Interwoven Intricacies: Sonya Philip

Following our little road trip to Southern California, I’m happy to be back foraging for you!  We’re newly installed in Joshua Tree, California until at least mid-January.  Our little artsy rental is only a few blocks from the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park.  We can actually see it in the distance from our back porch!  This place has a special kind of energy– there is a connectedness you feel here.. to the earth, to the sky, to your fellow humans.  The work of Northern California artist Sonya Philip brings to mind the way in which we link ourselves with our surroundings and each other.

Philip chooses to weave into every day objects, things we might otherwise cast aside or not even look twice at.  In doing so, she reminds us of our own disposability and habit of consumption.  A design woven into a fallen leaf ( above ) might symbolize the leaf’s eventual decay, while threads woven through discarded and gessoed postcards ( below ) or a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream carton speak to the beauty that can be found in what otherwise might be considered trash.

The delicacy of her weaving juxtaposes against the crassness of commercial packaging and metallic rusticity of a bicycle wheel to reveal a symbiosis of the organic and the industrial.

To see more of Sonya Philip’s work, please visit her website.

Artist found via Art & Sustainability on Facebook.  All images are via the artist’s website.

Friday Finds: A Little Birdie Told Me So

One of our favorite things about living at the lake this summer has been our evening walks.  Once the heat begins to wane, all the birds begin to sing.  We often end our walk by making our way down to the dock where we sit and watch birds both great and small as they hunt for dinner.  I’ve even told George I’m going to take up serious bird watching.  I’m going to be a funny old lady with her huge hat and binoculars watching all the birds that fly by.. So today’s round up is brought to you by some pretty little birds of the artsy kind that I’m admiring this week!

Mindy Hawkins

Maribel Angel

Abigail Brown

Sophie Woodrow

Mindy Hawkins | Maribel Angel | Abigail Brown | Sophie Woodrow 

What say you, Artsies?  Want to grab a big floppy hat & your sunnies and join me on the dock for some birdwatching?  Happy weekend!

Featured image is by Abigail Brown.  All images are via the artists’ websites, linked above.

In a World of Pure Imagination: Takashi Iwasaki

The work of Canadian artist Takashi Iwasaki  creates a bright and candy colored world, full of shapes that may seem incongruous, but are creating tableaus representing, for the artist, either completely imaginary worlds or the world he sees every day, as he sees it in shape and color.

Midoriyaamehatzga, embroidery floss and fabric (hand embroidered), 51cm x 51cm

Though the composition  may have meaning to the artist, he purposefully keeps the titles vague ( they are a combination of fragments several languages and sounds based on themes or elements in each work ), so that the viewer may drawn his own conclusion as to what is being seen.

Kamidaredentou, embroidery floss and fabric (hand embroidered,) 41cm x 41cm

Although the bright tones are decidedly cheery and the shapes often whimsical, it could be easy to interpret these with a dark sensibility.  They are at times alien-like and the Sputnik-ish motifs along with the clean aesthetic lead me to often see a kind of mid-century extraterrestrial sort of world.  One that I would happily be abducted to.

Taretentokaku, embroidery floss and fabric (hand embroidered), 30.5cm x 30.5cm

Minotogetenti, embroidery floss and fabric (hand embroidered), 35.5cm x 35.5cm

In addition to the embroidered ( ! ) works above, Iwasaki you can also see wonderful paintings and drawings on his website.  They will take you to another world!

Featured image is Nijiawapaip, embroidery floss and fabric (hand embroidered), 41cm x 41cm.  All images are via the artist’s website.

This artist found via DesignMilk.

Hanging by a Thread

Life is a series of transitions.  Change is a huge part of my own life these days.  Due to my husband’s job, we currently travel to a new home every three months, so I was immediately drawn to the transitory nature of Amanda McCavour’s work.

Stand-In for Home, thread, 96x120x120

Drawn to thread for it’s combination of vulnerability and strength, the artist describes her work as “a process of making as a way of tracing and preserving things that are gone, or slowly falling apart.”

Living Room, thread, 144x144x144 ( photographed by Agata Piskunowicz )

She creates these “thread drawings” by sewing thread into a fabric that will resolve in water, which allows her to build up the drawings, just as one would do with charcoal on paper.  Once the fabric has been dissolved, the drawn lines remain.

Living Room ( detail ) ( photographed by Agata Piskunowicz )

Stand-In for Home ( detail )

These thread drawings act as a figural trace of homes that used to be, memories stored there are revisited and recreated.  Homes are ours for a time, but as we all fade into and out of life, so do homes remain a part of many different lives.

To see more of Amanda McCavor’s work, please visit her website.

Thank you to the ladies at LoveFeastTable for introducing me to Amanda McCavour’s work!

Featured image is Living Room ( detail ), thread, 144x144x144.  All images are via the artist’s website.

Quilts Are Cool

Maybe you beg to differ with that title.  But I’m here to present to you Gainesville, FL artist Amy Vigilante, who does indeed create artistically meaningful, strikingly graphic quilts.  These aren’t your grandma’s bedspreads.  Vigilante’s quilts are modern interpretations of an old world craft.

May May, fabrics and thread, 58x53

May May ( back ), fabrics and thread, 58x53

Make no mistake, these aren’t quilts to cuddle up in on the sofa.  These are intricate works of textile art.  As is my usual m.o., I find the backs just as wonderful and interesting as the fronts.. ( see the pair above & below ).

Sushi, fabric, found objects and thread, 54x51

Sushi ( back ), fabric, found objects and thread, 54x51

Vigilante’s Garment Series includes works constructed using found female garments such as lingerie and swimsuits.  This series seems to perhaps speak to the common female obsession with fashion, “heirlooms” of our past and domesticity mixed with sexuality.

More striking for me, however, are her more geometric works.  These have a tremendous sense of composition and movement.

Zoe, hand-printed fabrics and thread, 91x82

Yogi, fabrics and thread, 90x83

Please visit Amy Vigilante’s website to see more of her work.  If you’re in the North Florida area, her work will be on display as part of the A Woman’s World show, opening this Thursday 12/17, presented by C Gallery at Daryl Bunn Studios.  This show is a mix of some spectacularly talented established and emerging artists.  Not to be missed!

Featured image is Frida ( back ), fabric, found objects and thread, 52×49.  All images are via the artist’s website.

Ravage and Repair: Nava Lubelski

There is something so poetic about the restoration of an object that has been destroyed.  A beauty in the scars, a rejuvenation in the renewal.  It is this juxtaposition that Asheville, NC artist Nava Lubelski seeks to explore in her work.  Seeking to “explore the contradictions between the impulse to destroy and the compulsion to mend,”  she first destroys in order to resurrect.

Sweet Chewy, thread on stained canvas, 12x12

Her initial damages to the surface, through ripping, cutting, spilling of paint/stain are then painstakingly “repaired” by hand-stitching embroidery over and around the holes.

The Sum of Parts, thread on stained canvas, 12x12

Just as when people’s souls, minds, bodies are wounded, the healing process is slow and not always complete, so are the stitched “repairs” in Nava’s work.  The initial destruction has been stopped, but the material can never fully be restored.  What she leaves us with instead, is a new surface, still showing signs of mutilation yet renewed.

003, thread on stained canvas, 24x24

Like Those Monsters, thread on stained canvas, 12x12

To see more of Nava Lubelski’s work, please visit her website.  She is currently showing in NYC, Asheville, Shelbourne, VT and Sydney, Australia.

Featured image is A Story About Frogs, thread on stained muslin, 26×20.  All images are via the artist’s website.