!
I live in Brooklyn, and the intensity of New York has definitely had an effect on my work. Since moving here, my palette has changed from mostly white to bright, saturated fluorescent colors.
My studio is in my home that I share with my partner. I love being able to poke my head in there on days when I’m teaching or running errands just to check on the previous days’ progression. I usually work in the studio three days a week, and I guard those days very closely.
Here’s a synopsis of a typical studio day:
I wake up early and check my e-mail,then I get dressed and get to work. Even though I work from home, I put on shoes and brush my teeth and get in there and shut the door.
I make drawings and work back into old drawings in my sketchbooks. I
thread lots of needles and wind lots of bobbins. I get warmed up.
When I lived in Chicago, I was on a swim team, and I found myself finding parallels there to the studio. You don’t just jump in and start swimming. You get in and flutter for a little while on the kick board. You drag around the pull buoy, and then finally, you swim longer sets. It’s the same in the studio. I’ve got to do lots of warming up.
In general, I make a lot of sketched work to get to one or two really good finished works.
A sketch from last month might be the spark for a new piece that I haven’t found out about yet.
My studio is a mess. If it’s clean, it means I haven’t been working hard enough. I have a space for drawing (mostly pencil and gouache), another table for the sewing machine, and one big 8’x12’ wall covered in homosote for hanging up works in progress. The floor is covered in piles of cloth, boxes of found embroidery, and sketchbooks.
some earlier work.
How has your work evolved since you first began working with embroidery?
I learned how to embroider in the context of a Feminist Art History class in college, and the work I made then was very much in response to the history of colonial samplers. While I still spend a lot of time thinking about these ideas (and teaching others about them as a professor at SAIC), my work is now a lot less obviously political.
My work has gotten much more layered and dense and saturated with color than it was when I started working with these materials 15 years ago. Embroidery is traditionally a very neat and tidy craft, but my work transforms it into wild gestural maximalist drawings.
You use a lot of old and found linens and embroideries, what made you begin to do this?
I love old embroidery, and many years of living in the Midwest surrounded by the world’s best thrift stores helped me secure a huge collection of the stuff. Most of it travelled with me to New York. I use these old textiles as the ground layer (and midlayers) of lots of my work for a few reasons. Firstly, I am drawn to all this ready-made texture, and secondly, I’m interested in the stories that are already contained in the cloth. While most of the embroidered textiles I use are made from printed patterns, every single one of them is embroidered by hand by someone who made a lot of design decisions in an effort to make something beautiful. I describe my work as fractured narratives, and these found and collaged cloths contribute their own stories.
What is the next direction or step for your work?
I’ve been thinking a lot about weather these days, and making lots of drawings of tornadoes and rainbows. This has been a crazy year of cross country change, and the metaphors of weather are popping up in my drawings in lots of different ways. In Brooklyn, we’ve had a tornado, a hurricane, and an earthquake this year!
What else do you spend your time doing?
When I’m not in the studio or teaching, I love to cook. At the end of a long day in the studio or a long day teaching, I find it so satisfying to walk into a clean kitchen and cook a great meal.
Do any of these inform your work?
Teaching informs my work so much. I taught Stitch (a class about the history and contemporary art practice of embroidery) and other studio classes in the Fiber and Material studies department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for seven years.
Now that I live in New York I’m teaching workshops all over the country (as well as intensives back at SAIC). Teaching forces me to stay on top of the art world, as well as stay articulate about what it is I’m doing in my own studio. Right now I’m an artist in residence at the Museum of Art and Design here in New York, and that has also been a great experience for clarification. Visitors want to know how I get started, how I make design decisions, how I choose certain materials. It has been helpful for my own brain to break down the process into easy to understand steps.
Where can we see your work?
Right now (until July 2012) in New York you can see my work at the Museum of Art and Design (www.madmuseum.org) . You can also see me there most Wednesdays, working away in the 6th floor Artists’ in Residence studio.
