Craftzine.com blog: Arts & Design Archives

Archive: Arts & Design

< Previous | Arts & Design Home | Next >

October 20, 2009

Solar System-Inspired Quilts from Jimmy McBride

This collection of solar system-inspired from artist Jimmy McBride have left me breathless. What really has me excited, though, is his post about his next project. I'll give you a hint: Pillars of Creation. Check out the diagram and fabric selection he's put together. Amazing. [via Apartment Therapy Boston]

October 19, 2009

Plush Breast Cancer Cells Sculpture

Amy of Glitter, Vinyl and Thread came up with this fascinating entry for the Craftster Good Cause Challenge. Inspired by the vibrant and "deceptively beautiful" images of breast cancer cells she found while researching the subject, she designed this plush version of breast cancer cells. She created the piece with stretch velvet, reclaimed pillow filling and wool embroidery floss. Read more about its construction and the picture that inspired the piece over on her blog.

72 Pencils

Collin @ MAKE points us to fdecomite's recreation of George Hart's geometric sculpture 72 pencils.

Pictures from Plush You! 2009

Kristen posted up pictures from this year's Plush You! show in Seattle at Schmancy, and it looks so great! If you're around Seattle, be sure to check out the show through the end of October!

October 17, 2009

Nesting Eyeballs

I like this creepy take on Russian nesting dolls, The Watchers by Jason Brammer. [via EMSL]

October 16, 2009

Intern's Corner: How to make sand art with kids

CRAFT: Intern's Corner
Every other week, CRAFT's awesome interns tell about the projects they're building in the Craft: Labs, the trouble they've gotten into, and what they'll make next.

By Ed Troxell, photo intern

Looking for some entertainment that kids will love? Try sand art.

I not only work as a photo intern at MAKE and CRAFT, but I also run my own magazine. Well, on top of that I work in the afternoons at an after-school day care center.

Every Wednesday -- it's our long day because the kids get out of school early -- we try to come up with a craft project they'll actually want to do. If you've ever worked with kids, you know that when it comes time to do arts and crafts not everyone jumps at the opportunity to get started. However, this simple project turned out to be one of our best yet: it keeps kids entertained while allowing them to be creative.

How-to:

Read full story

October 15, 2009

Impressionist Cake

PT on the MAKE blog points to this Starry nom edible masterpiece...

October 12, 2009

Kiel Johnson's Cardboard Camera

Artist Kiel Johnson made this cardboard twin-lens reflex camera, which works as a pinhole camera. The build video is adorably edited. From BoingBoing:

His next exhibition, opening October 17 at the Mark Moore Gallery in Santa Monica, CA, is dedicated to the printing press. The centerpiece of the show, titled "Publish or Perish," is a huge metal and cardboard of a printing press with a 70-yard drawing fed through it. For more, see the upcoming print issue of Hi-Fructose, Volume 14.

Carved Leather Bike Saddles

Kara Ginther hand-carves these jaw-dropping intricate designs on bike saddles out of her studio in Madison, WI. [via To Be, Inspired]

October 9, 2009

Bread Heads

Bread Heads
By Anna Dilemna

One of the most popular animated children's characters in Japan is a superhero named Anpanman (Mr. Sweet Bun), who is made entirely of bread. Together with his doughy cohorts (who have names such as Mr. White Bread Man and Mr. Curry Bun), Anpanman fights malnutrition by allowing hungry people to eat his head, which then conveniently grows back.

Unless we grew up with Anpanman and his baked sidekicks, however, the word "bread" isn't likely to conjure up anything for us much more exciting than a piece of toast. Throughout history, however, there have been plenty of people who envision more than just a tasty receptacle for peanut butter and jelly when they think about bread. In Mediterranean countries such as Italy and Greece, for example, decorative bread baked in the forms of flowers, animals, angels, and various other symbols is traditionally made to celebrate religious holidays.

In addition to religious and folk art traditions, many visual artists have chosen to work with bread as an artistic medium. In 2004, designer Jean Paul Gaultier put together a retrospective of his work in Paris called "Pain Couture," in which he showed several couture pieces made entirely from bread, including a brioche version of Madonna's famous conical bra and a toasted dough Kelly bag. Gaultier explained that he chose to show his creations in bread rather than as a traditional retrospective due to the fact that he's always seen his work more as a craft than an "art." "We can live without clothes but not without bread!" he exclaimed.

