If It's Hip, It's Here (Archives): textile art

Showing posts with label textile art. Show all posts

Two Cool Calendar Kits To Stitch for 2014 From Heather Lins

These two nicely designed and beautifully packaged calendars for 2014 allow for some fun interactivity. The 'Stitch The Stars' and The 'Year In Stitches' kits from textile designer Heather Lins are simple enough for anyone to do and include everything you need. At $25 each, they make a perfect gift for friends, co-workers and Secret Santas.
Bonus: the stars calendar actually glows in the dark.

2014 Stitch the Stars Calendar Kit

Each month is screen printed with the corresponding constellation from the zodiac (eg. January is Capricorn). Connect the dots using the embroidery thread and needle provided. Just poke and stitch; it's super-easy! No embroidery skills required. Plus, with glow-in-the-dark ink and thread, the constellation gently glows after you switch off the light.

One 2014 Stitch the Stars Calendar kit includes:
• 12 5" x 7" calendar cards (Heavy, recycled card stock screen printed with glow-in-the-dark ink)
• 1 embroidery needle
• Glow-in-the-dark embroidery floss (It really works!)
• Instruction sheet
• Packaged in a kraft paper box

$25 buy it here

2014 The Year In Stitches Calendar Kit

Stitch a pretty design each month and create your own calendar. Using the needle, embroidery floss and calendar cards provided, just poke and stitch your way through the year. No embroidery skills are necessary to complete this easy calendar kit.

One 2014 The Year In Stitches Calendar kit includes:
• 12 calendar cards screenprinted on heavy, recycled paper (5" x 7")
• instructions (printed on recycled paper)
• an embroidery needle
• embroidery floss
• packaged in a kraft paper box

$25 buy it here

Ian Berry Does It In Denim. Check Out The Fashionable Art of Denimu.

above: Ian Berry AKA Denimu, A Blue Eye (Avalon Pub), denim on denim, 122x61cm (48.03x24.02inches)

UK artist Ian Berry works in a medium usually reserved for fashion - denim. he constructs scenes and figures by cutting and piecing together that well-worn closet staple, jeans. As a result of this, he goes by the name Denimu and has attracted quite a following worldwide.

above: portrait of Lapo Elkann

above: Journey Home

above: Mike and Ike

Using various shades of denim, he cuts and stitches the pieces together to create urban scenes and detailed portraits.

above: Flocking to the Portobello Market (in progress)

Newsstand Installation in New York
His newsstand installation that appeared in New York was phenomenal. Consisting of numerous magazine covers, candy bars and even a vending machine, Denimu pieced together each and every element of the life-sized work:

details:

And here's a look at some of the individual magazine covers created for the above piece:

More pieces of his work.
London Punk:

Before It Went Down:

The Brooklyn Diner:

The Other Side Of The Track:

Artist Biography (courtesy of cattogallery.co.uk):

IAN BERRY Aka DENIMU

We all love denim, don't we? It's the great democratic fabric, worn by everyone from the farmer to the aristocrat, the manual worker to the oligarch.

But for the British artist Ian Berry, it is so much more. It's probably fair to say, Ian is obsessed. This is the guy who changed his stage name to Denimu and made a career out of turning jeans into works of art.

Ian conjures remarkably detailed portraits and urban landscapes using nothing more than discarded jeans. Over many weeks he cuts, stitches and glues using only the varying shades of the fabric to provide contrast and shadow. The effect is extraordinary.

Ian's denim epiphany came during a trip back to his childhood home in Huddersfield. During a big clear-out session, Ian found himself staring at a big pile of unwanted jeans destined for the charity shop. Affectionate memories came flooding back, along with a wave of tactile enthusiasm for the fabric. At that point, he knew he'd found the key to his artistic career.

Born 1984 in Huddersfield, UK, Ian began his artistic experiments with denim while working as an art director in London and Sydney. Despite building a successful career and creating campaigns for brands such as Nissan, Guinness and Talisker Whiskey, the call of the rivets and seams was too deafening to ignore.

