Chicago-based SAIC faculty and grad, Amy Honchell works with textiles to craft whirling installations of otherworldly landscapes. Honchell bends cloth, which protects us and keeps us warm, through a warped process that challenges the medium’s association with benevolence. Hochell’s mountainous compositions remove memories of blanket-swathed crib slumber, and stitch the trappings of journey and struggle in their place.
When you take a look at Jazmin Berahka’s work you’re transported back to a time where craft was key. Her intricate embroidery drawings are flawlessly made, full of pattern, detail and distinct personality. You can clearly see how much thought and care she puts into each of her pieces. Her series range from shy girls with delicately patterned garments, to more abstract works showcasing her embroidery skills. Whichever you prefer, her work is definitely worth a good long look.
Elyse painting Max
I don’t particularly consider myself an artist and certainly not a painter. But last week, I had the opportunity to be both when photographer & fashion designer Kandace Wilson invited me to participate as a collaborator in her ongoing horse painting project. Kandace grew up at the track, always around horses -the underlying inspiration behind building this body of work. The end products are a portfolio of stellar images of the painted horse, textiles created from the painted imagery, and fashion designs using those textiles. There were a host of constraints and challenges in the process that make the experience one-of-a-kind: time is your biggest challenge as you’re working with a large furry animal that gets bored quickly and requires both entertainment and breaks; the fur, in both color and texture provides a challenging canvas to work on; working on location requires a certain degree of spontaneity and creativity… but beyond the challenges came some sweet and unexpected rewards both in the finished product that begins to take on a living, breathing life of its own, and in the experience of working with this majestic animal. Kandace continues to search for, and looks forward to connecting with willing participants, artists (and horses) of any variety who would be interested in future horse-painting collaborations.
"The Grieving Suit", 2008
I know this artist has been posted and re-posted a couple times by various blogs, but I want to commit her to B/D cyberspace memory. Nadine Byrne’s work deal a lot with mysticism, spirituality, death, the occult- the wearable sculptures turning to costumes meant for performing in. It’s interesting to think about how there is a blanketing mourning process/protocol but that it varies culture to culture- or that the business of mourning necessitates the purchase of certain goods and the putting on a certain behavioral pattern.
