Cool Stuff Friday: Ebru Art.

Ebru Art, by Garip Ay. I am overwhelmed by the art work, as well as the skill and talent it takes to produce such intense beauty.

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History of Ebru Art

Ebru, which is generally known today as a decorative paper art, is one of the oldest Turkish arts, but exactly where or when it started remains unknown. Ebru is an art from the realms of history, presenting to us a beauty that is full of love. It can be described as painting on water. Patterns are formed on the surface of water which has had substances added to it to increase the viscosity; the patterns are then transferred to paper. The results of this process are unique and it is never possible to achieve the same design again.

Those who have traced the history claim that the many hued Ebru that we know today was born in Turkistan in Central Asia, a place that was the center for many cultures. From the 17th century on, it became known as Turkish Paper in Europe, and from here the art of Ebru reached the rest of the world.

The Turks started to make paper in the 15th century. With their sensitive souls and their mystic personalities they became very advanced in the art of paper decoration. Ebru paper, especially those of a fine design, was first used as the background to important official state papers, a variety of treaties and the records of important events. It was used as a means to prevent the alteration of the document. The same logic can be found in the use of complicated designs on banknotes, cheque books, deeds and bonds used today. In addition, the edges of commercial registers were decorated with Ebru in order to prevent the removal of pages. Ebru holds an important place in the history of Islamic art; it was used alongside calligraphy and in publishing. Moreover, its mystic nature, that is, “the search for religious beauty”, led to its being used in many tekkes as a reflection of sufi thought.

garip ay kervan

The captions are easier to read at full screen, but if you’re like me, you’ll be busy gawking. And getting ideas.

And in wide-eyed awe…Van Gogh on Dark Water Animation.

I could watch his channel all day, but Verizon would punish me severely.

At least it isn’t 65 years. Yet.

I’ve been working in textiles for a while now, specifically, completely hand-made art quilts, with the main attraction being hand embroidery. Anyone who hand embroiders knows how time intensive it can be. For a while now, I’ve been so damn busy, I have not had time to work on the current project, the Tree Quilt. That ends up being a bit depressing, because I’d like to just be able to work on it and get finished. 65 years ago, a woman started an embroidery art piece, and has now finished it at age 90.

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Click for full size image. 90-year-old Priscilla Faulks stands by “My Jesus,” her 65-year embroidery project now displayed at Victoria’s Restaurant in Trotwood.

TROTWOOD — During the two years Cincinnati native Priscilla Faulks studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy, her medium was painting and her favored subjects were nature and portraits. But, after returning to her grandmother’s house at 25 in 1950, she was inspired to start a life-sized Jesus — which she finally completed in January, just a few weeks after her 90th birthday.

Now, the framed embroidered “My Jesus” is on display at Victoria’s Restaurant at West Third and Union Road in Trotwood.

“I wasn’t religious, but my grandmother, who raised me, was a highly Christian woman, and I was living with her when I was inspired to draw Jesus,” Faulks said. “Grandmother had saved government potato sacks from the Depression, and I asked her to sew them together to make me a large canvas that we tacked to the wall.

“I drew the Jesus, and she was elated. Both she and my mother were seamstresses, and they taught me. I made all my own doll clothes. I decided to use embroidery on the piece.”

Faulks began the work, then got married and had two children. She rolled up her Jesus and worked on it when she had time. Her first husband, injured in WWII, eventually died of his injuries, and she returned to school at Wilberforce until she re-married and had two more children. She was widowed a second time two years ago.

Hired as secretary for McLin Funeral Home by then-Ohio House Rep. C.J. McLin, “I’d take Jesus to work, and when I wasn’t busy, I’d work on him,” she said. “At night, I worked on him to relax, then roll him up and put him away. The more I worked, the more I wanted to finish him.”

Finally, on Jan. 5, she completed “My Jesus,” and approached various places to have it displayed, but was told that, at 4-feet-by-6-feet, it was too large for most spaces.

[…]

Faulks is thrilled that her Jesus is finally finished and now has a space where it’s appreciated, with an accompanying explanation of her long-term project.

“I’m happy, elated and relieved,” she said. “It took so long, just one stitch in, one stitch out, for 65 years.”

That is a seriously impressive piece of work. I think I better get back to work. I don’t have 65 years.

Full story here.

Bilyk Nazar.

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Rain. 2010 h-187см. bronze, glass.

Bilyk Nazar has an absolutely stunning body of work. This sculpture is called Rain.

The bronze sculpture features a nondescript man looking upward, a giant glass raindrop positioned over his face. This orb of translucent glass seems to balance perfectly, a sort of calm communing happening between the droplet and the solitary figure.

