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Art Craft

Artist Vanessa Filley Stitches Meditative Cosmic Maps Brimming with Geometry and Symmetries

Vanessa Filley describes a recent body of work as “imagined cosmic map(s),” charts that connect the traditions of fiber arts with the present and the artist’s own questions of finding one’s place in the world. Titled In the Delicate Meshes, the series is comprised of sewn pieces that Filley likens to quilts, with stitches layered into symmetric patchworks of color and texture. “I am interested in the energetic threads that orient and connect us, ground us in place and time, yet tether us to our ancestral past and future—the lines that bring us home,” she says.

Filley references artists like Lenore Tawney, Hilma af Klint, and the women of Gees Bend Quilters, whose practices connect to spirituality, nature, and ancestral histories. Taut threads and twists embody tension and connection between both ends of a stitch, the intricate structures of the works as a whole, and the long tradition of fiber arts. “Each piece in this series is a quilted conversation, a way of taking the disparate questions and feeling of a given moment and mingling them with inspiration from the outside world and the work of those who came before,” the artist says.

In the Delicate Meshes was recently on view at Vivid Art Gallery in Winnetka, and you can find more of the series along with an archive of Filley’s works on her site and Instagram.

 

Art Craft

Miniature Figures Carved in Wood Cradle Colorful Silk Lace in Ágnes Herczeg’s Tender Sculptures

Delicate silk threads laced around tiny wooden armatures compose intricate scenes in Ágnes Herczeg’s sculptures. Using branches from fruit trees like wild cherry or pear or foraged driftwood from the banks of the Danube River near where she lives, the Hungary-based artist (previously) meticulously carves the gentle curves of figures, animals, and domestic objects to tell stories about home, traditions, and daily life.

Throughout the past year, Herczeg has focused on woodcarving, enjoying the process as she learns along the way. “I really tried to make as thin and intricate pieces as I can by hand… I really love this process,” she says, sharing that the details provide “even more opportunities to show new stories and compositions.”

Find more on Herczeg’s website, where she also regularly updates her shop with available pieces, and you can follow her work on Instagram.

 

Art Craft

Kaci Smith Weaves Colorful Patterns into Miniature Looms Fashioned from Wishbones and Branches

In autumn of 2020, artist Kaci Smith was faced with a compound dilemma: daily life was still affected by the pandemic while devastating wildfires spread around her home in Northern California. “The air was so filled with smoke that even my studio became off limits,” she says. “The first branch weaving was just a way to pass some time and do something creative while being stuck indoors.” Smith had previously turned to the craft as a calming and meditative complement to her collage and painting practice, so when she began to forage for twigs that she could transform into delicate looms, she was excited about the possibilities and a new challenge.

Weaving colorful weft threads through plain warp threads, Smith’s interventions suspend web-like miniature tapestries in natural frames. Depending on the size of the branch or the complexity of the pattern, a piece can take several days to complete. A few months ago, she was inspired to utilize a leftover wishbone as “a way to honor the turkey that fed my family on Thanksgiving,” she says, and sources additional pieces online as byproducts of the poultry industry. “Even though tapestry is basically ‘painting with yarn,’ you can never rush it. The very nature of it teaches patience, and there is a special rhythm in the repetition.”

Find more of Smith’s work on her website and Instagram.

 

Art Craft

Delicate Crocheted Patterns Splice and Embellish Susanna Bauer’s Dried Leaf Sculptures

Vintage lace and the intricate innards of cells influence the thread components of Susanna Bauer’s crocheted works. The German artist, who lives in the U.K., stitches leaves she’s found, washed, and dried, a painstaking process made more laborious by the inherent fragility of the material. “Taking time beneath trees, gathering leaves, contemplating their shapes, imperfections, and details lies at the basis of my process. Along with this quiet gathering, stories form, dialogues between leaves emerge, reflections on time and change and interpersonal connections,” Bauer shares.

Many of the artist’s recent works are on view as part of her solo show Gathering Stories, which translates those conversations and themes into three-dimensional pieces. Similar to her earlier series, this new collection is diverse in species and crocheted patterns. In “Sum of Parts,” various segments from six different trees are spliced with natural cotton thread, while “Blossom” surrounds a single magnolia leaf with fibrous filigree.

Gathering Stories is on view through January 14, 2023, at Le Salon Vert in Carouge, Geneva. You can find more of her work on her site and Instagram.

 

Art Craft Design

Deceptively Flat Weavings by Artist Susie Taylor Interlace Threads into Playful and Nostalgic Patterns

Patterns we might typically associate with childhood—the plaid vinyl lawn chairs of family barbecues, thick pink, brown, and white stripes of Neapolitan ice cream, and the simple ruled markings on notebook paper—become vibrant woven tapestries in the hands of artist Susie Taylor. Nostalgic in aesthetic and vivid in color palette, the Bay Area artist and textile designer interlaces cotton and linen threads to create flat weaves that appear almost three-dimensional in complexity, with the mathematically-inclined motifs and subtle shifts in color embedded within the pieces themselves.

The fiber compositions draw on the traditions of Bauhaus and Black Mountain College through a boldly playful lens and “include basic shapes like blocks and stripes to address pattern, symmetry and color interaction and the notion that ordered systems can still flirt with chance, interruption, and improvisation,” the artist says.

Taylor’s works are on view through October 27 as part of Origin Stories at Johansson Projects in Oakland. Explore more of her intricate designs on her site.

 

Art

Thread Grids by Laura Fischer Encase Stones in Exquisitely Knotted Webs

Precision is at the core of Laura Fischer’s practice. Using cotton and linen threads in neutral tones, the Bellingham, Washington-based artist sheaths smooth stones in impeccably exacting grids. She forms the tiny squares and rectangles with a series of knots, mimicking the loom weaving process but working directly on the natural material. Paired together, the sculptures are finished with a twisting rope wrapped around the circumferences and suspended in staggered positions.

A few of Fischer’s pieces are available on her site. Keep an eye on Instagram for shop updates. (via swissmiss)