fiber art

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Craft

Delicate Embroideries Feature Anatomically Accurate Lungs, Brain, and Facial Vessels

All images © Emmi Khan, shared with permission

The key to a healthy heart is a diet full of fiber, and Emmi Khan is ensuring her heart—and lungs and brain—don’t miss out. The Cardiff-based artist embroiders anatomically accurate organs and systems, from a multicolored double helix to a profile view of facial vessels. The artist often weaves in floral and natural elements, bolstering the connection between beauty, anatomy, and the environment.

Khan tells Colossal she began the craft while studying biomedical sciences and has continued creating throughout her graduate study in medicine. The further she delves into her education, the more precise her brightly colored stitches become. The artist says allowing science and art to converge is natural, and she compares the two as “different approaches towards observing, processing and presenting the world around us.”

Science looks to understand the world in an objective and empirical manner, often stumbling upon beauty along the way, and presents it intellectually. Art takes the world and lets the human imagination run wild with it, presenting a product of feeling and often beauty with this. I wouldn’t say they are one and the same thing, but they do go hand in hand with respect to the goals they set out to achieve.

Check out Khan’s Instagram and Etsy shop to see more of her biologically focused embroideries, including one piece that even outlines the telomere effect.

Craft

A New Book Compiles Work from 84 Contemporary Artists Who are Reinventing Embroidery

“The Height of Folly” (2017) by Michelle Kingdom, linen and embroidery thread. Images © Gingko Press, shared with permission

A new book by Charlotte Vannier considers how embroidery has evolved from a domestic task mostly done by women into an art. Comprised of the work of 84 contemporary artists from around the world⁠—including Elisabeth Bucht, Rossana Taormina, Diane Meyer, and Aline Brant⁠—From Thread to Needle: Contemporary Embroidery Art features full-page illustrations of embroidered pieces utilizing cotton canvas, photographs, plastic, and wire mesh. The 368-page book highlights work that is particularly distant from the decorative needlework of previous generations and ranges from fully embroidered cloth to sparingly stitched images to threaded toast. Often, the artists reinvent the craft by altering the methods and materials they use and rejecting the outdated notion that embroidery is only a feminine past time.

In an interview with VC Projects, Vannier described her obsession with thread and embroidery. “I am fascinated by the idea that a simple thread becomes a piece of art completely, and how many artists use it. Thread is like a pencil,” the writer says.

From Thread to Needle is available now from Gingko Press, which publishes an assortment of visual culture projects. Keep up with the press’s upcoming releases on Instagram.

“Chirping Beauty” (2011) by Laura McKellar, digital collage and embroidery

“Angel” (2018) by Aline Brant, freehand embroidery on photographic print

“A Turncoat” (2014) by Raija Jokinen, fibre sculpture

“Carbs” (2011) by Dylan Chubb, toaster, embroidery, and silk thread

Animation Food

Felted Bacon Sizzles and Wooly Bread is Sliced in Breakfast-Themed Fiber Animations by Andrea Love

 

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A post shared by Andrea Love (@andreaanimates) on Nov 26, 2019 at 6:20am PST

We’ve all heard that we should incorporate more fiber into our diets. But did our doctors mean… wool? Andrea Love is on the front lines of nutritionally dense animation with her fiber-based short films centered around breakfast foods. Minuscule pots of coffee pour into green mugs, spirals of yarn turn from black to red as stove-top heating elements, and succulent lemons squirt out felted juice when squeezed. The Washington-based artist works from her basement studio crafting both client-commissioned and personal work. Watch more of Love’s felt-fueled animations on Instagram, where she generously shares behind-the-scenes knowledge in responses to questions from her 100,000+ followers. (via Laughing Squid)

 

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A post shared by Andrea Love (@andreaanimates) on Mar 19, 2019 at 6:20am PDT

 

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A post shared by Andrea Love (@andreaanimates) on Jul 31, 2019 at 6:16am PDT

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.

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)

Art Craft

Felted Wildlife Perch on Found Objects in Charming Sculptures by Simon Brown

Simon Brown sources worn-out household tools like brushes and thimbles and turns them into miniature scenes for his felted wildlife. A short, stiff brush becomes a tree branch for a perching owl, and a dense hair brush with swirling bristles forms a meadow for two rabbits. Brown, who is based in Northumbria, United Kingdom, uses needle felting to create his realistic forest creatures. You can see more of his finished and in-progress work on Instagram. (via Bored Panda)