Bat Country

Susan Cutts

2012-01-27T04:32:00.002-08:00

Cherish

2011

One of a series of 5 dresses to be exhibited at the Tudor House Museum, Southampton from 3^rd March 2012 – October 2012. Each ‘dress’ has a 2metre drop of tulle sprayed with gampi pulp. The bodice is gampi paper. Within the folds of the dress hang miniature hats and gloves, also made from gampi. The inspiration for Cherish is taken from the history of the Tudor House Museum and Hampshire

Anya Gallaccio

2012-01-27T04:27:00.000-08:00

Three sheets to the wind

2006

I like not knowing what is going to happen. I don’t want to illustrate a process. The process is what I’m interested in, so I have to extend that vocabulary. It’s a collaboration between the material and me.

Anya Gallaccio, 2006

Lost in Lace

2012-01-26T17:00:00.000-08:00

Lace Meander by Piper Shepard, 2006, Photo: Dan Myers

Chiharu Shiota, After the Dream, 2011. Photo: Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery

Inverted Crystal Cathedral, 2011, Atelier Manferdini. Bottom layers (600 crystal strands) donated by Swarovski

Lost in Lace

Exhibition at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (BMAG)

October 2011

www.craftscouncil.org.uk

Jodie Carey

2012-01-26T16:47:00.001-08:00

Untitled (Laces), 2010, chiffon, bone (each) 225cm x 150cm

Blood Lines, 2009, bandages, steel, blood, plastic tubing

(each) 50cm x 50cm x 225cm

Untitled Installation, 2007, lard, newspaper, blood, tea, coffee

(each) 229cm x 106cm x 100cm

"Jodie Carey's work is often monumental. She creates sculptures that overpower and overwhelm the viewer. Whether suspended or floor-based, the grand scale of her work operates as a shrine to the past and its ongoing resonance in the present.Carey’s sculpture plays with extremes, juxtaposing monumental scale with the intricacy of craftsmanship. Her installations are immersive spaces which confront the viewer with the sheer physicality of the objects and the labour intensity of their construction. It celebrates both life and death and considers what it means to be human."

Jessica Harrison

2012-01-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

Fly-Lashes

"My work is based on physiological, philosophical and psychoanalytical research into the body and its senses, focusing in particular on the role of touch in our experience of objects and in the construction of knowledge; how consciousness and perception are choreographed by the senses and spatial form. This is about a perception beginning with the skin rather then the eye, a perception based on the tactile rather than optical space. Through making and sharing these objects, I am hoping to provoke questions in the observer about how their body fits in to the space around it, how space adapts and changes due to our bodies, how things are filtered and communicated through touch."

Lace Lashes

2012-01-26T16:12:00.000-08:00

Mee Ping Leung

2012-01-25T07:50:00.001-08:00

Memorise the Future

1999-2000

800 of 10,000 handmade shoes of human hair

Nagi Noda

2012-01-25T07:42:00.000-08:00

Hair Hats

Nagi Noda for Panasonic

"If an individual is naked are they not still dressed in their body – the language they use, the posture they assume, their belongings, their skin – we tan, cover, expose, coat in make up, our hair – we grow, cut, style or colour, our nails we grow, cut, paint and decorate? If one was to wear only these extensions of self are we still not packaging ourselves in the same was as we do when we wear clothes?"

Julie Rrap

2012-01-25T07:38:00.001-08:00

Hairline Crack

1992

Perspex tubing and Hair

Wenda Gu

2012-01-25T07:36:00.001-08:00

Untitled

1994-95

Multi-racial human hair

Carson Fox

2012-01-25T07:30:00.001-08:00

Pink Slut

2003

Mixed Media

Filigree #8

2006

Wire and artificial hair

"I am interested in beauty, but I mistrust it. Instead, I look for beauty that exists in tension with the materials or the circumstances that invent it.

The selection of material is very important to me, and no material is too mean or humble if it is expressive. I appreciate non-traditional items, and I work on several things at once, often in series. As a consequence, my work usually falls into distinct groupings based on my material or media choices.

My series of “filigree” sculpture was originally inspired by Victorian hair sculpture and jewelry. Historically, these objects were crafted out of the hair of a deceased loved one and acted as a memento of the departed. My own sculptural works are elaborately crafted tapestries of delicate, hair-thin wire that bring to mind lace work on a large scale. Often these objects are hung in such a way that allows the resulting shadows to become important elements of the work. In these sculptures, while the decorative patterning may soothe, the hair like materials impart a sense of dread and mourning."

Modern Hairwork

2012-01-25T06:49:00.000-08:00

Container, detail, 2000, 22" x 30", human hair sewn into paper

J+R (brunette), 2005, 22" x 28", human hair sewn into canvas

Amazing blog, beautiful work link HERE

Sara Bomans

2012-01-25T06:46:00.001-08:00

The Artist

2008

Human hair on paper

Cut the Crap

2009

Hair drawing

Sachiko Abe

2012-01-25T06:40:00.000-08:00

"Sachiko Abe has cut paper for nine years, initially as a private occupation, but now she has taken her practice into the public realm. "

Laura Normandin

2012-01-25T06:38:00.000-08:00

Trivets 1 & 2

Human hair on linen

2003

Melanie Bilenker

2012-01-25T06:25:00.000-08:00

In Bed: Brooch (2004) Still In Bed: Brooch (2004)
Human hair, resin, 18k gold

Brassiere: Locket (2009)

Human hair, resin, 18k gold, pigment, ebony

More Mona Hatoum

2012-01-25T06:20:00.000-08:00

Traffic

2003

Compressed card, beeswax, metal, human hair

Jenny Hart

2012-01-25T06:15:00.001-08:00

Oh Unicorn

2005

Human hair on leather

Jenny Hart is an American artist who works primarily with embroidery. She is the owner and founder of Sublime Stitching

Liyen Chong

2012-01-25T06:05:00.000-08:00

Breathe

2009

Artists hair on cotton

Empire

2008

Asian and Polynesian hair embroidered on cotton

Little dragon looking left

2005

Artists hair on cotton

The Dreamer

2009

Blonde, black, white and red hair embroidered on cotton

I am a woman who dreamt I was a butterfly

2007

Artists hair on cotton

Nina Sparr

2012-01-25T06:01:00.001-08:00

Victorian Hair Work

2012-01-25T05:50:00.000-08:00

Mid-nineteenth century women wearing ahair work cross on a chain.

During the mid-nineteenth century hair work became a popular drawing-room occupation, as fashionable as the much-practiced knitting, netting, and crocheting. By acquiring knowledge of this art, ladies were able to manufacture the hair of beloved friends and relatives into bracelets, chains, rings, earrings, and thus insure that they could actually wear the treasured memento they prized. The objects which were made in hair are more numerous than is generally supposed. An ingenious Victorian hair-worker thought of many little domestic articles which could be either made of hair or ornamented with it. The following were some of the commonest applications: bracelets, brooches, earrings, rings, chains, necklaces, shawl pins, cravat pins, purses, bags, book markers, pencil cases, guards, studs, stud chains, scent bottles, walking sticks and even riding whips.

A Victorian table worked open "beads" hair bow pin with acorn drops. The knot of the bow is gold tone inscribed with the name "Lizzie." It measures 2-1/2" by 1-1/4".
[Photo courtesy of Morning Glory Antiques and Jewelry]

Braiding Frames and Tables

It may seem strange to learn that the most beautiful pieces of hair-work were created upon so simple a frame as a hat or a bandbox, and that even a decanter was sufficient to make various small articles in hair. At times, the bottom part of a bandbox was turned upside down or a hat was stood upon its brim. In either case, a flat table was made, in the center was cut a small round hole, just large enough to put a finger in. If the hole made in the top of the hat or the bandbox was ragged at its edges, pieces of paper were pasted over the rough parts before it was used.