Gaultier's work emphasizes a connection between bread and the human body, which seems to be a common theme for contemporary artists who work with bread. Sharon Baker is a British artist who has often used bread as a sculptural material in creating different parts of the body; most notably, in 2006, she baked a life-sized bread version of herself and then invited an audience of onlookers to eat it while she watched. The same month, but on the other side of the world, Chilean artist Constanza Puente also created a bread statue of herself and then left it to sit on a park bench (where, apparently, it was very popular with pigeons). Both artists say they feel bread serves as the perfect metaphor for the fragility of the human body.

Perhaps most compelling (and creepy) of all is the work of Kittiwat Unarrom, a Thai artist who bakes astonishingly realistic body parts in his family's bakery in a small village near Bangkok. Hands and feet are stacked on shelves or hanging from meat hooks, and heads sit in plastic-wrapped pie tins. Unarrom states that the concept behind his gruesome array of tasty products (apparently they are edible) is to make people wonder whether they are consuming food, or if the food is consuming them. Imagine the shock of the bewildered Thai farmers who must occasionally wander into the bakery wanting nothing more than a roll to go with that night's Tom Kha Gai!

Not all artists who work with bread are bakers, though. Take Emily Berezin, who in 2008 created a statue of Wonder Woman made entirely out of Wonder Bread (11 loaves total, in case you're wondering)! Berezin says that for her, the sculpture was both a celebration and a critique of the white, upper-middle class suburban mother, "the one who makes the same peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her child every day of the year. She's a superhero, and she's well preserved — but she's also a little horrifying and a bit crusty, and if she's not careful, she just might crumble."

In the end, it's clear from the work of these artists that bread has unexpected capabilities as a creative material. And while you may not be running out the door to purchase yeast for your next haute couture collection, or pushing life-sized dough versions of yourself into giant pizza ovens, perhaps you'll feel a bit more inspired than usual when you bite into breakfast tomorrow morning.

About the Author:

Anna Dilemna is a writer and crafter who lives in Madrid, Spain. Her website is annadilemna.typepad.com.

Erwin Wurm's Gulp

Erwin Wurm is one of my favorite contemporary artists. He often uses people and clothing in his work, either as models for photographs or molds for sculptures. His work is often funny, silly, while at the same time awkward and unsettling. This one's called Gulp. [via VVORK]

Yarn City Stop-Motion Animation

This is the kind of awesome that happens when you bring together two guys over two months with a whole bunch of yarn. The second vid is the equally enticing making-of. [via Jeanne Jo]

October 8, 2009

How-To: Scrimshaw

Scrimshaw is the old whaling art of engraving intricate patterns and images into ivory. If you have some old piano keys hanging around, you can make some interesting art pieces using this scrimshaw tutorial by Paul Baxendale of Providence, RI. Growing up I used to go to Mystic Seaport and learn all about whaling culture, and the scrimshaw and blacksmith stops were right up there in coolness factor with the printing press and ship rigging for me.

October 7, 2009

Hello Birdie Hat From Curlin Reed Sullivan

I am in awe of this new endeavor from Austin artist, Curlin Reed Sullivan. In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that Curlin is a good friend of mine. What I love about this project is that it symbloizes not only Curlin's immense talent and artistic eye, but also her enthusiasiasm for trying new things and collaborating with other artists.

I've had the pleasure of collaborating with talented friend and milliner, Laura Del Villagio of Milli Starr to design a hat we've donated to the Hello Birdie Auction sponsored by Uplift Austin and Big Red Sun. It's been so much fun learning more about Laura's millinery craft. She hand-blocked this hat with parasisal straw and we embellished it together. I needle-felted aflowergal who's chatting with the sweet little needle-felted bird who's popping out of his birdhouse. it was so inspiring and fun to work together...create together...design the floral trims from our collective supply of vintage and new millinery flowers and leaves and berries.

When it comes to trying out new techniques, Curlin has no fear. She gleefully translates her iconic "flower girls" into media of all shapes and sizes. She has a successful line of greeting cards, prints, mixed media shadow boxes, embroidery kits and even ceramics. I love how child-like she is with her art and craft. She gets so excited about trying new things and jumps right in to new techniques like needle felting - something with which she's just recently begun to experiment.