Packer Schopf Gallery (www.packergallery.com) in Chicago represents my work. I have a website (www.rebeccaringquist.com) and a blog (www.drop-cloth.blogspot.com) that I update frequently with works in progress and other studio related news.
Isn’t her studio awesome and I totally want to see her freezer. That is so cool.
Anyway so glad to have Rebecca share with us, thank you!
Until next time keep your needle threaded.
Joetta Maue is a full time artist primarily using photography and fibers. Her most recent work is a series of embroideries and images exploring intimacy. Joetta exhibits her work throughout the United States and internationally, and authors the art and craft blog Little Yellowbird as well as regularly contributes to Mr. X Stitch and the Textile Arts Center Blog.
I remember the first time I saw the work of Rebecca Ringquist was when I was curating my very first fibers show. I also know that I was blown away and loved it immediately. Her work is dense and heavy with stitches, a combination of hand and machine work. I have had the privilege of exhibiting Rebecca’s work twice, visited her beautiful and cozy home studio here in Brooklyn, and even casually hang out a bit. The best thing is that Rebecca is a super talented artist and teacher but also a genuinely sweet and warm person. She recently had a solo show in Chicago and has lots of cool things coming up. I know you will love learn more about her work as I did. Let’s go!
Where do you live? Does this affect your work?
I live in Brooklyn, and the intensity of New York has definitely had an effect on my work. Since moving here, my palette has changed from mostly white to bright, saturated fluorescent colors.
My studio is in my home that I share with my partner. I love being able to poke my head in there on days when I’m teaching or running errands just to check on the previous days’ progression. I usually work in the studio three days a week, and I guard those days very closely.
Here’s a synopsis of a typical studio day:
I wake up early and check my e-mail,then I get dressed and get to work. Even though I work from home, I put on shoes and brush my teeth and get in there and shut the door.
I make drawings and work back into old drawings in my sketchbooks. I
thread lots of needles and wind lots of bobbins. I get warmed up.
When I lived in Chicago, I was on a swim team, and I found myself finding parallels there to the studio. You don’t just jump in and start swimming. You get in and flutter for a little while on the kick board. You drag around the pull buoy, and then finally, you swim longer sets. It’s the same in the studio. I’ve got to do lots of warming up.
In general, I make a lot of sketched work to get to one or two really good finished works.
A sketch from last month might be the spark for a new piece that I haven’t found out about yet.
My studio is a mess. If it’s clean, it means I haven’t been working hard enough. I have a space for drawing (mostly pencil and gouache), another table for the sewing machine, and one big 8’x12’ wall covered in homosote for hanging up works in progress. The floor is covered in piles of cloth, boxes of found embroidery, and sketchbooks.
some earlier work.How has your work evolved since you first began working with embroidery?
I learned how to embroider in the context of a Feminist Art History class in college, and the work I made then was very much in response to the history of colonial samplers. While I still spend a lot of time thinking about these ideas (and teaching others about them as a professor at SAIC), my work is now a lot less obviously political.
My work has gotten much more layered and dense and saturated with color than it was when I started working with these materials 15 years ago. Embroidery is traditionally a very neat and tidy craft, but my work transforms it into wild gestural maximalist drawings.
You use a lot of old and found linens and embroideries, what made you begin to do this?
I love old embroidery, and many years of living in the Midwest surrounded by the world’s best thrift stores helped me secure a huge collection of the stuff. Most of it travelled with me to New York. I use these old textiles as the ground layer (and midlayers) of lots of my work for a few reasons. Firstly, I am drawn to all this ready-made texture, and secondly, I’m interested in the stories that are already contained in the cloth. While most of the embroidered textiles I use are made from printed patterns, every single one of them is embroidered by hand by someone who made a lot of design decisions in an effort to make something beautiful. I describe my work as fractured narratives, and these found and collaged cloths contribute their own stories.
What is the next direction or step for your work?