Another form of frame was a wooden cramp screwed onto the projecting rim of a table or the corner of a mantle-piece. Whether this apparatus, or a hat, or a band-box was used as a frame, a circular piece of white paper was pasted over the table, and a hole made in it corresponding with the hole in the table. Freestanding frames were also used, and the most popular were those small in size and light in weight.

A braiding table was very simple in its construction, and cost little; the chief thing necessary was that every part of it was perfectly smooth, as the least roughness would tear the hair and destroy the evenness and beauty of the work.

There were two varieties of braiding tables; the first, or "ladies' table," stood about thirty-two or thirty-three inches high; the secondstood nearly four feet high. The latter table was preferred—although it was more fatiguing to stand than to sit, more command of the work was obtained. Furthermore, with the smaller braiding table, ladies' dresses, when sitting, interfered with and disturbed the weights and their respective strands.

Lockets and Brooches

This type of hair work depended more on the artistic skill, creativity and practice of the worker rather than on any instructions given. For working these, ivory—such as miniature painters use—short lengths of hair (from two to four inches), thread, and gum dragon are all the materials required. For tools, a fine edged penknife, a very delicate pair of scissors with fine sharp points, a couple of pencils, a fine long pin, and a palette were necessary.

The popular lady’s magazines of the era often provided directions and pattern designs for creating these cherished keepsakes. The following are instructions provided in a series of articles in Godey’s Lady's Book in the 1850s.

Directions for Preparing the Hair:

"Sort the tress, which is about to be used, into lengths, tie the ends firmly and quite straight with pack thread, put the hair into a small saucepan with about a pint and a half of water, and a piece of soda of the size of a nut, and boil it for a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes; take it out, shake off the superfluous moisture, and hang it up to dry, but not near a fire."

"When it has become perfectly dry, divide it into strands containing from twenty to thirty hairs each, according to the fineness of the hair or the directions given for the pattern about to be worked. It must be observed that every hair in the strand should be of the same length, and the strands should be all of an equal length."

Victorian hair brooch, basket weave in glass covered
compartment, scalloped design, back indented, 1-1/2".
[Photo courtesy of Morning Glory Antiques and Jewelry]

"Knot each end of each strand, then take the requisite number of leaden weights, weighing about three quarters or half an ounce each, and affix about a quarter of a yard of pack thread to each of them; lay them down side by side on the table, and to the other ends of the pack thread affix the strands of hair already prepared, knotting them on with a weaver's or sailor's knot; care must be taken all this time to prevent any entanglement or derangement of the hair."

"The other ends of the strands must now be gathered together, firmly tied with pack thread, and then gummed with a cement composed of equal parts of yellow wax and shellac melted together and well amalgamated, and then rolled into sticks for use. We now come to the table and the arrangement of the strands on it."

"Figure 1 will exemplify the following directions. To the tied and cemented cluster of ends attach a loop of pack-thread, and hook this on to the small hook in the hole in the center of the table; then lift each strand gently and separately off, and arrange them all smoothly and evenly round the table in the proper order for working the pattern; this done, affix the balance-weight (a collection of three or four similar to these attached to the strands) to the loop in the hole, and allow it to hang down exactly in the center of that hole; a brass tube or wire of the requisite size for the pattern about to be worked must now be placed in the center, with one end of it resting on the hook where the loop of pack-thread has just been taken, and the work is ready to be commenced; each strand having been first examined to see that no loose hairs hang about."

"When the pattern is completed, the center or balance-weight must be detached, and then the pack-threads holding the other weights should be gathered together and cut off. Afterwards, smooth the short ends of the strands of hair on the tube and lay them tightly down to it with thread; then cut off the cemented end, and lie these parts also down in the same way. Take the tube and immerse it in scalding water, and let it simmer there, with the hair work on it, for about ten minutes; withdraw it, shake off the superfluous moisture, and hang it up to dry, not too near a fire; when thoroughly dry, the work must be gently and carefully slid off the tube, each end separately cemented with the before mentioned composition, care being taken to gather up every hair, and the pattern will appear complete and ready to receive whatever clasp, snap, or slide it is thought proper to affix to it."

Victorian table worked hair bracelet with gold stations and clasp,
amazingly delicately worked, circa 1870.
[Photo courtesy of Morning Glory Antiques and Jewelry]

A Pattern for a Bracelet. (Fig. 4.)

"Sixteen strands of twenty-five or thirty hairs each, according to the fineness of the hair. For this pattern the strands must be arranged in fours, and numbered."

"Take the strand which lies on figure 1, at the bottom of the diagram (Fig. 5), and move it towards the left, and into the place of the next figure 1 strand, lifting that and carrying it to the top of figure 1 strand, while this latter in its turn must be removed to the place of the right hand figure 1 strand, which goes to fill the vacant place of the one first lifted at the bottom. Proceed now to figure 2 of the bottom group, and work the strands numbered 2 round in the same way, and in the same direction. The next strand to be raised is figure 3 of the bottom group, and this is to be worked in the same way, but in the opposite direction, that is, towards the right and into the place of strand 3 on the right of the X, which in its turn goes to the top, and the top one to the left, while that from the left hand group comes to the vacant figure 3 at the bottom. Figure 4 is worked in the same way and direction as the threes; then recommence at 1."

"The point to be observed is to move the ones and twos towards the left, and the threes and fours towards the right; always beginning from the bottom group. This pattern should be worked on a brass tube of the thickness of an ordinary lead pencil, or rather larger; and it looks very well over another and closer plaits. Each must then be worked separately and when finished, and perfectly dry, the smaller one should be passed through the larger, and the ends of the two cemented firmly together. For such purpose, we should advise that the Fig. 2 pattern should be worked on a larger wire, perhaps of the size of a No. 10 knitting needle."

Victorian braided hair watch chain
with gold fittings, 10-1/3".
[Photo courtesy of Morning Glory
Antiques and Jewelry]

A Pattern for a Chain or Guard. (Fig. 2.)

"For this pattern, sixteen strands, each consisting of about twenty hairs, are required. These must be arranged in pairs on the circle on the table, at equal distances, and so that the opposite pairs shall be in direct lines with each other."

"Number them with a piece of while crayon chalk, as in the above diagram (Fig. 3), and commence working as follows:

Take up the two bottom strands over figure 1, and remove them to the position of the opposite pair over the opposite figure 1, bringing back that opposite pair to the position before occupied by those just removed. Proceed then to the pair of strands over the right hand figure 2, and in the same manner lift them into the places of the strands over the opposite figure 2, and bring these latter back. Work those over figure 3 and figure 4 in the same manner, lifting those from the right hand side over to the left, and bringing the latter back."

"Then recommence at figure 1, and repeat this pattern until the hair is worked up; remembering never to cross the strands, but simply lift them over gently and without jerking from one side to the other. This chain may be worked in pieces of three or four inches each, and then united with gold slides, or in only two or three portions, or in one continuous length; but this latter plan would require the hair to be longer than we can usually obtain it, namely, from fifteen to twenty inches or more in length. It should be worked on a brass wire of about the size of a No. 15 or No. 16 knitting needle."

Hair Work Earrings

Earrings were usually worked with moulds rather than tubes or wires. Below are examples of three molds illustrated in Godey's Lady's Book.