“The raindrop is a symbol of the dialogue which connects a man with a whole diversity of life forms,” Bilyk told My Modern Met. “The figure has a loose and porous structure and relates to dry land, which absorbs water. In this work I play with scale, making a raindrop large enough to compare a man with an insect, considering that man is a part of nature. Moreover, this work concerns the question of interaction and difficulties in coexistence of man with environment.”

There’s much more to explore at Nazar’s site, and Nazar at Behance.

Via Colossal Art.

No One Is Safe.

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ChadMichael Morrisette’s art installation “No One Is Safe.” (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Each victim has a different face.

It’s a small, but vital, detail in ChadMichael Morrisette’s art installation, “No One Is Safe,” a response to Sunday’s deadly mass-shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

Morrisette spent four hours Sunday placing 50 distinct mannequins on the roof of his home near the intersection of Fountain and Fairfax avenues in West Hollywood, a visceral representation of the 50 people, the gunman among them, slain in Orlando.

“I’m not celebrating today. I’m not going to Pride,” Morrisette texted his boyfriend, after waking Sunday morning, his 36th birthday, and watching the reported death toll from the tragedy rise. “Instead, I started working.”

It took the visual artist, who also operates his own business as a brand consultant, four hours to put together the roof display, with the help of a few friends, who Morrisette called “loving enough to come and celebrate that way.”

The process was intense, even beyond the effort needed to get the mannequins in position.

“It was emotional stepping over the bodies, laying them out,” Morrisette said, each time reminded of what those on-site at the crime scene must have experienced.

The faces weren’t the only things that differentiated these mannequins from the rest in Morrisette’s collection.

While the mannequins used in Morrisette’s business are pristine, the models that found their way to his roof were flawed, not yet receiving the care needed to patch their missing eyes or fingers.

“Some have damage you can’t see from a distance. Pulling them from a pile of broken bodies, it began to make it a little bit more real,” Morrisette quietly explained. “It wasn’t beauty being represented. It was shattered and broken.”

Mannequins from ChadMichael Morrisette's art installation "No One Is Safe." (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Mannequins from ChadMichael Morrisette’s art installation “No One Is Safe.” (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Mannequins from ChadMichael Morrisette's art installation "No One Is Safe." (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Mannequins from ChadMichael Morrisette’s art installation “No One Is Safe.” (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Response to the display has been immediate and powerful. Morrisette admits hiding behind his privacy hedge to watch people’s faces as they take in the message being communicated by his work.

“People are moved. They stop and get out of their vehicles. They do U-turns. One person just bowed to me as they walked by, out of respect,” Morrisette said. “Stopped cars sit at the light and have a moment to reflect, and those are the faces I like to watch. That’s when I know I’ve actually caused someone to think about something.”

Artist ChadMichael Morrisette sits on the roof of his West Hollywood home where he has placed 50 mannequins, as a way of dealing with his grief and expressing his feelings over the mass killing in Orlando. (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Artist ChadMichael Morrisette sits on the roof of his West Hollywood home where he has placed 50 mannequins, as a way of dealing with his grief and expressing his feelings over the mass killing in Orlando. (Mark Boster/ Los Angeles Times)

Full Story Here. Hat tip to Morgan.

James Bullough.

The Falling.

The Falling.

James Bullough is an American born artist living and working in Berlin, Germany. His paintings, and huge monumentally scaled site-specific murals, are phenomenal combinations of realist painting technique and graphic punctuation. Inspired by gritty urban graffiti as a young artist growing up in Washington, DC, Bullough harnessed its energy in his work, and perfected a realistic oil painting technique from his study of the Old Masters. Combining the momentum of the one and the technical precision of the other, his work is about staging compelling contrasts and juxtapositions. Working in everything from oil, spray paint and ink on canvas, Bullough’s paintings strike a balance between realistic figurations and stylized interruption. Disjointing the realistic elements with graphic areas and fractured or striated planes, Bullough intends to challenge the viewer’s perception.

His work is stunning, and highly emotive. For his Breaking Point series:

In this new series of works, Bullough captures moments of existential fracture, disruption, and personal breach through the expressive movement of the body, asking his models to channel personal memory and to recall experiences of “breaking” at the moment of their capture. Working with dancers from Berlin, Bullough begins with the body in motion, arrested in an expense of negative space, then dissembles it further, splicing, striating, and fragmenting its surfaces and planes. The models remain anonymous and faceless throughout, an omission intended to reaffirm the symbolic universality of the emotive physical gesture.

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Enough.

Burst.

Burst.

Oil painting on old, found book.

Oil painting on old, found book.

