In the Labyrinth

Moving Daze

I shall be a bit scarce on the blog over the next few days as I work through the logistics of packing, hunting for new digs and eventually moving everything. Hoping to find a new and ever more lovely shell in which to settle in the new future. I have way too many interesting things to post on to stay away for long...and besides my brain will explode if I try to remember them all. Stay tuned!

Stacey Page: Embroidery and Found Photographs

Stacey Page creates the most intriquing and stunning works combining found vintage photographs with embroidery. She constructs new fantastic identities from the smiling faces with her imaginative use of embroidery. The results are simply awesome. In an interview Page describes her selection of the photograph:

The photographs start as a lost, discarded, or mortal identity. They choose me as I find them attractive in some way or another. It is the beginning of a relationship so naturally I want someone usually quite healthy and engaging.

The adornment is a creation of an imagined and mythic interior of the subject of the photograph which is then stitched like a mask or an aura over the subject. Again Page explains the inspiration for the embroidered designs of her work:

It can come from naturally occurring conflicts. One example would be the inner versus outer being. This conflict entails simple observations one might have about themselves regarding fashion, status, ego, and avatar.

As for the actual process of stitching on the photographs Page answered in another interview:

As far as being classically trained, I do feel disadvantaged when I see a beautiful manipulation of thread or fabric, such as some surface corded quilting or a simple embroidered eyelet. I try to take the time to learn and develop the skill, and you can see this progress in the work. Since the embroidery on the photograph is very different from embroidering onto fabric, there is a lot of time devoted to stretching the medium through experimentation as there are no books on the medium. I feel advantaged in this way- that there are no rules to follow except for the rules I create for myself.

Stop by Stacey Page's website to see more of this remarkable work. I also recommend this tumblr account devoted to her work that has additional images and interviews with Stacey.Here is another case where I wish we were still doing the Journal of Mythic Arts -- another artist I would so love to feature!

Ursula Kirchner: Fairy Tale Paper Cuts

Ursula Kirchner -- like Lotte Reiniger Silhouette Films -- did amazing work in black and white detailed paper cut illustrations. These beauties are from Märchen, edited by Karlhans Frank, published by the Goethe-Institute in 1985. I love this style -- it's so dramatic, so filled with energy. I also think the way it's constructed from a single sheet of paper gives the visual equivalent of an organic and interconnected experience-- just like a story -- rather than a single illustration that only reveals one moment in the tale. In the large piece below one can follow the narrative in the panels while all the beautiful details, such as the borders of birds and leaves, knitted it together into a whole. Below is a Hansel and Gretel variant -- and I love the panel with the witch -- especially as the beauty of the paper cuts almost belies the horror of the story (children in cages in the backyard) and in the next panel, note how Gretel pushes the witch into the oven and she reappears as a hovering cloud.Great stuff.

(via 50Watts)

Teaching Children to Sing the Blues

 

I love this...the children are so funny and Conan has managed to make of their young lives blues songs -- getting hit with a ball, being forced to eat edamame, and no chocolate on Wednesdays.  Kudos to St. Francis Xavier Grade School that pariticpated in this charming morning's activity. As one little girl says "It is what you live it."

A Few Things About Ants: Jeffrey Ford

I saw this pair of ant salt and pepper shakers and was reminded of the short story "A Few Things About Ants," by Jeffery Ford that Terri and I published in an issue of the Journal of Mythic Arts. When producing the story online I had a tough time figuring out how to get wandering ants -- much like the shakers -- integrated with the text on the page. I wound up pretty pleased with the effect once I got it sorted out. But mostly I went to the trouble because I loved Jeff's story -- quirky as hell -- a riff on childhood punctuated with ant moments. The whole piece is tinged with the fantastic like an aura of ant faces hovering over a family photo in a scrap book. Here's a bit that I really liked -- recalling the 1950's movie Them! about giant ants (thanks to exposure to radioactivity):

"Them! is still our favorite. Whitmore plays a highway cop and his portrayal almost rivals the acting job the ant turns in. But there's one spot in the movie where Whitmore's deputy says something to him, as the ant is approaching, along the lines of "Where did it come from?" and Whitmore's response is, "I don't care if it's from Upper Saddle River, New Jersey." Kind of a strange locale to refer to, no? Especially considering the film is set in the southwest near where they'd test atom bombs in the 50s. But more than a decade after those late nights watching Them!, I would meet and marry a girl from Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. There are more things in heaven and earth. . .my friend."