Victorian 14k yellow gold hair earrings, each a foil-backed
closed collet set dark citrines suspending an
acorn-shaped woven hair pendant earring, 1-1/2".
[Photo courtesy of Morning Glory Antiques and Jewelry]

Chain or Guard Pattern (Fig. 6)

"Ten strands only, of about twenty hairs each, are required for this. They must be arranged thus:

Take figure 1 from the bottom, and move it round in the direction pointed out by the arrows into the place of figure 1 at the top, bringing that round and down to the bottom; so on with the twos, threes, fours, and fives, always working in the direction pointed out—namely lifting the right hand strand into the place of the left, and that round to the right: they should be lifted round, and not crossed over. A wire about the size of a No. 15 knitting needle will do best to work this on. Bear in mind that the strands are to be worked in the order in which they are numbered."

"A very pretty bracelet may be made with this pattern by increasing the size of the strands (putting from thirty to thirty-five hairs in each), and working on a tube of the size of a No. 6 knitting needle. Three lengths of the pattern must then be made, and twisted together so as to form a kind of rope or cable, and firmly cemented together at the ends."

Victorian hair bow bracelet of open weave table
work with engraved initials "AVP" on clasp.
[Photo courtesy of Morning Glory Antiques and Jewelry]

A Snake Bracelet Pattern (Fig. 8)

"Thirty-two strands of from twenty to thirty hairs each, and arranged in groups of fours, as evenly as possible, are needed for this pattern, which may be worked on a tube of the same size ordered for Fig. 4 pattern, or on a flat brass mesh about half or three-quarters of an inch in breadth, or on a mould large at one end and diminishing towards the other. In this latter form, it constitutes the fashionable snake bracelet."

"A cross must be made with crayon chalk to indicate where the pattern always commences; and the strands must be kept as much as possible in their places. Commence thus, working towards the left:

Take the outside right hand strand of the first group of four immediately on the left of the cross, and pass it over the one next to it; take the outside left hand strand of this same group, and pass it over the two next to it; repeat these movements with this group, and then proceed to the next four, and work them in the same way; and so on all round the table, until you again come to the cross. This forms the first part of the plait."

"Then take two strands from the right of the cross and two from the left of it, to form the group of four, and rearrange the fours all round, taking the outside twos of each neighboring set to form the fresh grouping. Begin as before with the four immediately on the left of the cross; take the two middle strands, and pass them over the outside ones, and then under them, and so into the middle again; cross the left hand middle strand over the right hand one, then pass the right hand outside strand over the two middle ones, and then the left hand outside strand over the three others; proceed to the next group of four and work them in the same way, and so on all round the board. The pattern is now complete; the strands must be restored to their original places and groups, and we recommence with the first part of the plait."

"In working this pattern, great care must be observed in the altering and restoring the arrangement of the strands in their several groups at each change of the plait. The opposite groups must also be kept as much as possible in parallel lines, as the symmetry of the work depends on attention to these niceties."

REFERENCES:

Godey's Lady's Book: 1850, 1851, 1859

Rosie Leventon

2012-01-25T05:18:00.000-08:00

THE FRONT ROOM

human hair art

The gallery produced a linked series of conceptual installations by five different artists in their independent artist-led space the front room which is attached to the salt gallery in Hayle, Cornwall. Each installation was shown in the dedicated installation space for two months. The series of exhibitions was united by the idea of women in the front room. The front room of the house is traditionally where the domestic interior meets the outside world. It is used for formal occasions for work and for key life events. The contents of the room can symbolise and represent the aspirations and personality of the occupier of the room. The domestic setting combined with an outward outlook resonates strongly with women, whose life experience often demands a similar approach. Five female artists from around the UK and Europe have been chosen in line with the gallery's selection policy. Their proposals for women in the front room are conceptually and artistically powerful. My idea for the show was very simple. I wanted to create a very ordinary room, and then to introduce something quite extraordinary at one side. A kind of strange wall that appears to be slithering or shuffling through where you least expect it. Its surfaces are covered by thick and dense human hair which smelt of the kind of hair products that are used by both women and men. The waves of the wall increase as they go to the left a bit like a claustrophobic curtain.

Materials: Human hair, armchairs, TV, coffee table, books coke cans etc.

Dimensions: 2.17 x 4.52 x 3.8 m

Francois Robert

2012-01-24T16:40:00.000-08:00

Andrew Krasnow

2012-01-24T16:38:00.000-08:00

48 Star Flag

Map

"The artist creates flags, lampshades, boots and other everyday items from the skin of people who donated their bodies to medical science. Krasnow says that each piece is a statement on America’s ethics. “The objective was to express my concerns about the war and that it would not be conducted in a way that was moral and ethical,” he said. “Since that question wasn’t permitted in a museum, the work became more complex, with all the inherent contradictions of what it means to be an American or, for that matter, to be human."

Suren Manveylan

2012-01-24T09:07:00.001-08:00

Suren Manveylan Photography

Joined

2012-01-24T06:27:00.000-08:00

Relation in Time

Marina Abramovic’ and Ulay

Originally performed in 1977 for 17 hours at Studio G7, Bologna.

Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva

2012-01-24T05:41:00.000-08:00

Motectum 2009, 'Gunna', (dress - preserved chicken skins and chicken head).

Performance by Mitra Memarzia, dress by Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva, photo by John Ryan

Helen Chadwick

2012-01-24T05:37:00.000-08:00

Loop the Loop

1991, Sows intestine and human hair

Kathy Prendergast

2012-01-24T05:18:00.001-08:00

A Dream of Discipline, 1989-2006, mattress and chalk, 225 x

135 x 120 cm Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery Collection, Dublin

Black Bed , 2007, patinated bronze with paint, 10 x 158 x 96 cm

Grave Blanket (Version 1), 1997, woolen blanket and marble chippings, 108 x 71 cm

Nathan Mellor

2012-01-24T05:07:00.001-08:00

Hippy Dialectics, 2010

2012-01-23T12:27:00.000-08:00

Braiding

2012-01-20T05:45:00.000-08:00

Favourites

2012-01-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

Louise Bourgeois' Spiders

2012-01-18T07:44:00.000-08:00

In her art, women became houses, mothers became spiders, and spiders hung around "the doorways of the years" like prostitutes. In one sculpture, she portrayed her husband, the art historian Robert Goldwater, as a vulnerable, almost feminine head emerging from a writhing nest of flopping penises – she wanted to make him sexy, she said; and she also produced a costume bulging with rows of breasts, to be worn by a man. We are all vulnerable, and all male-female, she said.

Spider Woman

2012-01-18T07:39:00.000-08:00

In the beginning there were only two: Tawa, the Sun God, and Spider Woman, the Earth Goddess. All the mysteries and power in the Above belonged to Tawa, while Spider Woman controlled the magic of the Below. In the Underworld, abode of the Gods, they dwelt and they were All. There was neither man nor woman, bird nor beast, no living thing until these Two willed it to be.

In time it came to them that there should be other Gods to share their labors. So Tawa divided himself and there came Muiyinwuh, God of All Life Germs; Spider Woman also divide herself so that there was Huzruiwuhti, Woman of the Hard Substances, the Goddess of all hard ornaments of wealth such as coral, turquoise, silver and shell. Huzruiwuhti became the always-bride of Tawa. They were the First Lovers and of their union there came into being those marvelous ones the Magic Twins -- Puukonhoya, the Youth, and Palunhoya, the Echo. As time unrolled there followed Hicanavaiya, Ancient of Six (the Four World Quarters, the Above and Below), Man-Eagle, the Great Plumed Serpent and many others. But Masauwhu, the Death God, did not come of these Two but was bad magic, who appeared only after the making of creatures.

And then it came about that these Two had one Thought and it was a might Thought -- that they would make the Earth to be between the Above and the Below where now lay shimmering only the Endless Waters. So they sat them side by side, swaying their beautiful bronze bodies to the pulsing music of their own great voices, making the First Magic Song, a song of rushing winds and flowing waters, a song of light and sound and life.

"I am Tawa," sang the Sun God. "I am Light. I am Life. I am Father of all that shall ever come."

