Celestial Feats of the Night Sky

Jez Burrows
Edinburgh, Scotland

Celestial Feats, Jez Burrows, 2008 limited edition Gocco four color print
photo permission: Jez Burrows

Jez Burrows is a 23-year-old designer and illustrator originally from south Devon, U.K. now living and working in an Edinburgh, Scotland. 

I own this delightful print. I bought it from Tiny Show Case, see their website here.

See more of Jez's work on his website here.

And his sweet blog, Wood,  here.
And his thrilling small independent press, Sing Statistics, here. 
Jez is a regular contributor to arts blog, It's Nice That,  here.
I like what this dude does.


Happy New Year, Dear Readers!

Portal to Self-Inquiry: Resolutions

Chris Jordon

Seattle, WA, USA

Gyre, 2009
8x11 feet, in three vertical panels

Depicts 2.4 million pieces of plastic, equal to the estimated number of pounds of plastic pollution that enter the world's oceans every hour. All of the plastic in this image was collected from the Pacific Ocean.

Detail

Viewed up close

all photos: Chris Jordon

Chris Jordon's photography helps me to focus on the changes I wish to make in my own life while being mindful of my place on planet earth. 

Chris says, "I have heard it said that in risking self-awareness, at least we know that we are awake."

See read more and see more on his site here.

Frozen Water Chapel

Ice Chapel
Jukkasjarvi, Sweden

This image is apropos of how I feel today as our family mourns the passing of a deeply loved family member. We will deeply miss a man of great love and warmth and life. 
The ice in this Chapel was created from the frozen water of the River Torne in Sweden. 

Happiness

via Blint

Legacy. Tradition. Family.

Barbara Kohl Spiro

Twins I

Mixed media

29 1/2" x 25 1/2"

"Mainly About Love, Twins"

mixed media on handmade paper

26" x 24"

"Mainly About Love II"

mixed media on handmade paper

45" x 25"

One of my very favorite artists. I treasure her work and have seen it at SOFA Chicago. 
See more of her works on paper here. 

Sending warm thoughts for a Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas

Fresh from the Oven

photos C. Mauersberger, 12/24/09

Mini Gingerbread House to perch on the edge of your cup of warm. Made these today  for family  with my good friend, Christy and her mom, Lynne, and her daughter Audrey. See inspiration/recipe here.

What's Your Favorite Christmas Color?

Christmas by Colour asked it's readers to submit their own Christmas Colors and assigned personal meaning to them. 
They hand-picked the best from 1000's of entries.
I like this idea. They're selling posters, cards, stickers and wrapping paper. 
See more here.

Reflecting Pools of Our Time

Edward Burtynsky
b. St. Catherines, Ontario, Canada

Densified Scrap Metal No. 3a,
Hamilton, Ontario 1997

Oxford Tire Pile #9a
Westley, California, USA, 1999

Tailings # 1,
Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, 2007

Nature transformed by Industry.

Burtynsky finds images of  places in which we each take part in the making. 

Recycling yards, mines, tailings, railcuts, quarries, ships, and oil fields throughout the world. 

These photographs are reminders that we require the use of natural materials from planet earth while being concerned about the future health of our planet.

These beautiful images are unsettling. 

See his website here.
In 2006, he made an award-winning documentary film, Manufactured Landscapes, see here.

Compressed Chaos

Michael Johansson

Sweden

Green Piece, 2009

Green garden equipment

0.6 x 0.6 x0.6 meters

Monochrome Anachron, 2008

Brown furniture, brown objects, glass objects

1 x 1.8 x 1.3 meters

Rubik’s Kitchen, 2007

Kitchen table, kitchen equipment

 1.1 x 0.7 x 0.8 meters

Michael Johansson's sculptures are an attempt to make sense out of the chaos of collecting things. 

See more on his website here.

Looking for Small Miracles in Objects

Anu Tuominen
Helsinki, Finland

Her website here.

Read more about her here.

Thinking of The Known Universe

If you've watched the opening scene of the 1997 science fiction flick, Contact with the nifty Earth/Universe/Space zoom-out see here, then you might enjoy seeing a map of the known universe created by the American Museum of Natural History and the Hayden Planetarium. 


Every star, planet, and quasar seen in the film is possible because of the world's most complete four-dimensional map of the universe, the Digital Universe Atlas more about it here.
Enjoy the weekend, take time for yourself, be thoughtful, and not get too caught up in the commercial frenzy of the season.

Embroidered Maps

Urban Carpet
Marcella Campa and Stefano Avesani
China

From the InstantHutong project

MARCELLA CAMPA and STEFANO AVESANI have been deeply interested in the change in Chinese cities since 2003. In 2005, they initiated 2 projects that explore the transformation of historical districts in Bejing and Shanghai, China. 

Their collaborative work, Urban Carpet, consists of 8 hand-embroidered pieces using the same technique of the propaganda slogans on large fabrics used by the communist party during the seventies . A Hutong is an ancient city alley or lane typical in  Beijing, China.

Read more about Marcella and Stefano here.

New Writing for Food Lovers

(via eat me daily)

I like the illustrative look of the first issue of Fire and Knives, a food magazine based in the UK. Pure content, No advertising.

