Legit!!

Hey, I just realized that my e-mails from here have been getting dumped into the Spam folder. Sorry if I missed your comment, I don't even know how long that has been going on. Hopefully fixed now.

After Prisk

From the Bamboo Forests of the Night

From the Bamboo Forests of the Night
Originally uploaded by Patrick Gannon

I know I've said it before, but it (obviously) bears repeating: Patrick Gannon's cut paper artwork is The Bomb. If you haven't, go check out his Flickr stream. If you already have, go look at it again. He posts new stuff pretty regularly, and it never hurts to go back and see the older stuff again.

i dunno lol

I picked up some colored foil last week, and this is what happened to a bit of it today. Dunno what to do with it, but it was fun and looks kinda neat.

Wait for it....

OK, then. This is nearly done. There is one patch of blue that needs to be finished, and one patch of red. (I was working on this on my trip to Vienna, and ran out of those 2 colors.)

I kind of hate the green blobs on the right side, and they were NOT part of the original outline. See what I get for my troubles? I may well pick them out, too. The red net is better than I thought, but still not ideal. Etc, etc. Always a critic.

... and then what? I don't know. Stretch & frame? Sew it on to something else, applique style? See if I can get one of my friends who's done textile art to incorporate it into something grander?

There are a few things I would do differently, now that I've done them this way (thanks, learning experiences!), but that's OK. There will be a next time, and I am definitely getting the hang of some of the techniques. As soon as I finish those last two little bits of missing colors, and probably pick out the green blobs, I'm going to (a) get a color-correct photo of this, and (b) put it to bed. Maybe I'll just start a big collection of smallish, irrational embroidery pieces, which will be of great interest to archaeologists and psychologists in some long-distant future.

In other news, when I was in Vienna (Austria, the rest of this paragraph won't make sense if you think I'm talking about some other Vienna), I stopped by the Museum für Angewandte Kunst (Museum of Applied Art) and lucked out: They had a huge exhibit in their textiles ward on Ottoman embroidered textiles. Clothing, furniture ornamentation, bath towels, and so on.

Last time it was fashions made from recycled materials, and although a ball gown made of grocery bags is certainly Something To See, it has a little less immediacy to my own projects. Although I *do* like to reuse common materials, especially if they are meant to be trash. Nevermind, I think you get the point.

Not only did I see a tremendous collection of inspiring designs and workmanship, but learned a few nifty things. I now know where the term "bath sheet" comes from! It was a great exhibit. My only regret is that old fibers can be very delicate in many ways, so the pieces were behind glass in a dimly lit room. But that's OK, it was worth every minute of squinting.

Here is a link to the museum page for this exhibit. I'll update this later if I can find their English language version. There are a couple of pictures there, and a bit of descriptive text. Also, the MAK is awesome for being free to the public on Saturdays. MAK really is one of my favorite museums, both in focus and operation. [eta: in English]

The Slow March of Progress.

Or, Slowgress, for short.