"I am Kokyanwuhti," the Spider Woman crooned. "I receive Light and nourish Life. I am Mother of all that shall ever come."

"Many strange thoughts are forming in my mind -- beautiful forms of birds to float in the Above, of beasts to move upon the Earth and fish to swim in the Waters," intoned Tawa.

"Now let these things that move in the Though of Tawa appear," chanted Spider Woman, while with her slender fingers she caught up clay from beside her and made the Thoughts of Tawa take form. One by one she shaped them and laid them aside -- but they breathed not nor moved.

"We must do something about this," said Tawa. "It is not good that they lie thus still and quiet. Each thing that has a form must also have a spirit. So now, my beloved, we must make a mighty Magic."

They laid a white blanket over the many figures, a cunningly woven woolen blanket, fleecy as a cloud, and made a mighty incantation over it, and soon the figures stirred and breathed.

"Now, let us make ones like unto you and me, so that they may rule over and enjoy these lesser creatures," sang Tawa, and Spider Woman shaped the Thoughts into woman and man figures like unto their own. But after the blanket magic had been made, the figures remained inert. So Spider Woman gathered them all in her arms and cradled them, while Tawa bent his glowing eyes upon them. The two now sang the magic Song of Life over them, and at last each human figure breathed and lived.

"Now that was a good thing and a mighty thing," said Tawa. "So now all this is finished, and there shall be no new things made by us. Those things we have made shall multiply. I will make a journey across the Above each day to shed my light upon them and return each night to Huzruiwuhti. And now I shall go to turn my blazing shield upon the Endless Waters, so that the Dry Land may appear. And this day will be the first day upon Earth."

"Now I shall lead all these created beings to the land that you shall cause to appear above the waters," said Spider Woman. Then Tawa took down his burnished shield from the turquoise wall of the kiva and swiftly mounted his glorious was to the Above. After Spider Woman had bent her wise, all-seeing eyes upon the thronging creatures about her, she wound her way among them, separating them into groups.

"Thus and thus shall you be and thus shall you remain, each one in her own tribe forever. You are Zunis, you are Kohoninos, you are Pah-Utes..." The Hopis, all, all people were named by Kokyanwuhti then.

Placing her Magic Twins beside her, Spider Woman called all the people to follow where she led. Through all the Four Great Caverns of the Underworld she led them until they finally came to an opening, a sipapu, which led above. This came out at the lowest depth of the Pisisbaiya (the Colorado River) and was the place where the people were to come to gather salt. So lately had the Endless Waters gone down that the Turkey, Koyona, pushing early ahead, dragged its tail feathers in the black mud where the dark bands were to remain forever.

Mourning Dove flew overhead, calling to some to follow, and those who followed where his sharp eyes had spied out springs and built beside them were called "Huwinyamu" after him. So Spider Woman chose a creature to lead each clan to a place to build their house. The Puma, the Snake, the Antelope, the Deer, and other Horn creatures, each led a clan to a place to build their house. Each clan henceforth bore the name of the creature who had led them.

The Spider Woman spoke to them thus: "The woman of the clan shall build the house, and the family name shall descend through her. She shall be house builder and homemaker. She shall mold the jars for the storing of food and water. She shall grind the grain for food and tenderly rear and teach the young. The man of the clan shall build kivas of stone under the ground. In these kivas the man shall make sand pictures as altars. Of colored sand shall he make them, and they shall be called 'ponya.' The man too shall weave the clan blankets with their proper symbols. The man shall fashion himself weapons and furnish his family with game."

Stooping down, she gathered some sand in her hand, letting it run out in a thin, continuous stream. "See the movement of the sand? That is the life that will cause all things therein to grow. The Great Plumed Serpent, Lightning, will rear and strike the earth to fertilize it; Rain Cloud will pour down waters, and Tawa will smile upon it so that green things will spring up to feed my children."

Her eyes now sought the Above where Tawa was descending toward his western kiva in all the glory of red and gold. "I go now, but have no fear, for we Two will be watching over you. Look upon me now, my children, ere I leave. Obey the words I have given you, and all will be well. If you are in need of help, call upon me, and I will send my sons to your aid."

The people gazed wide-eyed upon her shining beauty. Her woven upper garment of soft white wool hung tunic-wise over a blue skirt. On its left side was woven a band bearing the Butterfly and Squash Blossom, in designs of red and yellow and green with bands of black appearing in between. Her neck was hung with heavy necklaces of turquoise, shell and coral, and pendants of the same hung from her ears. Her face was fair, with warm eyes and tender lips, and her form most graceful. Upon her feet were skin boots of gleaming white, and they now turned toward where the sand spun about in whirlpool fashion. She held up her right hand and smiled upon them, then stepped upon the whirling sand. Wonder of wonders, before their eyes the sands seemed to suck her swiftly down until she disappeared entirely from their sight.

Amaterasu Omikami

2012-01-18T06:51:00.000-08:00

Amaterasu Omikami
(Ama Terasu) The Great Goddess Spirit Shining in Heaven, this Japanese Sun Goddess ruled weaving and agriculture. Disgusted with her brother because of his violence toward women, Amaterasu enclosed herself in a cave and refused to come out. Eight hundred deities gathered outside her self-made isolation and tried to lure her out with a loud celebration. Hearing the loud commentaries on an erotic dance being performed by the crone Goddess Ame No Uzume, Amaterasu emerged, overcome with curiosity. Seeing her radiance reflected in a mirror that had been set up outside the entrance, she was amazed at her brilliance which she had never seen before. She returned to the world and life was renewed. The snake, draped on her arm, holds her brother's sword which she broke into 3 pieces that became Goddesses. The Japanese Shinto sun goddess, ruler of the Plain of Heaven, whose name means 'shining heaven' or 'she who shines in the heavens'. She is the central figure in the Shinto pantheon and the Japanese Imperial family claims descent from her. She is the eldest daughter of Izanagi. She was so bright and radiant that her parents sent her up the Celestial Ladder to heaven, where she has ruled ever since.

Hubert Duprat

2012-01-12T11:02:00.000-08:00

Duprat's aquatic caddis fly larvae, with cases incorporating gold, opal, and turquoise, among other materials.

The images above illustrate the results of an unusual artistic collaboration between the French artist Hubert Duprat and a group of caddis fly larvae. A small winged insect belonging to the order Trichoptera and closely related to the butterfly, caddis flies live near streams and ponds and produce aquatic larvae that protect their developing bodies by manufacturing shea ths, or cases, spun from silk and incorporating substances—grains of sand, particles of mineral or plant material, bits of fish bone or crustacean shell—readily available in their benthic ecosystem. The larvae are remarkably adaptable: if other suitable materials are introduced into their environment, they will often incorporate those as well.

Duprat, who was born in 1957, began working with caddis fly larvae in the early 1980s. An avid naturalist since childhood, he was aware of the caddis fly in its role as a favored bait for trout fishermen, but his idea for the project depicted here began, he has said, after observing prospectors panning for gold in the Ariège river in southwestern France. After collecting the larvae from their normal environments, he relocates them to his studio where he gently removes their own natural cases and then places them in aquaria that he fills with alternative materials from which they can begin to recreate their protective sheaths. He began with only gold spangles but has since also added the kinds of semi-precious and precious stones (including turquoise, opals, lapis lazuli and coral, as well as pearls, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds) seen here. The insects do not always incorporate all the available materials into their case designs, and certain larvae, Duprat notes, seem to have better facility with some materials than with others. Additionally, cases built by one insect and then discarded when it evolves into its fly state are sometimes recovered by other larvae, who may repurpose it by adding to or altering its size and form.

