Studio Kit

First up - this article inspired a lot of talk around the water cooler: phew! Talk about mixed media!

Artist Anna Dumitriu makes storytelling quilts - out of superbugs!

"The quilt squares are made using natural and clinical antibiotics on Chromogenic (pigment-generating) agar in which the fabric has been embedded and inoculating the squares with bacteria, creating patterns that reflect the interaction between bacteria and antibiotics. The quilts are embroidered with thread dyed with saffron as well as with the antibiotic Vancomycin."

Check out the article and a video of the artist talking about her work in her own words, HERE

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Next up, photographer Nicholas Alan Cope and creative director Dustin Edward Arnold have combined forces as well as painting, chemistry, sculpture, fashion and installation, to make extremely beautiful, thought-provoking art.

Gorgeous, decomposing still-lifes, discomfiting "fashion" shoots, abstracts that examine the internal world of an object, and a new, very unexpected twist on florals are just some of the series they explore. I am very grateful to yatzer.com for introducing me to these inspiring artists.

Check out their digital retrospective HERE. The article isn't new, but is one that is certainly timeless.

For this week's Material Matters link, here are "Three branding opportunities most artists miss" by Lezley Davidson.

In the "crazy-like-whoa" category - did you know that Francis Bacon's triptych of Lucien Freud studies broke the world record for art sold at auction a couple of weeks ago? Click HERE to find out the eye-watering price paid for Three Studies of Lucian Freud.

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And finally, Will Kemp writes an amusing article about a trip to see Cézanne's studio* in France that also gives you a bit more insight into the artist himself. Check that out HERE in Will's article entitled "How to paint, sleep and nearly die like Cézanne".

*By the way, have you actually ever seen pictures of it? I actually keep a picture of it in my "inspiration" folder on my desk top - it's my dream studio!

P.S. Remember a couple of weeks ago when I talked about re-arranging how I blog a bit? I think I've figured it out.

Life/health permitting, it will go as follows:

Monday will be a process and/or talky post;
Wednesday will be the WIP (wordless or otherwise - why break with tradition?); and
Fridays will be my Friday'S-linky post and the current week's finish of the lunchtime project.

That seems workable for me at the current time and I hope will be entertaining for you.

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday!

When I was trying to get "just the right effect" with my rust dyeing over the summer to make the fabric for Erosion; well, need I say more? lol

Those of you who have rust dyed, know that you have virtually no control over the finished product. Try as you may - things never turn out exactly how you had envisioned. So I had to rust dye a LOT of fabric - yards and yards - (about 7!) to get the piece I wanted for Erosion.

But then, what's a girl to do with 6 yards of rust-dyed fabric?

One of the ideas I came up with was the above. Each of those is a 6.5 inch square - very manageable as a piece of portable work, and if I get tired of it after these first 12 blocks, I can stop. But my intent is to make eight or twelve of these sections - so, 144 of those 6.5 inch squares (I know, right?), put them all together, and then use them as a background for a still larger piece. I imagine it will take approximately a year of lunches in total.

But who wants to think about that?! So, I'm starting with one six and 1/2 inch square.

Very manageable.

At long last, a finish! :)

This one is actually quite significant, not least because of the hours and hours of hand stitching in it. Observe:

I haven't been around for awhile - and this was one of the reasons. I gave myself a nasty steam burn, when the lid fell off of the tea kettle when I was making a pot of tea. Ouchie!

And then I had some really busy days (going in early and staying late) at my day job; and with my new limitations, I can't spend long days in the office and then also spend time in the studio - so the studio has had to wait.

And this calendar is already radically behind, as that first one "someone" which was supposed to be finished the first weekend is November, is still not finished now -pushing back everything else. *ahem*

However...

I think there's some great reading here – I hope you'll enjoy it!

This is a *very* interesting article by Kathleen Loomis about Anne Loveless winning the Art Prize (the world's biggest purse in the art world - $200,000!) with her beautiful textile art piece Sleeping Bear Dune Lakeshore. But it's not what you think – it's about why this won't make any difference to the larger art world, and why it won't change how textile art is thought of (craft, women's work, not-art)>

http://raggedclothcafe.com/2013/11/03/the-biggest-art-prize-in-the-world-by-kathleen-loomis/

This is an article from Matthew Schuler. He writes about how he believes creative people think – mean to be shared with the people in your life who just "don't get" you. I recognized a lot of myself in it – perhaps you will too. :

http://www.matthewschuler.co/why-creative-people-sometimes-make-no-sense/

This is a fantastic article – one of my favourites that I read quite often – about how the art gallery system works. You may have read it before yourself (it's not new); but some of you may not have – and it bears reminding if you any interest in those kinds of shows. Good reading even for those who don't!

http://www.artbusiness.com/osoquugalsys.html

This is a fiber artist I "discovered" through this blog, Ana Teresa Barboza. Her work is incredible!

http://www.ignant.de/2013/09/03/ana-teresa-barboza/

And these are a set of articles about using quilts to talk about words we are uncomfortable with. The accompanying interviews may be enlightening to those of you haven't considered the impact of the words on the people they are being spoken about. Warning - the words are NSFW – but we're all big girls here, right?

http://cauchycomplete.wordpress.com/2013/11/13/life-as-a-picnic/

http://bitchesgetstitches.net/2013/11/13/champagne-strawberries/

http://cauchycomplete.wordpress.com/2012/01/28/a-follow-up-on-the-n-word/

I actually haven't forgotten about the lunch time project - but it's taking a lot longer than the last one did!

The repetitiveness of these particular stitches is hard to be motivated by, and I have to put it aside for long stretches of time and work on something else.

But I'm in the home-stretch now. This hooped portion is nearly all I have left to do.