I’ve been thinking a lot about weather these days, and making lots of drawings of tornadoes and rainbows. This has been a crazy year of cross country change, and the metaphors of weather are popping up in my drawings in lots of different ways. In Brooklyn, we’ve had a tornado, a hurricane, and an earthquake this year!
What else do you spend your time doing?
When I’m not in the studio or teaching, I love to cook. At the end of a long day in the studio or a long day teaching, I find it so satisfying to walk into a clean kitchen and cook a great meal.
Since my work takes forever to make, it feels so good to start and finish something at the end of the day. Believe it or not, in our little walk up apartment here in Brooklyn we have a deepfreeze in the dining room. I store away fruit and vegetables all summer, and all winter long we eat really well. Right now it’s full of homemade applesauce and the summer’s crop of homemade pesto. The freezer really appeals to my collector sensibilities. I went a little crazy on the home made oven dried tomatoes this year, but man o man have we been eating a lot of great focaccia this winter.
Do any of these inform your work?
Teaching informs my work so much. I taught Stitch (a class about the history and contemporary art practice of embroidery) and other studio classes in the Fiber and Material studies department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for seven years.
Now that I live in New York I’m teaching workshops all over the country (as well as intensives back at SAIC). Teaching forces me to stay on top of the art world, as well as stay articulate about what it is I’m doing in my own studio. Right now I’m an artist in residence at the Museum of Art and Design here in New York, and that has also been a great experience for clarification. Visitors want to know how I get started, how I make design decisions, how I choose certain materials. It has been helpful for my own brain to break down the process into easy to understand steps.
Where can we see your work?
Right now (until July 2012) in New York you can see my work at the Museum of Art and Design (www.madmuseum.org) . You can also see me there most Wednesdays, working away in the 6th floor Artists’ in Residence studio.
Packer Schopf Gallery (www.packergallery.com) in Chicago represents my work. I have a website (www.rebeccaringquist.com) and a blog (www.drop-cloth.blogspot.com) that I update frequently with works in progress and other studio related news.
Isn’t her studio awesome and I totally want to see her freezer. That is so cool.
Anyway so glad to have Rebecca share with us, thank you!
Until next time keep your needle threaded.
Joetta Maue is a full time artist primarily using photography and fibers. Her most recent work is a series of embroideries and images exploring intimacy. Joetta exhibits her work throughout the United States and internationally, and authors the art and craft blog Little Yellowbird as well as regularly contributes to Mr. X Stitch and the Textile Arts Center Blog.Painterly Details at Rodarte
Painterly Details at Rodarte: Painterly Details at Rodarte
Rodarte, SS12.
The Spring-Summer 2012 collection from Rodarte centered around the colours and textures that Vincent van Gogh used to great effect in his oil paintings. The tones were at times as vibrant as van Gogh’s depiction of sunflowers, while in other garments the tones were muted and murky as in Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888).
Much of the surface texture of the collection focused on different ways to translate the artist’s brushstrokes into textile manipulations and embellishments. The circular movement of daubs of paint were translated into swirling embroideries or lines of sequins in jewel tones. The thick, glossy texture of oil paint bubbled into lines of thick organic pleating in pastel greens and mau...
Rodarte, SS12.
The Spring-Summer 2012 collection from Rodarte centered around the colours and textures that Vincent van Gogh used to great effect in his oil paintings. The tones were at times as vibrant as van Gogh’s depiction of sunflowers, while in other garments the tones were muted and murky as in Starry Night Over the Rhone (1888).
Much of the surface texture of the collection focused on different ways to translate the artist’s brushstrokes into textile manipulations and embellishments. The circular movement of daubs of paint were translated into swirling embroideries or lines of sequins in jewel tones. The thick, glossy texture of oil paint bubbled into lines of thick organic pleating in pastel greens and mau...