Duprat traces his work with the caddis fly larvae back to pioneering nineteenth-century entomologists such as François-Jules Pictet and Jean-Henri Fabre, who both conducted experiments in which structure-building insects were given alternative, non-indigenous materials. Seen within the context of the artist's work—a practice that has often addressed aspects of mimesis in the realms of both nature and facture through his conceptual sculptural activities—the caddis fly larvae project is an example of Duprat's ongoing interest in productive collisions between organic forms and technologized materials. Yet the work also provokes broader philosophical questions regarding behavior and intent, one that was summarized particularly astutely by the critic and philosopher Christian Besson, in a conversation with the artist conducted in the late 1990s:

Kant's distinction between works of art and those of nature leaves us in a quandary. The production of the artifact within nature herself poses a problem—even more so when an aesthetic aspect is involved. Whether the insect is a craftsperson or whether, more generally, nature is a creator of forms, the consideration, within nature, of an aesthetic dimension is the stumbling block of science. ...

Your activity as an artist, upsetting the ordinary ethology of the insect, seems to me to be the same thing as introducing a noise, complicating itsumwelt and producing a response. In your diversion of the caddis worm's behavior, in your artistic manipulation, the effect is twofold. From a biological viewpoint, a random event triggers self-organization. From a human viewpoint, the experimenter's intent produces this effect. ...

Is the caddis worm's precious case the work of the insect or the work of the artist? This is not the right question. The contradiction can be resolved by the differing viewpoints. According to the first view, the caddis worm owed nothing to the artist (who is simply the author of one noise among the thousands of other noises in its environment). According to the second view, the caddis worm is merely the executor of the artist's project. The artistic statement plays on the confusion of the two levels by overlaying the two perspectives. The aesthetic result (at once natural and artistic) turns the caddis worm's case—which is more than an assisted ready-made or a diversion—into a doubly exposed object...¹
—Jeffrey Kastner

Yukinori Yanagi

2012-01-12T10:58:00.000-08:00

The World Flag Ant Farm (1990)

This piece consists of 170 ant farms, each of which has its sand in the configuration of a nation's flag. Over the course of the exhibition, the ants shift the sand around and build a nest.

Aganetha Dyck

2012-01-12T10:07:00.000-08:00

Cath Keay

2012-01-12T04:53:00.001-08:00

Cath Keay’s doctoral project builds on her previous, long-running work on bees and wax sculpture to investigate ways in which art and the natural world can interact, exploring dynamic natural processes that can influence the final form of a sculpture. Keay’s sculptural works provide a basis for animal colonisation in natural environments (a wax architectural sculpture in a beehive; terracotta text sculptures in the sea); over time it is possible to investigate the way in which these animal forms adapt to and alter the artworks, creating beauty in nature’s response to human intervention. Her work highlights the role of nature as collaborator in the creation of the artistic product.

Keay’s original work on bees and wax sculptures, from which her present projects evolved, reflected on humans and bees as social creatures, within the context of 1930s utopian architecture. By creating an art deco-style wax building and placing it in a hive as a starter structure for bees to use to build wax cells, it was possible to observe how human architecture and bee architecture could merge.
Her present work refers to the vast number of organisms living in the sea that we know nothing about, and the difficulty of preserving sea life for study. The words that Keay chose to place in the sea are ‘fecundity’, ‘feracity’ and ‘uberty’, all variations on the theme of fruitfulness, and the flowing, italic form of the sculptures expresses this theme further. Through this project an interest in Victorian understandings of art and science has also emerged: the use of Victorian tanks at the Newcastle University’s Dove marine laboratory has resulted in her focussing on Ruskin, particularly his crossover interest in art and science and his negative response to Darwinism.
Keay also hopes to develop her work in the future to grow crystals in forms of Utopian architecture.

Macramé

2012-01-08T08:55:00.000-08:00

A form of decorative knotting, Macramé (also known as Mexican Lace) is believed to originate from 13th century Arab weavers, who knotted the excess threads along the edges of their textiles into decorative fringing.

http://encyclopediaofneedlework.com/chapter_11.html

Slumber

2012-01-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

Janine Antoni

Slumber

As Antoni sleeps, the electroencephalograph (EEG) machine records her rapid eye movements (REM) which correspond to her periods of dreaming in the sleep cycle.By day Antoni will use the REM graph to weave the pattern into the blanket she sleeps under using strips torn from her nightgown. Antoni has performed this piece at six other installations, each time wearing a nightgown meaningful to the venue. At MASS MoCA she will wear a nightgown made from textiles printed at the mill when it housed Arnold Print Works from the 1860s to the 1940s. Museum visitors are allowed access to the gallery during the day when Antoni is weaving, but the museum is closed to the public at night while Antoni is doing her dream work.

The Multiple Store

2012-01-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Callan
Poem, 2000

Cornelia Parker

Meteorite Lands in the Middle of Nowhere, 2001

Anya Gallaccio

Cast, 2003

http://www.themultiplestore.org/

Useful

2012-01-06T09:00:00.000-08:00

The Encyclopedia of Needlework

2011-11-15T07:28:00.000-08:00

red

2011-11-08T07:00:00.000-08:00

The Grandmothers Tale

2011-11-08T06:55:00.000-08:00

The Grandmothers Tale

When the girl arrived, the bzou called out, "Pull the peg and come in, my child."
"Grandmother," said the girl, "Mother sent me here with a galette and a cream."
"Put them in the pantry, child. Are you hungry?
"Yes, I am, Grandmother."
"Then cook the meat that you'll find on the shelf. Are you thirsty?"
"Yes, I am, Grandmother."
"Then drink the bottle of wine you'll find on the shelf beside it, child."
As the young girl cooked and ate the meat, a little cat piped up and cried, "You are eating the flesh are your grandmother!"
"Throw your shoe at that noisy cat," said the bzou, and so she did.
As she drank the wine, a small bird cried, "You are drinking the blood of your grandmother!"
"Throw your other shoe at that noisy bird," said the bzou, and so she did.
When she finished her meal, the bzou said, "Are you tired from your journey, child? Then take off your clothes, come to bed, and I shall warm you up."
"Where shall I put my apron, Grandmother?"
"Throw it on the fire, child, for you won't need it anymore."
"Where shall I put my bodice, Grandmother?"
"Throw it on the fire, for you won't need it anymore."
The girl repeats this question for her skirt, her petticoat, and her stockings. The bzou gives the same answer, and she throws each item on the fire.

Coatings

2011-10-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

Ana Mendieta

Ana Mendieta (18 November 1948 – 8 September 1985) was a Cuban-American artist famous for her performance art and “earth-body” sculptural, photographic, and video work.

Mendieta’s early approaches to art could be considered revolutionary, even in their roughest forms. She was especially intrigued by challenging the established materials of art – canvas, paint, paper, etc – and instead explored a great range of unused and disregarded materials, such as the human body. The human body had been generally regarded as one of the most important components of artistic works, as a subject. It was Ana who decided to experiment with the human body as a tool for creative expression, where it was not only the objective of the work but also the means of execution itself. The first record of her conscious work as a means of expression is 1973. An incident of rape and murder had occurred on the Iowa campus, and Ana wanted to protest against the campus administration’s approach to the issue (the usual hush-hush approach and, in general, bad PR).

Ana Mendieta’s early artistic experiments (roughly 1972 – 78) involved a lot of cosmetic refinement and elaboration. Challenging both physical expectations as well as throwing subtle hints at gender roles, she would utilise makeup, glass, and sometimes even shampoo to modify her upper body into different and controversial configurations, assuming different personalities and stances throughout her photographed works. Her video experiments are much more theatrical in their span; they feature a symbolic plot and timeline – the life of a particular piece she had conceived.