Curlin is a great example for not limiting yourself to one medium out of fear, or to working alone because you don't want to share the spotlight. I remember working with Curlin in our surface design class one year ago. She mentioned that her goals for the coming year were to branch out and work on more collaborations with other creative folks. Her brilliant works in the last year have been a great study in the fantastic things that can happen when you collaborate and open yourself up to new things, and most importantly, set a few goals for yourself.

October 5, 2009

Food Flags

For the Sydney International Food Festival, advertising agency WHYBIN created these flags to represent countries using foods from that country. Delicious! See more big pics at The Kitchn.

Breakbeats Sampler

Artist Andrew Salomone writes:

It occurred to me that needleworkers used to have to make patterns and images to decorate fabric in the same way that contemporary music producers make beats and musical compositions by repeating and layering audio samples in digital sound editing programs. So the files created using digital editing programs today basically function in the same way that needlework samplers did in the days when all embroidery had to be done by hand.

So he made this Breakbeats Sampler, featuring waveforms for some common breakbeats, lovingly stitched on fabric. I'm guessing the natural next step would be to make each breakbeat playable with a soft switch.

October 2, 2009

Faux Needlepoint Window

Alex Merto painstakingly drew over 53.000 little X's in this window display in SoHo for the Tools for Living Artist Window Series. [via Core77]

September 30, 2009

Sophie Blackall's Missed Connections

Sophie Blackall has an amazing series of illustrations in her Missed Connections project. She takes "missed connections" classified ads and visually represents them through her enchanting illustrations. From her blog: "Messages in bottles, smoke signals, letters written in the sand; the modern equivalents are the funny, sad, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless, poetic posts on Missed Connections websites. Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I'm trying to pin a few of them down." She also offers prints of her illustrations in her Etsy shop.

Plush You! in Seattle Opening October 9

Plush You! is an annual exhibition of really amazing art plush. This year it's taking Seattle by storm at the following locations:

Plush You! Artist Reception: Friday, October 9th 5 - 10 pm

Schmancy
1932 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA, 98101
Fancy
1914 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA, 98101
Nancy 1932 2nd Ave, Seattle, WA, 9810

Artist Reception: Saturday, October 10th 5 - 10 pm

Bluebottle Art Gallery and Store 415 East Pine Street, Seattle, WA, 98122
The Anne Bonny
534 Summit Ave East, Seattle, WA, 98102

Handmade Nation will also be screening at Northwest Film Forum on October 10 and 11. There's also a Plush You! kick off class on October 3rd where you can learn to make toys from old sweaters!

Iconic Characters Reborn as Lego Sculptures

I've just spent way too much time browsing the CubeDude Flickr gallery of legendary characters in Lego form. The various Star Wars characters are fantastic, the Walter Sobchak (of The Big Lebowski) makes me want to cry in joy, and the in-process sketches are fascinating. Enjoy!

[ via The Coolist ]

< Previous | Arts & Design Home | Next >

Craft:

Solar System-Inspired Quilts from Jimmy McBride

Plush Breast Cancer Cells Sculpture

72 Pencils

Pictures from Plush You! 2009

Nesting Eyeballs

Intern's Corner: How to make sand art with kids

Impressionist Cake

Kiel Johnson's Cardboard Camera

Carved Leather Bike Saddles

Bread Heads

Erwin Wurm's Gulp

Yarn City Stop-Motion Animation

How-To: Scrimshaw

Hello Birdie Hat From Curlin Reed Sullivan

Food Flags

Breakbeats Sampler

Faux Needlepoint Window

Sophie Blackall's Missed Connections

Plush You! in Seattle Opening October 9

Iconic Characters Reborn as Lego Sculptures

Social CRAFT

November's Theme & Contests

Daily Tweet a Tip

Sign up for the CRAFT Newsletter

Get the CRAFT Daily Email

Craftzine Authors

Current Podcast

Craft Categories

Craft Archives

Recent Comments

Recent Posts in the MAKE Blog

	CRAFT on Facebook Visit our Facebook page and become a fan of CRAFT!
	CRAFT on Twitter Follow our CRAFT tweets!
	CRAFT on Flickr Join our CRAFT Flickr Pool and your photo could be featured in Becky's Sunday CRAFT Flickr Roundup!