From Giliell, a beautifully embroidered hoodie, patterns from Urban Threads. This is a ton of work with a machine, it would take me half of forever to do by hand. There are times I really wish I did get along with sewing machines, and this is one of them. Click for full size.
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
Pulse Warmers made by Giliell, donated to the Standing Rock Camp. So beautiful, and warming too! Click for full size.
© Giliell, all rights reserved.
On this episode of Monster Lab, Ed Edmunds shows you how to sculpt a very cool-looking alien zombie head to be cast as a 3/4 Halloween mask. A 3/4 mask fits farther over your head than a half-mask, so no elastic string or tie is needed.
First off, Ed goes over the sculpting tools you’ll need, most of which are basic things you likely already have around the house or shop (brushes, bucket, knife, spray bottle) and a few carving tools that are easily acquired. For the sculpting medium, he recommends WED clay. You can get 50 lbs of it for around $25 (minus shipping). After he runs through the basic tools, he goes over some nice-to-have tools if you enjoy your intro to sculpting and decide you want to dive in deeper.
Below is the only exotic tool he highly recommends that you may not be able to get at your local craft store, a serrated double wire sculpting tool that has a triangular wire on one end and a circular wire on the other. The steel wire is serrated and this tool is used for cutting, shaping, and digging out clay material around places like the eye sockets.
One thing I like about this video is that Ed tried to keep all of the tools required as minimal as possible so that newbies could try their hand at it. On that note, for the armature, rather than using a professional head/bust form for modeling, he made a crude one out of 2x4s and a piece of plywood. He also recommends a Lazy Susan, but it’s not required.
Another thing I love about this video, and all well-done instructional videos, is that it makes the process look approachable, very doable. Even if you have no sculpting experience or don’t see yourself as particularly artistic (stop that!), if you create a set-up like he has, gather the basic tools, and carefully follow along, I can almost guarantee that you’ll surprise yourself and end up with something that’s pretty darn impressive.
This is only Part 1 in the series. In the next installment, Ed promises to show us how to cast the alien zombie sculpt into a wearable mask. Monster Lab is hosted by the prop and F/X company, Distortions Unlimited. You can peruse their website here.
Also at Make: 8 Seriously Scary Halloween Costumes / 5-Minute Glowing Ghost Eyes – A ghost with glowing eyes hovers in the window. Watching. Always watching. /
And, a whole slew of Rubber Band toys to make:
All via Make Magazine. I’m a Maker, don’t you want to be a Maker too?
Absolutely amazing work, this. I had no idea that this could even be done.
Tricking the eye to view textile as bone, Lana Crooks (previously) works with bits of hand-dyed wool and silk to recreate the sun-drenched skeletons of snakes, birds, and humans, displaying them each in bell jars. She considers he works “faux specimens” as her delicate sculptures blend science, art, and fantasy. Often her inspirations come from books as well as real specimens, like the ones found in the back rooms of Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History.
Crooks curated the group exhibition All That Remains, where her work can also be seen, at the Stranger Factory in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She also has an upcoming two-person exhibition at the Chicago-based Rotofugi titled Night Fall, which opens December 9th, 2016. You can see more of her textile skeletons on her Facebook and Instagram.
Via Colossal Art.
Mending tears with Japanese paper. Photos courtesy of Alvarez Fine Arts Services unless otherwise noted.
While conservators in a museum setting work towards exhibitions that are scheduled years in advance, private practitioners often have to work at a much faster clip, while still upholding the required methodological and ethical standards. “More and more, our schedule is governed by auction dates and major art fairs around the world,” notes Jason Marquis, the studio manager at Alvarez Fine Arts Services, a New York-based private paper conservation studio founded by Antonio Alvarez and Scott Krawitz in 1984. With Art Basel less than two months away, the Alvarez team, which includes four full-time conservators, is gearing up for a busy season.
On the plus side, those intensive turnaround times—along with a diverse client base—make for a rich variety of projects. In addition to taking on work for smaller museums that do not have an in-house paper conservation staff, the Alvarez studio primarily does business with auction houses, art dealers, and collectors, who are looking to treat artworks before they are exhibited or sold. Meanwhile, some projects are brought to them because of their personal, rather than cultural, importance—like letters and diplomas. “But we don’t think about value when things come through here,” explains Marquis. “We treat everything as though it’s priceless, whether it’s a sentimental drawing from someone’s grandmother, or a million-dollar work.”
Antique fishing lure boxes. Photo by the author.
“According to the collector,” says Skura, “the boxes are worth even more than the objects.” And while the client was hoping to have the labels removed, cleaned, then put back on, Skura is instead recommending a less aggressive approach that will leave the labels as is, and extract the dirt with dry sponges. “What is technically possible isn’t always ethically sound,” says Marquis—a magic phrase he often has to use with clients. “It’s like going to the doctor and asking for a treatment, and the doctor has to explain why it’s not such a good idea,” adds Skura.