At the start of 1975 her body-centred art found a new height: the production of the Silueta series, in which she imprints of her own body merged in the landscape. Some critics have drawn parallels between her Siluetas and the early work of feminist artists that sought to re-establish the link between the female form and the Mother Earth figure. Mendieta, however, had a different concept behind her work. She had apparently been fascinated by the concept of ‘Mythical Geology’ as well as the Rupestrian art and it was this that she sought to achieve in her works.

Kiki Smith

2011-10-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

Kiki Smith Untiltled 1987-90

In this work, twelve water-cooler bottles, silvered to a mirror surface, are each engraved with the name of a different bodily fluid: blood, tears, urine, milk, and more. The piece was inspired, Smith has said, by the medieval book of hours, the volumes of Christian observance that provided “some kind of meditation, something you could think about or believe in,” for every hour of the day. Choosing “fluids everyone knows about that come out of the body,” Smith found physical substitutes for the intangibles of religious belief.

CONSERT

2011-10-25T11:47:00.000-07:00

The Concordia Sensoria Research Team (CONSERT)

BEYOND THE AESTHETIC GAZE: FOR AN AESTHETICS OF THE "OTHER" SENSES (1997-2001)

Projects of interest

- THE HANDS-ON MUSEUM: TRANSITION PERIODS.

THE SENSORY MUSEUM: ITS HISTORY AND REINVENTION.

ANTHROPOLOGY OF ODOR

SENTIENCE: A PERFORMANCE SALON

Art and Synesthesia

2011-10-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

"What would be truly surprising would be to find that sound could not suggest colour, that colours could not evoke the idea of a melody, and that sound and colour were unsuitable for the translation of ideas, seeing that things have always found their expression through a system of reciprocal analogy."

Baudelaire

To some degree, all experience is synesthetic because the 'synesthetic experience'is the result of 'the united senses of the mind'.

The human sensorium; touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing have synesthetic qualities in their interactive connections. We see the 'synesthetic experience' particularly in all forms of art —in poetry, painting, sculpture and music. The 'synesthetic experience' serves as a means to unify the arts through a psychological unity of the senses. Synesthesia refers to the transfer of qualities from one sensory domain to another, to the translation of texture to tone or of tone to colour, smell or taste. Because the various modes of art rest on and appeal to different senses, synesthesia correspondences among the senses and synesthesia can point to similarities and analogues, as well as to metaphors or differences among the artistic forms.

source link

more oppenheim

2011-10-25T09:51:00.000-07:00

"Oppenheim’s verbal ”Self- portrait from 50.000 BC to X” (1980), the last of her published poems, maybe to be considered as her final stance. The poem starts with the feet. In a stalactite cave, naked feet washed by the warm currents of a prehistoric sea stand on stone, worn down by many steps. The poem then proceeds upwards until it reaches a stomach full of bear’s meat, and goes on towards her breasts and arms, covered with scales of leather armour. It ends with her hands, holding a white turtle, made of marble. 11 The person in the poem looks on red walls surrounding a distant city. Finally, the poem reaches the head, where thoughts buzz as in a beehive. The thoughts are shut in, whereas the thinking person is shut out, looking at the promised city from afar. All this can be understood as a comment on the position of women in the surrealist group or the world of art, and so far the poem deals with identity and self. From then on the focus shifts towards ideas in history, and the passing of time. The person in the poem writes her thoughts down, but the fire of the library of Alexandria consumes the written text, and a black serpent with a white head, kept at a museum in Paris, is also lost in a fire. The apocalyptic atmosphere is enhanced in the last stanzas where all the thoughts of the world circle the earth in a colossal sphere of ideas. The earth explodes, the sphere is shattered, and the thoughts are spread out into the universe, continuing to exist on other planets. 12

This poem travels from toes to thoughts, and encounter many of the elements often used in Oppenheim’s artistic work to explore the relation between touch and ideas. The sense of womb-warm water against skin and stone reappears in Steinfrau (Stone Woman, 1938), an oil-painting of some boulders in the form of a woman resting on the shore with her feet in a passing stream; strange and abundant food, but sea-food rather than bear-meat, forms an essential part of her Frühlingsfest (Spring Banquet, 1959); and the protective clothing borrowed or robbed from animals––made of fur, hide or feathers––returns in various items, often masks and ornaments, of fur or feather, and the serpent, preferably the simultaneously black and white snake, is another powerful symbol in her artistic work.13"

"Fingertip Knowledge" Elizabeth Mansen

Meret Oppenheim

2011-10-25T09:41:00.000-07:00

Meret Oppenheim

"Sitting Figure with Folded Hands"

1933

"a human figure is portrayed in its most basic composition; the head, an inexpressive oval white shape, which does not offer the physiognomist any help i judging Oppenheim's character from her facial features since most of her essential sense organs - her eyes, ears, nose and mouth are lacking."

ftp://ftp.slav.su.se/pub/littvet/Idehisttexter/mansenfingertips.pdf

smell

2011-10-25T09:34:00.000-07:00

A natural history of the senses

2011-10-25T09:30:00.000-07:00

Googlebook

G.K. Chesterton - The Song of Quoodle

2011-10-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

Smellscape

2011-10-25T08:50:00.000-07:00

Women's Archives

2011-10-25T08:26:00.000-07:00

Link to essay

"The electronic inventory can only replicate the level of effort that has gone into the hands on management of a physical collection. (.......) Whatever the personal system of organization had been it has not survived (....) the institution has not chosen to reconstruct it. Consequently we are left with nine archival boxes of nearly 300 scribblers whose order, as inventoried is utterly random"

Janine Antoni

2011-10-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

"Chocolate Gnaw"

1992

"Lard Gnaw"

1992

Lick and Lather

2011-10-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

Janine Antoni. Lick & Lather, 1993.

2011-10-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

Sensory Studies

2011-10-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

Glasgow's Turner connection

2011-10-18T14:16:00.000-07:00

This week, the work of all four shortlisted artists goes on show at the Baltic, Gateshead – and two are Glaswegian: Martin Boyce, whose sculptures do fearful things with modernist interior design; and Karla Black, who uses lipstick, pastel-coloured candles, eyeshadow and sugar paper as her materials. Artists based or born in the city who have been shortlisted in the recent past include Jim Lambie, Christine Borland, Cathy Wilkes, Lucy Skaer and Nathan Coley. There have been two further winners in Douglas Gordon and Simon Starling.

If the Turner prize provides a rough-and-ready compass bearing for visual art in Britain, the needle has for some time been twitching towards this grandiose, grandiloquent, sometimes rough-and-ready city. Why? A clue can be found in the first issue, from September 1991, of the contemporary art magazine Frieze. It contains an interview with three artists in their early 20s. They have just graduated from the Glasgow School of Art. They are articulate, cocky and funny. They seem to know, with an intense certainty, that they are artists, not just art-school graduates. One writes off, with breathtaking chutzpah, a then-prominent school of Scottish painters as "a tiny, unimportant part of the international art world". Another, while admitting such a formulation is crass, says their own work has "more to do with hip-hop and the Face than Constable". These young guns are Douglas Gordon, Nathan Coley and Martin Boyce. Five years after the interview, Gordon – now best known for film works such as 24-Hour Psycho and Zidane – won the Turner prize.

link below

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2011/oct/17/glasgow-turner-prize?fb=optOut

Honey

2011-10-16T10:39:00.000-07:00

http://topics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/11/honey-bees-a-history/

http://www.thebeegoddess.com/

http://books.google.ca/books?id=QmevzbQ0AsIC&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14&dq=honey+history+symbology&source=bl&ots=oNG95RZ0xr&sig=-wm0soA4C_z3q5QeOLoUdTiF2ZU&hl=en&ei=T_SmTsyqK-bq0gGI-eCTDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CGkQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Karen Finley

2011-10-16T06:17:00.000-07:00

Honey Dripper: Karen Finley in Shut Up & Love Me

Is Winnie the reason she's wallowing in honey in the new show? She laughs: "Partly. When I roll into it, on a canvas, and dance about, it's fun and it's beautiful."

While we talk, Finley's daughter peeps in, wanting to be tucked in. "You wanna go to sleep, honey?" And, there, I have my answer. Honey.

It's more than the aphrodesiac effect or the look of an Adam-tempting toffee-apple body gilded and dripping in amber. It's about love and affection. About good old fashioned sweetness.

Dyes

2011-10-14T17:48:00.000-07:00

Different Plant Dyes:

Catechu (brown) - from resin(sticky substance that comes from plant) of acacia tree.
Fustic (yellow) - from the wood of the fustic tree.
Henna (orange-red) - from leaves of the henna plant.
Indigo (blue), is from leaves and stems of the indigo plant.
Logwood (black) - from the core(heart) of the logwood tree.
Madder (Turkey red) - from the roots of the madder plant.
Quercitron (yellow) - from the inner bark of the black oak tree.
Saffron (yellow) - from stigmas of the common crocus.
Turmeric (violet) - from roots of the turmeric plant.Major Animal Dyes:
- Cochineal (red) - from bodies of cochineal insects.
- Tyrian Purple (purple or crimson) - from the bodies of some types of marine snails.
- Sepia (brown) - from secretions of several types of cuttlefish.
Mineral Dyes:
- Chrome Green - from a compound of chromium and oxygen.
- Chrome Red - from a compound of chromium and lead.
- Chrome Yellow - from a compound of chromic acid and lead.
- Prussian Blue - from a compound of iron and cyanide.

Jannis Kounellis

2011-10-06T11:14:00.000-07:00

Unititled 1968

Wood and Wool

This work was made at the time of Kounellis’s first involvement with Arte Povera. The carefully dyed but loosely wrapped hanks of uncarded wool epitomise Kounellis’s choice of simple materials at this time. Linked with Arte Povera’s exploration of basic media, they also suggest Kounellis’s attraction to earlier civilisations. Although he had abandoned painting at this stage in his career, he later suggested that the structure of this work had been partly inspired by Jackson Pollock, with the hanging wool teased out to mimic dripped paint. (From the display caption April 2009)

Magdalena Abakanowicz

2011-10-06T07:21:00.000-07:00

Magdalena Abakanowicz

" Abakans"

Beverly Semmes

2011-10-06T07:18:00.001-07:00

Lenore Tawney

2011-10-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

The Crossing, 1998, waxed linen, 96 x 48 x 24"

Tau, 1974, linen, 6 2/3 x 9 feet

"I become timeless when I work with fiber. Each line, each knot is a prayer..."
"Throughout the work, Tawney's intention is the same -- to represent what is not seen , to express the essence. Frequently, she does this through the use of basic, universal symbols such as the circle within the square (representing the unity of self) or the cross (representing the meeting of opposites and the point at which linear and eternal time meet). The surfaces of ["Tau" and "In Fields of Light"] are interrupted only by slits in the tapestry that reinforce their strong geometry, and form and color are distilled to their essence. On this scale, the viewer is literally enveloped 'in fields of light.'" Kathleen Nugent Mangan, from the catalogue for Tawney's Exhibit at the Stedelijk Musuem, Amsterdam, 1996
"I'm following the path of the heart." Tawney says, "I don't know where the path is going."

Teruyoshi Yoshida

2011-10-04T10:34:00.000-07:00

Teruyoshi Yoshida
Surface of the Lake
Cotton cloth, gold leaf, iron
1985

Sensual Material

2011-09-30T10:16:00.000-07:00

Sensual Material

by Cynthia Atwood

In my studio I am motivated by attraction to materials and the pleasure I take in handling them. I make objects that confront my body and the body of my viewer with sensuous humor and some provocation. I am interested in the unrecognizable, the repressed. What is beyond our immediate reality? What is the mystery of our associative, psychological state in regards to our perception of what is underneath our skin? Often there are details of clothing in my work, zippers, piping, button holes, referring to the fashion we cover ourselves with, our facade. My work is an exaggerated reference to the body. It reflects the paradox of intelligence opposing bestiality, the body couture. Our facade is an obsession. The materiality, sensuality, and labor invested in my work are expressions of the body.

Fabric is malleable. I can push it together, or stretch it, it “grows”. The urge toward the visceral is a desire for vitality expressed through the handling of my materials. The diligence of needlework brings materials alive, stitch by stitch.The way materials attract me, (again the Eros principle), is very important. Texture, sheen, sense of hand and color are all key. I want to touch them.These are materials that are easily available and possible for me to work in my studio. I learned to sew when I was 9 and this skill is integrated into my life. Ina time when artists send their work out to artisans, I am still attached to making my own work. Many viewers who begin by appreciating only my craft, will find it to be their entrance into the work.

Karla Black

2011-09-30T08:50:00.000-07:00

‘a material experience that has been prioritized over language'

Mona Hatoum

2011-09-30T08:40:00.001-07:00

"Keffieh," human hair on cotton, 1993-1999,

collection Peter Norton, Santa Monica

The Body 'Van Gogh’s Back'
1995, photograph on paper, 600 x 403 mm

Ana Mario Hernando

2011-09-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

'La Montana' (installation), 2009, MCA Denver

Random acts of kindness

Ana Maria Hernando's textiles investigate the transparent acts of humanity that hold our lives and communities together

'I find transparent acts everywhere. My most pressing image would be that of women embroidering tablecloths, washing, ironing. Later these embroidered beauties are stained, and covered with food. Hours of work have become the background. these acts of transparent love that makes no sense, and have no place in accounting books, inspire me.'

- Jessica Hemmings

Taken from Embroidery January/February 2010 issue

Halifax Harbour by Night

2011-09-30T08:19:00.000-07:00

Phyllida Barlow

2011-09-29T10:12:00.000-07:00

Phyllida Barlow
untitled: broken shelf 2

Yee Sookyung

2011-09-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

Barb Hunt

2011-09-29T06:14:00.001-07:00

Head to Head

2011-09-25T09:57:00.000-07:00

Kelly Mark, The Kiss (Light Box), 2009

Micah Lexier, Two Ways To Make 2, 2000

Micah Lexier & Kelly Mark: Head-to-Head

27 August - 9 October 2011

Saint Marys University Art Gallery

Micah Lexier and Kelly Mark both live in Toronto and spent formative years at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (NSCAD University). These friends often work with similar procedures or materials, but manifesting distinct sensibilities. Counting and text figure frequently in the work of both artists: both make pieces that record and quantify the passage of time. Both have designed tattoos, or worked with their own "signatures" as written by other people. In a spirit at once collaborative and playfully competitive, the artists present pairs of work from their respective practices, illustrating their differences of approach as much as their similarities.

Jamelie Hassan

2011-09-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Glen Ligon

2011-09-12T06:40:00.000-07:00

Glenn Ligon belongs to a generation of artists who came to prominence at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s for paintings and photo-texts which explore aesthetic questions related to society, linguistics, racial and gender politics and sexuality. Ligon’s work employs various artistic forms including painting, printmaking, sculpture, installation and video - each chosen for its special aptitude to treat complex subjects that defy normal categorisation. Integrating diverse sources such as texts by James Baldwin, found and subverted imagery and sketches by the comedian Richard Pryor. His work is an informed meditation on quotation and the invading presence of the past as well as the representation of the self in relation to culture and history.