By subscription only.

This illustration makes me smile. See more here.

Conceptual dressing

Berber Soepboer and Michiel Schuurman
Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Colour-In Dress, 2009

Replacement Dress, 2009

Clothing designer Berber Soepboer and Graphic Designer Michiel Schuurman collaborated to create textiles for a series of dresses that were exhibited this past fall at De Ploeg, a very famous textile factory in the Netherlands. The result are these dresses. Both used pattern as the essential elements in the design. 
Berber says,

Because the print is so flexible you can make many different designs by colouring it. Everybody can interpret the print the way they like it best.

Read more about Berber and her clothing designs on her website here.
Read more about Michiel and his artwork based on typography on his website here.
The Colour-In Dress is for sale as a limited edition here.

Cloud Lamps and Dreams

Yu Jordy Fu
London, UK

 9m-long chandelier made from hand-cut paper.

Cloud Walk Chandelier, 2009

Permission for all photos: Yu Jordy Fu

Cloud Walk Chandelier appeared at Design London Festival 09 Composed of 25 smaller paper lights joined together, all of which are cut freehand from recycled paper and can be purchased separately.

Yu Jordy Fu is a London based designer whose dream is to make this world a better place. She has an impressive body of work with commissions from London, U.K. to Milan, Italy. See more work on her blog here.  Her website here. And purchase her work here.

Go to her website and look at her design page. It's a joy to see how prolific she is. Just click on one of her shoes when you get there.

Glass droplets, Finished boxes & a Hand-Embroidered Logo

Amy Holms

Fullerton, CA

Lampwork bead necklace

Image via Amy Holms  

Shop at her Etsy store here.

Circles and glass, what a fine combination.The glass jewelry made by Amy Holms makes me want to feel in on my skin. As I trolled around her website, I found that she is fabulously multi-talented. Please read on.

Finished boxes...
Yes, she's an architect.

Look at her architectural work here.

Remixed Logo...

Could Amy be a textile artist too?

All images courtesy © Amy Holms

This is an image created for the new Depeche Mode album that she worked on with her husband. She hand-embroidered the lines in floss onto a linen background. See more about this project here.

Amy has a Masters of Architecture from California Polytechnic University, Pomona and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History and Studio Art from Smith College in Massachusetts.

She lives in Fullerton, CA with her husband, Corey Holms and their twin girls. Based on her  website, blog and architectural work, I can see why she says she never sleeps. 


Any time Amy wants to sit and throw a few stitches in with me, she's more then welcome. 

Machine Stitched Marks

Inga Liksaite
Kaunas, Lithuania

Muse, 2003

Textile 1, 2005 

              Textile 1, 2005 (detail)                              Textile 1, 2005 (photo with people to show size)

To Be Continued..., 2005

Inga used glow-in-the-dark thread in this multi-paneled piece.

Permission for all photos: Inga Liksaite

Click on the image above to link to her videos on Vimeo

Inga Liksaite merges digital technology with traditional textile techniques to create a new vocabulary for fiber art. Images emerge from the flat surface by sewing lines with variance in their proximity to each other. The result evokes the fluid movements of pencil to paper.
Her innovative collaborations with filmmakers and other artists produce exciting results.
I met Inga in 2007 at the Pfaff Embroidery Challenge Exhibition in London, U.K. when she won the Grand Prize see here. Please visit her website here. 

Inga is on the cutting edge of textile art today.

An Unapologetic Gaze

Christine LoFaso
Chicago, IL

Sweatshop Worker Series: Mayra

 Hand-jacquard-woven video still, metallic yarn

32" x 42"

Photo permission of the artist. Collection of University Hospitals, Cleveland, Ohio

Sweatshop Worker Series: Ovidia

 Hand-jacquard-woven video still, metallic yarn

32" x 42"

Photo permission of the artist. Collection of University Hospitals, Cleveland, Ohio

These two woven textile artworks were juried into Focus: Fiber 2008, A biennial juried exhibition of contemporary fiber art * through the Textile Art Alliance of the Cleveland Museum of Art. Sarah Quinton, Senior Curator of the Textile Museum of Canada, juried this exceptional exhibition. 

In the exhibition catalog, Christine states, 

"In this series, I want to convey a sense of empowerment these women engender through the courage, honesty and directness of their account. Which is reflected in their expressions as they gaze unapologetically at the viewer."

I had the pleasure of seeing this work first hand and introducing it to Trudy Wiesenberger, Curator of the Art Collection at University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio. These are now in their prestigious collection.

Christine used a gold metallic yarn to weave on a black warp. The effect is striking. At once the viewer gets a sense of reverence for these women and feels confronted by their gaze. She captured these images in her travels to Santa Lucia Utatlán in Guatemala and later translated them into weavings.

I've been to Honduras and have seen faces like these. The young women who work under the harsh conditions of a sweatshop who look old at 30 and suffer from lack of access to good healthcare, food and shelter.

Christine wrote to me that she's developing a website. I'll be sure to give you the link as soon as it's up. 

Surely, we want to see more.

Christine LoFaso, a professor at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, received her M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.


* I also designed the catalog for this exhibition and will show additional pieces of work as I gain permission from the artists.