I can't wait for the opening of Over and Under, an embroidered art show curated by Jenny Hart, this weekend here in Austin at Yard Dog Art Gallery. Jenny has been featuring some of the artists' work on her blog, and I'm really looking forward to be able to see it in person. Featured artists include Annie Aube, Deborah Baker, Kate Bingaman Burt, Dana Carlson, Diem Chau, Orly Cogan, Emily Eibel, Veronica Fuentes, Takashi Iwasaki, Joetta Maue, Michael Aaron McAllister, Johnny Murder, Christopher Niver, Jennifer Porter, Shannon Rankin, Richard Saja, Kate Westerholt and Kathie Sever. The show opens with a reception Friday from 7 - 9 pm and runs through December 6.

Over and Under Art Show Opening
Friday, November 6 from 7-9 pm
Yard Dog Art Gallery
1510 S. Congress Ave
Austin, TX 78704

Kazuma Takahashi made these little sculptures out of common packaging materials. [via BoingBoing]

San Francisco's Intersection for the Arts is hosting a thought-provoking group exhibit that opens this upcoming Wednesday, November the 4th. From the site:

Featuring the work of eight artists living in Tehran, Iran — Nima Alizadeh, Saba Alizadeh, Mohammad Ghazali, Ghazaleh Hedayat, Abbas Kowsari, Mehran Mohajer, Neda Razavipour, and Homayoun Sirizi — alongside new work by San Francisco- based artist Taraneh Hemami, this exhibition compiles a collective narrative of everyday Tehran, the largest city in the Middle East and the 16th most populated city in the world with close to 8 million residents. Representing the current unpredictability of each day in Tehran and also the hope that comes from imagining a better future, the artists chronicle narratives of place and time, demystifying life in a country that has been misunderstood and maligned for decades.

One of the best ways to get a window into a culture is through its art. Here's to the power of art and craft to unite.

Scott Campbell made this skull art by laser engraving into dollar bills. [via who killed bambi?]

As part of the summer-long Fame Festival in Italy that culminated in a final show last month, artists Blu and David Ellis spent a long week collaborating to create this amazing animation clip, made by filming morphing hand-painted murals. The video loops twice, in case you are beyond astounded the first time around.

Sean @ MAKE points us to studiokmo's 3x4 feet panels, each intricately cut maps depicting Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, and the Bronx, down to the block level. Holy wow! The collection is for sale as a complete set only.

Native American artist Brian Jungen (Dunne-za) creates perceived icons of Indian culture from commonplace utilitarian objects -- an igloo from trash cans, a whale skeleton from plastic chairs, an animal mobile from suitcases. Frequently, his materials are selected for their power to comment: "Much of Jungen's work is created out of sports paraphernalia -- a suit of armor made of catcher mitts, a skull crafted from baseball skins, blankets woven from jerseys, and totem poles of stacked golf bags. It's a deliberate choice, Jungen says, to make art from materials belonging to an industry that has claimed names such as The Chiefs, Indians, Redskins and Braves."

• Jurassic-looking works made from plastic chairs
• Nike shoes as art

Andrea Dezso is an artist in a wide variety of media (animation, sculpture, book design, fibers), and while her heart embroidery from 2004 isn't new, it is certainly impressive.

More:

Pricked: Extreme Embroidery

I'm in awe of the detail in this newly completed fiber book from Million Little Stitches. She's included pages for each month, and the intricate stitching, gorgeous design and meticulous attention to detail is stunning. Be sure to click through to see each month's page - they are all beautiful and have fascinating stories behind them. [via Beefranck at Mr. X Stitch]

Based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Vinylville definitely has the most clever handmade Mac-specific stickers out there. I just got my Snow's Revenge (pictured above and also available in white) in the mail, and I love it. You can actually apply these to any glossy surface, so I'm inclined to smack it onto my Subaru and put an Apple logo sticker in her hand, just so I can see Snow White actually in the snow. They have a number of awesome design offerings (see four other variations below), and you can also check out more of Vinylville's artwork on their Flickr page.

My neighbor Teresa Cuseo is an amazing artist and crafter -- every time I talk to her or go over for a visit she's doing something creative, from terrific mosaics to yummy baked goods to cool jewelry and clever shrines.

She recently bought a Day of the Dead crafting book and has plans to make some Day of the Dead altars, but the shrines and altars she's created thus far pay homage to the various incarnations of the Virgin Mary, bicycling, her loved ones, other religious figures, and roses. I like each and every one of them, and think they offer a lot of inspiration for our Day of the Dead shrines, too. Check them out after the jump and see what you think!

Since Disney bought Marvel comics, there have been a number of artists offering up creative image mashups. Perhaps my favorite is character designer/story artist Jeffrey Thomas' Dark Princesses series. Thomas reinterprets iconic Disney female characters with a seriously dark twist. Looking at these is providing me great inspiration for twisted Halloween costumes.

Janet Echelman is a public artist who makes large-scale fiber works. This one, called Her Secret is Patience, is in Phoenix, Arizona, and is made from painted galvanized steel and recyclable high-tenacity polyester braided twine netting. Janet is featured in the latest issue of Fiber Arts Magazine.

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]

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.

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

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!

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

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:

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

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.

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

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 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]

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]