I collect old medicines, and have many amazingly beautiful boxes full of various herbs, and yes, the boxes are so very important. The artwork, the information, there’s so much richness and history there. I had never even thought about having these restored. The full article is excellent, and there’s more to see at The Creators Project.
Bibi Mildred Karaira Gandia thanks her 8-year-old great niece and PDJ runner Gabby, with a necklace during the ceremony. Amy Morris.
Every four years since 1992, indigenous communities have been spiritually reuniting the Western hemisphere by participating in The Peace and Dignity Journeys. This massive undertaking is a chain of spiritual runs that cross the continents and connect the regions of North, Central, South America and the Caribbean. The endeavor is an effort to fulfill the ancient reunion prophecy of the Eagle and Condor.
As explained in the short film Shift of the Ages, the Eagle represents the Northern hemisphere, a masculine energy, and the Condor represents the Southern hemisphere, a feminine energy. The harmony between indigenous cultures across both continents, the union of North and South, was shattered by the arrival of Europeans, who brought genocide and a decimation of the traditional ways.
Peace and Dignity runner from Kingston Jamaica, Kalaan Robert Nibonrix (Taino), formally greeting elder Chumsey Harjo (Muscogee Creek Nation) during the closing ceremony of the Eastern Red Tail Hawk route July 23, 2016. (Amy Morris)
One interpretation of the prophecy from the Peruvian shaman Lauro Hinostroza states that for 500 years, beginning around the 16th century, the Eagle would dominate. This timeframe coincides with the onset of colonization and the profound shift in the way indigenous cultures functioned between the continents and among their own communities.
The prediction says that at the end of the 500 year cycle, an opportunity would come forth for Eagle and Condor to unite again and begin to restore balance to the world.
I keep forgetting, I got a beautiful elk hide at wačipi. It’s back to being safely tucked away for when I have time to work on it. Roughly 70something inches x 50something inches. No, I don’t know yet. Well, I know what I’m going to do with part of it, not all, and it’s something for us, so it won’t be for sale.
© C. Ford.
Most people are familiar with my work, so will readily understand my attraction to this particular piece of art examination, a microscopic look at the Triumph of Bacchus tapestry.
Triumph of Bacchus, design overseen by Raphael, ca. 1518-19; design and cartoon by Giovanni da Udine. Brussels, workshop of Frans Geubels, ca 1560. Paris, Mobilier National, inv. GMTT 1/3. Image © Le.
This photomicrograph shows the warp and weft threads used to create a background detail in the Triumph of Bacchus tapestry.
The horizontal threads are the undyed wool warps that are the backbone of the underlying weave structure to the tapestry.
The decorative vertical threads include both crimson colored silk wefts as well as precious metal weft threads.
The Metal threads are made of very thin strips of gilt silver wrapped around yellow dyed silk.
How exactly was the gilding of tapestries done in the 16th century? These microscopic images reveal all.
These images show the warp and weft threads used to create a background detail in the Triumph of Bacchus tapestry recently exhibited in “Woven Gold: Tapestries of Louis XIV.”
Viewed from a distance (like when the tapestry is hanging high up on a wall), the combo of the crimson silk with the gold threads looks like a bright copper, and here we can see all the separate colors and textures that build up that look.
Detail from the Triumph of Bacchus Tapestry. It was woven with wool, silk and metal threads.
The Getty has a fascinating tumblr, Art Under the Microscope, examining all manner of art in microphotographs.
Courtesy Lauren A. Badams.
A team of scientists from the U.S., Belgium, Portugal, and the U.K. have pushed back the first use of Indigofera tinctoria as blue fabric dye in the world to South America 6,200 years ago. The previous oldest physical specimen was from Egypt 4,400 years ago, although there were written references to blue dye going back 5,000 years. The blue dyed cotton fabric was discovered in an archaeological site that has been studied for many years, Huaco Prieta, located in the northern coastal region of modern Peru.
Publication of the study by Jeffrey C. Splitstoser and his colleagues in Science Advances this month has set off wisecracks in popular science publications about Andean Indians inventing blue jeans, but it is a much bigger deal than that. Besides, what was new about blue jeans was the rivets, not the color.
[…]
Indigo blue was highly prized long before the Americas were “discovered.” The ancient Greeks understood India to be the source of the dye and indigo—along with spices and silk—made up the trade goods the Europeans were seeking when they got sidetracked by Aztec and Incan gold.
Why is it a big deal that indigo appears in South America long before Asia or Africa? If the dye required nothing but mashing up something blue, then it might be found everywhere the plant grew, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Most ancient dyes were fairly simple. Flower petals were boiled to make them yield up their color. Ochre yielded reds and yellows, depending on the exact iron content. A bright white dye can be extracted from milkweed.
The first difference indigo presents is that the dye is not in the flowers. It’s in the leaves. To make the leaves yield the color, they first have to be fermented. The fermented solids are then dried. The fermented and dried indigo is light and easy to ship.
The indigo solids must then be treated with an alkaline substance, commonly urine, to produce a dye that is apparently white. Yarn treated with the reconstituted indigo comes out white but then turns to yellow, to green, and finally to the deep blue that makes the dye so valuable.
In an interview with Live Science, Splitstoser speculated, “This was probably a technology that was invented by women.” He noted that women were typically in charge of weaving and dying in Andean cultures.
The discovery at Huaco Prieta adds another example of cultural knowledge either purposely destroyed or ignored out of arrogance by conquistadors who believed they were doing God’s work in destroying non-Christian cultures. That destruction fed the myth that Europe represented science when the Americas represented superstition.
These people who were burning Mayan writings and destroying works of astronomy and mathematics and chemistry were burning human beings for heresy at the same time. Indians had science and Europeans had superstition. It ought to be possible to compare cultures in a more objective manner than the settlers have chosen when they wrote all the histories.
Full article here.
The Jingle Dancers coming along in Grand Entry at the UTTC 47th International Wačipi, which reminds me I need to go through all those photos and get them posted. Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
A chain of koi fish float through an exhibit space, illuminating their immediate surroundings with a self-contained, warm orange glow. The works come from a familiar yet unexpected name: Frank Gehry. Early in his artistic career, Gehry created several visual installations and furniture designs, many in the late-20th century, that would influence his later accomplishments in architecture. Fish Lamps draws upon the flowing and undulating movement of the water species, an aesthetic that often made an appearance in Gehry’s singular building designs.
I have very few lamps, but I’d be happy to give some of these a home. Full Story at the Creators Project.
What should you wear to keep cool on a hot day? One word: plastics.
A form of polyethylene — the common plastic that makes up ClingWrap — is a promising candidate for a textile that prevents us from overheating, researchers say. Hopefully, it won’t look like those PVC bodysuits that pop up every Halloween.
Many researchers are trying to create cooling fabrics, from cloth inspired by squid skin to electroactive textiles. But the team led by Yi Cui, a materials scientist at Stanford University, was inspired by materials that we don’t usually consider for clothing. In a study published today in Science, the team turned a battery component into a textile that lets our body’s natural heat escape better than cotton. The team hasn’t worn the fabric themselves yet, but Cui insists it feels “very much like normal fabric” and hopes it will be commercialized within two years.
Full story at The Verge.
Supergirl creator developing a Black Lightning TV series.
Supergirl and Arrow co-creator Greg Berlanti is reportedly developing a series following Black Lightning, one of DC Comics’ first major black superheroes. According to Deadline, Berlanti is working with The Game creator Mara Brock Akil and her husband to get the drama off the ground, and the trio are currently shopping the project to multiple networks.
Black Lightning has the chance to be DC’s highest profile black superhero series to date. Created in 1977 by writer Tony Isabella and artist Trevor Von Eeden, Black Lightning, otherwise known as Jefferson Pierce, is an educator and eventual member of the Justice League with the power to control electrical energy. In the proposed TV series, Pierce will have retired from superheroics, but after his daughter’s life is endangered by his city’s underworld, he willingly steps back into his old alter ego.
Full story here.
I always forget about signatures. So, have to make a sig label. I could just scrawl in metallic marker, but that’s not really my style. As for my name, that’s my surname in Lakota. Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
Kestrel sent some more photos of her work, and they are just stunning. When I saw the first photo, all I had was “Oh, Wow.” Beautiful indeed. It’s been many years since I kept horses, but if I still did, I’d definitely have one of these made. Click for full size!
Sometimes when I am working hair it strikes me as so beautiful I have to stop and take a photo. People don’t realize the beauty or the character of horsehair because they don’t see it the way I do. 25-strand double flat braid in horsehair. It looks like there are 4 different colors but the hair is from only 2 horses. At the roots where the hair emerges, it is generally darker (or in the case of white hair, really really white), and out in the brush of the tail where the sun shines on it and it can be stained by plants, it can be lighter, or, in the case of white hair it can actually be darker!
The finished bracelet from the top, where you can see the section I photographed above on the left of the photo, and it’s also easier to see the slightly darker white from the brush of the tail.
The other side of the bracelet. For the owner of these horses, this will be a cherished memento of two friends.
© Kestrel, all rights reserved.