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Art Craft
Extravagant Masks by threadstories Offer Cultural Commentary on Selfhood and Social Media
March 20, 2020
Grace Ebert
All images © threadstories, shared with permission
Covered in full-face masks of fringe and knotted details, threadstories (previously) explores the tension between contemporary portrayals of public and private life. The Irish artist poses in front of gray backdrops for her self-portraits that obscure her face and only sometimes reveal a set of eyes or a mouth through the crocheted exterior.
threadstories tells Colossal that the process for creating each piece is similar. She begins by crocheting the balaclava—sometimes adding space for further detail like pointed ears or a hand-drawn face—before crafting various tufts and dense patches. “The yarns I use when tufting will create an endless array of outcomes from the same technique,” she writes. “The choice of yarn can mean the difference between a mask with a lot of movement or a mask with a strong form that can be brushed and manipulated to hold numerous forms.”
Once she’s photographed the finished project, threadstories deconstructs the pieces to transform them into a new extravagant work. “Generally speaking, I am working intuitively, no design or drawings in advance. I am thinking with my hands,” she says. “For me, it is the photograph or mask on film that is the artwork, not the physical mask. I don’t create pieces like a designer might. The masks are always in a state of flux.”
Each fiber-based creations serves as a visual representation of how people obscure their lives, both intentionally and not, for public consumption. “The masks are sometimes monstrous, other times farcical façades that poke at the performative nature social media cultivates and celebrates,” she writes. Each caption helps build a narrative.
threadstories is questioning how the erosion of personal privacy in the digital age shapes how we view and portray ourselves online. The masks deny the viewer the full story of who the sitter is, echoing the curated or false personas we view online daily. My masks are photographed against a sanitised white square. I know there is often chaos, mess and noise just beyond the margins of that photograph, but the messiness of life doesn’t make the edit for social media.
Find more of the artist’s work that intersects art and cultural commentary on Instagram.
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View this post on Instagram
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Art Craft Food
Decadent Baked Goods Replicated in Crocheted Wool by Kate Jenkins
We don’t recommend getting near Kate Jenkins’s breakfast spread before you’ve had your morning coffee, or you might find yourself biting down on a bagel full of yarn. The British crochet artist (previously) creates fiber-based foods that bear a striking resemblance to their edible inspirations. Jenkins has a particular affinity for baked goods: her recent spreads include bagels and lox, whole grain bread loaves, and individual fruit tarts. The artist creates every last detail down to tiny caper berries, thinly sliced red onions, and kiwi and poppy seeds made from black beads.
Jenkins learned to knit and crochet as a child in Wales, and shares in an artist statement that she has always been fascinated and inspired by everyday objects and experiences. In addition to her culinary crochets, Jenkins trained and worked for many years as a knitwear designer in the fashion world. Keep up with Jenkins’s freshest bakes on Instagram, and purchase artwork in her online store.
For those in NYC who love textile-based delectables, we also recommend Lucy Sparrow’s felt food “deli” pop-up at Rockefeller Center, open through October 20, 2019.
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Craft Food
Crocheted Hams and Hairdryers by Trevor Smith Evoke Memories of Mid-Century Domesticity
By day, Trevor Smith is a local council worker in Victoria, Australia. After hours, Smith creates replicas of elaborate meals and household appliances in crocheted wool. Cheese platters, baked hams, toasters, and hair dryers are carefully constructed using foam armatures underneath the woolen exteriors. Smith has had a lifelong interest in crafts, and shared with The Design Files, “my mother was a talented craftswoman and I was always shadowing her, wanting to be doing what she was doing.” Smith earned a degree in Visual Arts as a sculpture major and also has been a curator of public art collections for the last 30 years. His crocheted artwork is available through Michael Reid gallery, and Smith shares updates on Facebook. If you enjoy the artist’s work, also check out Lucy Sparrow and Kate Jenkins for more fiber interpretations of food. (via The Design Files)
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Art Craft
A 20 Foot-Wide Tapestry by Vanessa Barragão Recreates the World in Textural Yarn
In celebration of a partnership between London’s Heathrow Airport and Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, fiber artist Vanessa Barragão (previously) was commissioned to create a massive botanical tapestry. Using a range of techniques including latch hooking, felt needling, carving, crochet, Barragão mapped out and built up a textural surface that emulates a map of the world.