Click images for full size. Have a wander around James’s gallery, it’s full of amazing works. James Bullough.com.

Lollipop Cool.

Vintage Confections has the coolest lollipops on the planet. They have planets you can eat.

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There’s much more in their space collection, too. They have nebulas, galaxies, phases of the moon, Lost in Space, and more. (I’m in love with the phases of the moon set, but I don’t know if I could bring myself to eat them.)

Vintage Confections has 2D lollis with a 3D effect, 3D lollis, flats, lollis without the stick, square and rectangle lollis, and shaped lollis. Marshmallows with images, too. :D You can even design your very own.

Serious temptations: Phases of the Moon, Creature Eyes, I love Geeks and Nerds, and Insects, Bugs, and Spiders. Oh, I have to stop.

Vintage Confections Online Catalogue.

Tiny Street Interventions.

Slinkachu © 2015.

Slinkachu © 2015.

Slinkachu © 2015.

 

Slinkachu © 2015.

Slinkachu © 2015.

 

Slinkachu © 2015.

Slinkachu © 2015.

These are so absolutely delightful!

Blink, and you’ll miss it. Secreted amongst weeds growing in the cracks of sidewalks or hidden in a tiny pile of trash, street artist Slinkachu creates site-specific interventions of miniature people living just under our feet. More than just hiding tiny figurines in public places, each of his artworks are carefully considered, crafted, and installed before the artist takes a photo to document it. While clearly humorous in nature, Slinkachu’s pieces touch on much larger ideas of environment, globalization, and a culture of isolation often found in large cities. Via Andipa Gallery:

These figures embody the estrangement spurred by the over-whelming nature of the modern metropolis, and incite a renewed perspective of the everyday urban experience to those who find them. This sense of isolation and melancholy, however, is accompanied by sense of irony and humour that makes Slinkachu’s commentary all the more poignant.

Via Colossal Art. Slinkachu’s Official Instagram. Slinkachu at Andipa Gallery, London. Oh, go have a look, you’ll definitely have a smile on your face.

I make simple things complicated.

Derek McDonald.

Derek McDonald.

I am an artist. I am a maker of things.

Derek McDonald Artworks was established in 1997 when I decided to dedicate more time to art. With that decision came the task of building a 900 square foot workshop from the ground up, equipped with special machines and tools. Every artist needs his creative space, and after four years, I finally had mine.

Design is at the center of everything I do. I like to get my hands dirty and put my welding torch to use, and I am proud to provide artisan-quality goods. My artwork is handcrafted and distinguished by clean, hidden welds and painstaking detail.

I am passionate about using recycled material, so I frequent scrap yards for pieces of metal and other nonsense. I like to incorporate motion and texture into my artwork, and I constantly experiment with wood, granite, and concrete. Unique finds get my imagination going, and I love the challenge of what could be crafted from my collection of presumed junk.

Derek McDonald Artworks. Fabulous works here, and a whole lot to see.

Beautiful, Shiny…Dirt.

Bruce Gardner.

Bruce Gardner.

What’s not to love about playing with dirt, and even better, playing with mud? Most all of us have done that in our lives at some point, and had a great time, too. Those of us who still love to play in dirt often use gardening as an excuse. I had never heard of dorodango though, a common occupation of children in Japan. Then there’s hikaru dorodango, the art of making shiny mud balls! I know I’m going to do this, it’s just one of those things that you see, and right away, you’re running outside for dirt.

Hikaru dorodango experienced a resurgence and brand new popularity thanks to Professor Fumio Kayo of the Kyoto University of Education: SHINY MUD BALLS: Kyoto Professor Taps into the Essence of Play. I really need to come out from under my rock more often, I had no idea, and this just looks so amazingly cool and fun. Professor Kayo’s personal recipe is included in that article, along with his method:

How to Make Shiny Dorodango

1. Pack some mud into your hand, and squeeze out the water while forming a sphere.

2. Add some dry dirt to the outside and continue to gently shape the mud into a sphere.

3. When the mass dries, pack it solid with your hands, and rub the surface until a smooth film begins to appear.

4. Rub your hands against the ground, patting and rubbing the fine, powdery dirt onto the sphere. Continue this for two hours.

5. Seal the ball in a plastic bag for three or four hours. Upon removing the sphere, repeat step 4, and then once again seal the sphere in a plastic bag.

6. Remove the ball from the bag, and if it is no longer wet, polish it with a cloth until it shines.

Over at The Creators Project, you can read about Bruce Gardner’s dorodango, along with beautiful photos and a brief video.

Magie du Bouddha has a nice, humorous tutorial.

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Have fun playing with the dirt, I know I will!