Samplers: Counted Thread Cross Stitches and Reticella, "Needle In the Air"

Here are two more pieces I did as samplers at about 20 -- one in cross stitch, counting every thread "five over-five up" to keep it all even. I took the patterns from and old DMC book that had them graphed -- but good lord, I remember acquiring a new found respect for the little girls of the 19th century who did long pieces, full alphabets and entire gardens in disciplined counted cross stitch. (I can see a mistake with the strawberries -- a few threads off and it changes everything!). I do love this kind of work -- exactly the opposite of crewel work with its scrolls and free hand nature. But there is something equally calming about the smooth rhythm of a cross stitch sampler.

I fell in love with cut work and especially reticella also known as "punto in aria" (needle in the air) where one cut threads and then reweaves spider web patterns in the empty space. This is pretty primitive compared to really fine work done on entire borders of cut work and needle weaving on old table cloths. My all time favorite is the "hard core" needle in the air where there is no fabric ground -- just threads tacked down like the outer rim of a spider web and slowly filled in with shapes and patterns all formed from using the needle like a shuttle. You can see an excellent example of that from my great aunt Anna here in an old post. Also do have a look at the contemporary work of Dorie Millerson whose work is fabulous!

Blue Birds and Unicorns

Here's another work shirt embroidery that I did for my husband. I always liked the idea that the embroidery was to enhance something that already existed, something that could be worn or used. So for a while I was practicing my skills on inexpensive work shirts for my husband, for my brother, for a friend -- I made quite a few of them, though none for myself back then!

This unicorn I made when I was about 12. I had no pattern for it -- just let the needle figure out what was going to happen. I got busy and never quite finished it. I think I had big plans for the tree. However, I do love the flowers on the "knees." I wonder what I had been reading back then?

Stitched Samurai On My Husband's Work Shirt

"Stitched samurai poised

On my husband's blue work shirt

Swords prepared to act."

This is for Mo Crow who has been asking me to show some of my old embroidery pieces. I had to dig deep in the boxes of stored stuff (much too small a house) and I found this pair of jaunty samurai -- I embroidered them in my very late teens for my husband on the front of a work shirt from Penny's department store. I had to cut them free from the shirt after he wore out almost every other part of shirt.

Double Unders: Fast Feet, Faster Wrists

I am a Crossfitter and among the challenges of this arduous style of training is the double under -- that's when the jump rope circles twice around under the feet for each jump. Athletes who have skill down pat make it look so easy -- the steady "flick-flick" of the rope as they do a continuous string of jumps sometimes over 100 consecutive jumps in a minute. But to learn how to do it is a misery of frustrating, uncoordinated stomping on the rope, and stinging welts on your legs and arms. And a lot of sweating and swearing.

This weekend I went to a two and half hour double under clinic led by the amazing Molly Metz in the video above and the JumpNrope troupe. Each aspect of the technique was broken down into small precise increments (and some light bulbs went off for me!) and I learned how to do the boxing fast-rope as a prelude to the double unders. I can now do five-eight double unders consistently in a row. It's so much fun when you get it right...swift, rhythmic, and strangely I am reminded of being ten years old again spending every free moment jumping rope on the street -- sometimes long past twilight. In the flick-flick of the rope, I can also hear the staccato beats of jump rope rhymes. I am on the sidewalk in front of my house again, practicing, and it is sweet to reunite with the ten year girl I once was skipping rope under the street light.

Here's an amazing video of JumpNRopes athletes showing their skills at the Crossfit Games this last summer.

And yeah...I will post a film of my own successes once I get more than five in a row! Promise.

Camera Obscura: Magic in a Dark Room

Oh, how to take your breath away sitting in the dark with just a pin hole of light to bring the world inside like the fragments of a dream. The camera obscura is really one of the most amazing and simpliest inventions ever, yet it can create a truly astonishing effect in a darkened room. Here is a brief description from Open Culture:

"Long before the invention of photographic film, it was discovered that if you have a darkened room with a small hole in it, the light passing through will project an upside-down image of the surrounding scenery onto the opposite wall. The Chinese philosopher Mo Tzu, who died in the early 4th century BCE, called it the “locked treasure room.” In 1604 the German mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler coined the term “camera obscura,” or darkened room."

Here is a film of photographer Abelardo Morell demonstrting how he transported an image of Venice, from the outside onto the walls of a room through the lens of a camera obscura.

 

And here's how to do it...a very nice short instructional video on how to create your own camera obscura.

 

And stop by Abelardo Morell's website to see more photographs of his experiments with the Camera Obscura -- they are really astonishing.