Earth’s diverse climates and topography are represented in yarn: the deserts of Australia and Africa are conveyed in warm, low-pile colors, whereas Barragão represented the lush rainforests of South America and the high peaks of central Asia with shaggy deep greens and coiling crocheted ridges. The artist also incorporated native plants like China’s Gingko biloba, European Cypripedium calceolus (lady’s slipper), and the coffee of Africa.
Barragão spent 520 hours on the piece, which is completely handcrafted and spans nearly 20 feet wide. The work is on view at Heathrow Airport’s departure area, echoing the diverse and globe-trotting guests who cross its path. To see more from the Porto, Portgual-based artist, follow Barragão on Instagram.
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Craft Design
A Father Transformed Data of his Son’s First Year of Sleep into a Knitted Blanket
All photos © Seung Lee
Seung Lee tracked the first year of his baby’s sleep schedule with the BabyConnect app, which lets you export data to CSV. Choosing to work with six minute intervals, Lee then converted the CSVs into JSON (using Google Apps Script and Python) which created a reliable pattern for knitting. The frenetic lines at the top of the blanket indicate the baby’s unpredictable sleep schedule right after birth. We can see how the child grew into a more reliable schedule as the lines reach more columnar patterns.
As Lee neared completion of the blanket, he shared, “All the disparate pieces felt really fragile but as I seamed it together, wove in loose ends, and removed stitch markers, it felt more and more sturdy. Something that I’d been handling like a delicate bird egg started to just feel like a blanket.” The Seattle-based comic artist, crafter, and coder shares updates via Twitter and his website. (thnx, Jennifer!)
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Art Craft
Found Leaves with Delicate Crochet Embellishments by Susanna Bauer
“Everything That Surrounds Us”, all photographs by Art Photographers
In her series of sewn together and crocheted leaves and twigs, Susanna Bauer (previously) considers the fragility of nature and humans’ inextricable tie to its survival. The Cornwall, England-based artist combines the found elements with fine cotton thread to produce unique objects steeped in the history of craft. Intimate marks add detail to small patches or the complete outline of browned leaves, drawing our attention the natural growth patterns found in their interiors. A selection of her free-standing and framed sculptures are currently on view with Le Salon Vert at VOLTA Basel in Switzerland through June 15, 2019. You can view more of Bauer’s works formed from leaves, thread, and twigs on her website and Instagram.
“Moon XXXII”
“Path IV”
“Hope”
“Realignment”
“Repose”
“Restoration V”
“Suspended”
“Trans-Plant No. 21”
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Art
Seeing Double: Life-Size Crocheted Figures by Liisa Hietanen Imitate Fellow Villagers
Image by Liisa Hietanen
Finnish artist Liisa Hietanen crochets and knits one-to-one imitations of her friends and fellow neighbors, accurately representing the subjects from their favorite outfits down to their furry companions. The series, Villagers, is a way for the artist to more deeply engage with those she often passes but might not interact with in her town of Hämeenkyrö, Finland.
“I meet my models in natural everyday situations,” she explains in an artist statement on her website. “The process of choosing a model is intuitive. The person depicted might be someone I meet in the library, in the locker room of the gym, or walking their dog on the way home. I don’t know most of my models beforehand but as the process goes on I get to know them.”
The slow, methodical style of her yarn-based craft works to counteract the pace of life, and also reflect the patience needed to get to know and understand another individual. The accuracy of her works to their origin subject is never the focus, but rather how she is able to get to know the person as she takes the time to build their double.
After completing each new work it is displayed somewhere public so the piece can engage in a deeper dialogue with the population of the town. Previous sculptures have been displayed at the local library, a flower shop, and a restaurant, however they also travel to contemporary art exhibitions such as the group exhibition From the Shadows of Night to the Brightness of Day at Makasiini Contemporary in Turku, Finland through April 7, 2019. Hietanen is currently working to complete a pair of new life-size sculptures—a local father and his four-year-old daughter. You can see other works included in her Villiagers series on her website and Instagram.
Image by Marjaana Malkamäki
Image by Marjaana Malkamäki
Image by Marjaana Malkamäki
Image by Marjaana Malkamäki
Image by Marjaana Malkamäki
Image by Liisa Hietanen
Image by Liisa Hietanen
Image by Marjaana Malkamäki