Organic Book by Kapitza
Organic Book by Kapitza:
We are long-time fans of the super-cool design studio and font foundry Kapitza, so when we received our copy of their new Organic Book, we were thrilled! Inside are pages and pages of color, whimsy, and amazing creativity. So many lovely patterns! And guess what else! Kapitza is offering Pattern People readers 10% off their book for the next two weeks! When ordering, just type in PATTERNPEOPLE10 to get your discount.
-Claudia
We are long-time fans of the super-cool design studio and font foundry Kapitza, so when we received our copy of their new Organic Book, we were thrilled! Inside are pages and pages of color, whimsy, and amazing creativity. So many lovely patterns! And guess what else! Kapitza is offering Pattern People readers 10% off their book for the next two weeks! When ordering, just type in PATTERNPEOPLE10 to get your discount.
-Claudia
Beefranck’s Emporium – Leighlalovesyou twin project
Beefranck’s Emporium – Leighlalovesyou twin project:
Leighlalovesyou is doing a very interesting art project about her experience as a twin.
See the entire set here, and be sure to check out all of Leigh’s work in her Flickr photostream.
Leighlalovesyou is doing a very interesting art project about her experience as a twin.
See the entire set here, and be sure to check out all of Leigh’s work in her Flickr photostream.
Illness Becomes a Muse
Illness Becomes a Muse:
Courtesy of Leisa Rich
The Textile Art of Leisa Rich
Numerous illnesses have been the muses in my passion for all things fiber, while the negative human impact on nature and unravelling human tactile connection are the catalysts for my subject matter.
As an infant I had a satin-trimmed blanket; the only way I could fall asleep was by working my fingers from one end to the other. At age four, while in the hospital for deafness, my mother made clothes for my Barbie and one particular dress, made of a fiery red satin and lace, provoked my tactile infatuation. At age 15, while attending Interlochen Arts Academy for piano and dance, I developed thyroid complications from mononeucleosis, causing weight gain. I was asked to leave the dance department until I lost the weight, but during that time off a friend suggested I take weaving. I loved it and switched my major to art. Thirty-six years later I'm still hooked!
Growing up in Canada surrounded by lovely, wide-open spaces, fabulous lakes, mountains and a very low human population, I feel most at peace in the natural world. I spent my childhood communing with nature: ice-skating outdoors on natural creeks, days spent alone sifting the sand on the beach of Lake Huron in search of a perfect fossil or wandering the massive lake ice caverns in winter.
As an artist working in conceptual and Neo-Surrealist two-dimension, sculptural and installation format using thread and free motion stitching, my recent work reflects the continuous exploration and development of the ways that man-made materials can be formed into art that reference nature or natural systems and how they form a new reality when I magnify these human-made “systems.” This attempt is in response to my dissatisfaction with the impact of human behavior on the natural world. I am seeking to create a unique world of my own design, a manufactured Utopia in which to hide.
In my three-dimensional and installation works, I address this by looking at items usually ignored: a small stone kicked aside while walking, a bit of broken glass, a fossil, a shard of twisted metal, a shell, leftover plastic, a microscopic cell. I like to transform those simple, ordinary objects into extraordinary environments in order to give them greater significance. Using the power of scale—from miniscule to gargantuan—I bring to notice an important essence.
The two-dimensional, Neo-Surrealist pieces I create interject personal storytelling into a broad visual commentary on dysfunctional society. My wall works at first glance might be likened to that of a painting - an initial impression of color and form -but the viewer is usually confused by a texture unlike that in painting and is then sucked in for a closer look. I want that element of hidden surprise (“that’s done with thread?!) to grab, so that viewers are drawn in to my visual story.
My recent works have invited humans back into my world. In an attempt to thrust them together to tactilely interact, I create pieces that are completely participatory. Movable elements that viewers can take off or add on open up visual dialogue, creating new stories each time the components are rearranged.