Aids campaign

2011-09-12T06:34:00.000-07:00

KISSING DOESN'T KILL: GREED AND INDIFFERENCE DO was a political art action manipulating advertising and media strategies to reach a broad audience with information about AIDS and the issues surrounding it. The project took place in two parts. The first was a large mailing of a postcard image of three kissing couples of mixed race and sex with the words "Kissing Doesn't Kill: Greed and Indifference Do." The back of the card read "Corporate Greed, Government Inaction and Public Indifference Make AIDS a Political Crisis." The image was designed to look much like a well known clothing industry ad campaign. The second part of the project was the production of the image and rejoinder as a 12 x 3 foot full color poster mounted on dozens of New York City buses. The poster was also prominently featured in the Whitney Museum exhibition "Media World". The poster has also been seen on buses in San Francisco and Chicago, as part of Art Against AIDS: On the Road.

Gran Fury is a collective of AIDS activists retaliating against government and social institutions that make those living with AIDS invisible. Through visual address, they seek to inform a broad public and provoke direct action to end the AIDS crisis. Gran Fury manipulates sophisticated advertising strategies to render complex issues understandable, and to reach an audience not often addressed by governmental and media information.

Keiskamma Altarpiece

2011-09-10T13:42:00.000-07:00

The Keiskamma Altarpiece forms part of the NOT ALONE exhibition at the Iziko Good Hope Gallery. It is a part of the international project Make Art/ Stop Aids and runs until 31 January 2010.

Robert Sloon once pointed out to me a similarity between being an artist and a preacher: both require a lot of faith. The role of artist or preacher is often to inspire belief in something whose outcomes or effects are not always visible. The artist however might not always be so successful: plagued by questions about the potential of artmaking to be truly meaningful. It is indeed difficult to justify to oneself the privilege of making art in the difficult social, political and economic situation in South Africa.

For this reason, viewing the Keiskamma Altarpiece at the Slave Lodge was a profound experience. The altarpiece was made by women in Hamburg in the Eastern Cape as a part a community initiative: an embroidery project that sets out to empower people with the skills to produce art and craftwork, a forum to generate income and is a project interwoven with healthcare and education around HIV/Aids. The project forms part of the Keiskamma Trust, initiated by Dr (and artist) Carol Hofmeyr in 2002. Part of the Trust is a health initiative that provides ARVS to the many HIV sufferers in the community.

The presence of the Altarpiece on the Make Art/ Stop Aids exhibition is an apt one. The exhibition intends to draw attention to “capacity for international solidarity to lessen the impact of the AIDS epidemic and to the importance of access to effective treatment”. The narrative of the Keiskamma Altarpiece becomes a starting point to incite discourse on the subject of HIV / Aids and in particular the need for education and treatment in the rural areas in this country. It also acts as a powerful testament to the possibilities of art making, education and communication. The workshops where work on the altarpiece took place became a safe space for discussions around HIV / Aids.

The Altarpiece was inspired by Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece of the 15th Century. The Isenheim altarpiece was painted for a hospice where the patients were dying of ergot poisoning, caused by a simple grain fungus. At the time, the causes of this inflection, then known as St. Anthony’s fire, were unknown, similar to the plight of those in Hamburg who were unaware of the Aids epidemic prior to the education provided as a result of the Keiskamma Trust.

It is interesting that religious allegory is used as a metaphor for the plight of the everyday. It allows those involved to transcend the harsh realities of the physical in the belief that something higher might sustain them.

In the Keiskamma Altarpiece, a woman, widowed by Aids replaces Grünewald’s Christ on the Cross. Unlike Mary Magdalene and St John who look on to the death of Christ, the orphaned children in the Keiskamma piece surround this figure. The Keiskamma replaces the Saints and martyrs with ordinary people who are left to face the indictment of Aids. However, unlike the darkness and despair of Grunewald, the Keiskamma piece seems to radiate bright colour and hope.

The Keiskamma project reminds of the teaching centres in South Africa that were established during the Apartheid years. Such centres sought to find a space for art to incite social change and provide opportunity for people of the community. A fitting example was the Rorke’s Drift Centre, established in 1962 in rural KwaZulu Natal: also a space that intersected art, religion and illness. It began as Evangelist Lutheran Church Art and Craft Centre in 1962 whose program was to prepare women students as art and craft advisors to work with patients in hospitals. The Swedish missionaries, Peder and Ulla Gowenuis who began the centre stressed the importance of a creative outlet. As Gowenius put it: "The possibility of expressing oneself in art is like giving language to the speechless. A first step towards freedom. Without language we are powerless."

The reason that I make this comparison is that the Keiskamma project seems to have adopted a successful model established by such centres in creating a space where art education has the potential to inspire faith and incite change. The Keiskamma altarpiece reveals an interesting and powerful space in art making where the artwork becomes a symbol of hope, rather than a place of doubt.

felix gonzalez-torres

2011-09-10T06:37:00.000-07:00

NSACA

2011-09-10T06:30:00.000-07:00

link

Visual AIDS

Postcards from the edge

"You seem the same as always"

2011-07-15T03:19:00.000-07:00

Exhibtion at The Common Guild

28th May - 30th July 2011

“You seem the same as always, -” brings together a range of works by international and Glasgow-based artists, which share a very particular focus: that of the artist’s own hand. The exhibition includes film, video, photography, prints, drawings and objects, all of which share a refreshing sense of immediacy and directness and vary from the witty to the uncanny.

“You seem the same as always, -” is rich in echoes of art history, not least in the title, which originates in correspondence between Sol Le Witt and Eva Hesse and is cited in Kate Davis’ work. The exhibition reflects the extent to which, even when faced with an ever-increasing range of media and new technologies, there remains a recurrent fascination with and recourse to the most constant and immediate tool: his or her own hand. The gathering of works reflects our enduring interest in the artist as author and the biography behind the work, most explicitly in the work by Feldmann that is comprised of handprints of some of the 20th century’s most famous artists.

2011-06-19T05:53:00.001-07:00

The Gods envy us.
They envy us because we're mortal,because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now.We will never be here again.

Homer. Illiad

Everything and Nothing

2011-06-02T12:21:00.000-07:00

scottish artists

2011-05-31T14:36:00.000-07:00

linkylinky

Threads of feeling - Archive

2011-05-29T16:38:00.000-07:00

Link to the website here - put it on mute though...

Chanel – Cruise 2011/12 | The Tale of a Fairy: The Short Film by Karl Lagerfeld

2011-05-22T12:28:00.001-07:00

John Houck

2011-04-21T09:46:00.000-07:00

John Houck

Work from A Digital Guide to Photography.

“Digital Guide(s) to Photography – An expanding series of books generated with custom written software. The software generates every combination of pixels for a given grid size and set of colors. The project is working toward generating every combination of pixels possible on a modern digital display, thus producing ostensibly every digital photo that could ever exist. This set would even include the image of you reading this text.” – John Houck

Jerry Hall Polaroids

2011-04-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

I love these, link here for more....

Laurenz Berges

2011-04-18T12:22:00.000-07:00

Vastness

2011-04-18T12:09:00.000-07:00

Thomas Joshua Cooper

River Works: America-Scotland

The Rapids on the River Tay Grandtully, Perthshire Scotland 1997

Thomas Joshua Cooper

Furthest North - The Mid North Atlantic Ocean Series

The World's Edge - The Atlantic Basin Project

Gelatin Silver Print 71 x 91 cm

2002 Faro de Alegranza, Punta Delgada, Spain

Amanda Couch

2011-04-17T12:38:00.000-07:00

Amanda Couch, Dust Passing, 2009

Mixed media and dust; live performance with installation
and camera obscura

2011-04-15T12:39:00.000-07:00

Untitled, 2005
Fabric
40.6 x 53.3 cm / 16 x 21 in
Louise Bourgeois

Douglas Gordon

2011-04-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

"Play Dead"

Häxan

2011-04-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

Curiosity got the better of me and I finally managed to watch all of this silent film without getting bored...