Eventually, the public caught on and Ian enjoyed enough commercial success to devote himself full time to his art. He had two near sell-out shows in Sweden, his new adopted home, and also showed in the US and Portugal. His work has since sold across Europe, America, the Middle East and Australasia to private, public and corporate collections, and has been featured in innumerable art and fashion magazines from Elle to Playboy and interviewed on Swedish and Portuguese TV.

Naturally, Ian's enthusiasm for denim goes beyond exploring its artistic potential. He's also become something of a historian of the textile. So you can imagine how delighted he worked with the town of Fairmount, Indiana last year. Fairmount is the home town of James Dean, who arguably launched denim as a fashion item when he wore those Lee Riders in Rebel Without A Cause. So when the James Dean Gallery wanted a mural, they came to Ian. He based his work on the iconic Roy Schatt photograph to create what has become possibly the first denim 'street art' project in the world.

Denimu

A shout out to the fabulous Ellen November for bringing this unusual work to my attention.

Dryer Lint Handroll Anyone? Sushi Sculptures Made With Actual Lint.

detail, close-up:

above: Snow On the Leaves, 8" x 10", dryer lint, plastic tray and pulp paper with leaves

Artist Slater Barron works in several different mediums and has created everything from large scale installations to small sculptures. But what caught my eye were her actual size sculptures of sushi handcrafted from real dryer lint.

above: Dryer lint sculpted to emulate sushi in a plastic tray by Slater Barron

Perhaps it's because the thought of sushi ordinarily makes my mouth water and it's so unexpected to encounter a Bento box full of maki and handrolls knowing they would give you cotton-mouth.

Family Dinner (14″ x 14″ x 7″):

Sushi Party Tray (14″ x 14″):

Summer Fan (8″ x 10″):

Full Circle (8″ x 10″):

Sushi Lovers’ Lunch (16″ x 12″):

detail:

Lunch With Madam Butterfly (14″ x 17″):

7 Piece Sushi Bento Box:

10 Piece Sushi Bento box:

Slater Barron received her M.F.A. at the California State University, Long Beach and her bachelor's degree at the University of California, Irvine, She had the privilege of studying with art notables John Paul Jones and William Wegman. Now, she is inspired by my surroundings and those I hold dear as well as many social causes she feels strongly about.

Slater Barron

Cute Characters Die An Ugly Death In The Compelling Crochet Sculptures of Patricia Waller.

We often think of knit or crocheted objects made with yarn, cotton and wool as cozy, comforting, even grandma-esque. But the works of artist Patricia Waller will most certainly shift that paradigm.

As part of textile brand Kvadrat's Hallingdal 65, a project in which 32 talented designers were asked to to create entirely new works using the textile originally designed by Nanna Ditzel, Dutch designer Hjortefar designed two giant portraits (BUM and NANNA) made up of fabric covered padded pixels in 29 colors. In total each piece contains 7200 pixels and measures 3 x 6 meters.

Each portrait is created using 60 × 60 pixels, each pixel being a 5 × 5 cm small padded foam piece on a base of MDF. The pieces have been padded by inmates of Denmark's Vridsløselille State Prison.

BUM:

The project asked the designers to explore new applications for the fabric. In his own words, Hjortfar describes the thinking behind his portraits:

‘When I told my dad about my participation in this project he just replied “BUM!”’, remembers Mads Hjort aka Hjortefar. ‘First I was puzzled but later he told me about a book published by Kvadrat 25 years ago. It was a story about an unusual man, answering to the name Bum (Boom), because he was born the same year World  War I began’.

Hjortefar had to know more.‘I found the book on my grandmother´s bookshelf and got hold of a short documentary about Bum from the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s archives. This proved to be a thrilling encounter with an exuberant, vivacious and tireless entrepreneur who among other things collaborated with Nanna Ditzel when creating Hallingdal.’ After getting to know Bum and Nanna better, it became obvious to Hjortefar that he wanted to create portraits of these two masterminds.

NANNA: