Boxes and weave together again

These interesting structures, squares
that align themselves into walls of squares
really stand out for me.
The buttons, plain and simple react
perfectly with the colour palette chosen.

The greys, subtle browns and navy blues alongside greys,
so dark they could be mistaken for blacks,
come together alongside whites and creams
to create great contrast that mimics a stone wall like structure,
where stones are not always one colour, and one may be
the one that stands out the most.
I imagine Sean Scully would love this sort of stuff.

It is another Next coat – well who knew?
I didn’t, but clearly all these coats came from the same or similar years, bearing in mind the designs of this and the previous posted one are clearly related, like brothers or sorts.

Again a great display of simple shapes melded
with an intricate pattern of weave using skeins of thread.

Ever present influences

Pages from Marie Clare October 2011 issue.

Ever present being the polka dot, or the dot, or the circle,
which ever word you use to describe or name or classify it.
It is every where, liek thel ine then if you think about it.

What most interests me with this spread is the interesting colour combinations,

always coming in twos and sticking to at least one fairly bold colour.

There is clearly a sense of constant with the dot.

Moving onto the Aztec inspirations of the moment,

I haven't seen much of it myself on the street - except on jumpers I think.

But I'm looking forward to seeing more of the Aztec's infleucneing through pattern,

their own ideas of pattern are individual and unique.

Incredibly defined by straight lines, angles and points and geometric shapes.

The use of the diamond, or square pushed to one side a little,

features heavily in the clothes on these pages.

Colours are solid, bright and bold,

with black left to make its defining place.

Denim Special

If you've been there form the start you will know of an entry on denim (Quilted Arcs) in which I touched on the environmental issues of denim itself. I decided that as the last post in September 2011, I'd look more into what can be done with cotton,
how it could be customised, reused or recycled.

Below are photos by Liz, a fellow student artist and friend:

Showing thick cotton stitch above,
of which Liz isn't a fan of - but personally
I think the thick cotton used is quite interesting.
Need to find and buy a roll of it myself to try out on my sewing machine.

Amazing macro skills here.
Liz tells me she ripped the jeans
and then stitched the lace/net onto the reverse side of the jeans.
A round of applause for the fashion guru folks.

Ah nice ragged effects.
Never gets old.

This is a great example of what can be done with old raggedy jeans,
in a way that utilises simple stitch skills (like the running stitch).

The above are the little metal studs that

are used in the corners or borders of pockets on jeans

to reinforce the corner areas, known as copper rivets.

The use of green thread here is quite different,
I've yet to see another pair of jeans using green thread.

Also the idea of tie dye being a way of stopping dye

getting to parts of fabric was also used on this pair of jeans.
Though this process industrially often involves more energy being used up.
It can also be done to jeans at home with bleach (here a link to a tutorial on the process),
however their are precautions you should take,
wearing gloves is just one of them.

Just something I've been working on very slowly,
looking at stitching scraps onto old denim using a brightish cyan like blue.

A better photo of what I'm working on.

Ending on an idea:
why not put words on jeans?

Thoughts of blue and music: Christian Marclay

A look at ArtForum this week, somehow this week is the last of September 2011.
The below photos below are of works by Christian Marclay
and are displayed at Fraenkel Gallery
and are taken from ArtForum (an arts journal/magazine)

I found an advert in ArtForum which I liked,

now this isn't new as well if you an occasional or rabid reader of ArtForum
you'll find the articles a bit, well over complicated me thinks

and I kind of feel the need to get out the dictionary.
Any way when I went ahead and googled the artist whose advert looked so refreshing,
I found I still liked his work. Now that is NEW.

I have been resizing images a lot and cropping them down just so that you get the good stuff

(and admittedly to save space but thats not benifitial to you)

As you can see, only good premium stuff. I deserve a snickers

(of course Christian Marclay deserves a large bag of malteasers).

A link to photos of more of his work on T R I B B L E & M A N C E N I D O

Glossy paper is a nightmare to photograph.
Some detail above shows actual tape strand entwined, circled, twirling and looking abstract.
His works from this exhibition are cyanotypes,
a form of work that combines both print and photography,
where an image is used and exposed onto paper that has been painted with a chemical mix.
A youtube video with more information and a 'how to' on cyanotype 

I really like the tape being used to create line,
and its reminder of analogue technology's existence, that and of physically owning a piece of music or sound on a tape, unlike mp3 files on a memory card of some kind.