Leisa Rich holds a Master of Fine Arts and Bachelor of fine Arts degrees in Fibers, and a Bachelor of Education in Art. She teaches at arts centers, runs the after school art program at a private school in Atlanta and conduct workshops and arts events. She was featured on the PBS artist special “IN CONTEXT”; in the books “NOPLACENESS- Art in the Post-Urban Landscape” “Studio Quilt: No. 6” “Modern Sculpture”"Hand to Hand: 195 Artists Witness the Iraq War” “The Best of America Sculpture Artists and Artisans” and “Quilt National 2009” and She exhibits locally, nationally and internationally. She has am interactive and permanent installation commissioned for Dallas Museum of Art that opened in November 2011. To learn more about Leisa, please visit www.monaleisa.com.
Courtesy of Leisa Rich
The Textile Art of Leisa Rich
Numerous illnesses have been the muses in my passion for all things fiber, while the negative human impact on nature and unravelling human tactile connection are the catalysts for my subject matter.
As an infant I had a satin-trimmed blanket; the only way I could fall asleep was by working my fingers from one end to the other. At age four, while in the hospital for deafness, my mother made clothes for my Barbie and one particular dress, made of a fiery red satin and lace, provoked my tactile infatuation. At age 15, while attending Interlochen Arts Academy for piano and dance, I developed thyroid complications from mononeucleosis, causing weight gain. I was asked to leave the dance department until I lost the weight, but during that time off a friend suggested I take weaving. I loved it and switched my major to art. Thirty-six years later I'm still hooked!
Growing up in Canada surrounded by lovely, wide-open spaces, fabulous lakes, mountains and a very low human population, I feel most at peace in the natural world. I spent my childhood communing with nature: ice-skating outdoors on natural creeks, days spent alone sifting the sand on the beach of Lake Huron in search of a perfect fossil or wandering the massive lake ice caverns in winter.
As an artist working in conceptual and Neo-Surrealist two-dimension, sculptural and installation format using thread and free motion stitching, my recent work reflects the continuous exploration and development of the ways that man-made materials can be formed into art that reference nature or natural systems and how they form a new reality when I magnify these human-made “systems.” This attempt is in response to my dissatisfaction with the impact of human behavior on the natural world. I am seeking to create a unique world of my own design, a manufactured Utopia in which to hide.
In my three-dimensional and installation works, I address this by looking at items usually ignored: a small stone kicked aside while walking, a bit of broken glass, a fossil, a shard of twisted metal, a shell, leftover plastic, a microscopic cell. I like to transform those simple, ordinary objects into extraordinary environments in order to give them greater significance. Using the power of scale—from miniscule to gargantuan—I bring to notice an important essence.
The two-dimensional, Neo-Surrealist pieces I create interject personal storytelling into a broad visual commentary on dysfunctional society. My wall works at first glance might be likened to that of a painting - an initial impression of color and form -but the viewer is usually confused by a texture unlike that in painting and is then sucked in for a closer look. I want that element of hidden surprise (“that’s done with thread?!) to grab, so that viewers are drawn in to my visual story.
My recent works have invited humans back into my world. In an attempt to thrust them together to tactilely interact, I create pieces that are completely participatory. Movable elements that viewers can take off or add on open up visual dialogue, creating new stories each time the components are rearranged.
Leisa Rich holds a Master of Fine Arts and Bachelor of fine Arts degrees in Fibers, and a Bachelor of Education in Art. She teaches at arts centers, runs the after school art program at a private school in Atlanta and conduct workshops and arts events. She was featured on the PBS artist special “IN CONTEXT”; in the books “NOPLACENESS- Art in the Post-Urban Landscape” “Studio Quilt: No. 6” “Modern Sculpture”"Hand to Hand: 195 Artists Witness the Iraq War” “The Best of America Sculpture Artists and Artisans” and “Quilt National 2009” and She exhibits locally, nationally and internationally. She has am interactive and permanent installation commissioned for Dallas Museum of Art that opened in November 2011. To learn more about Leisa, please visit www.monaleisa.com.
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