YAS contemporary lifestyle

An inspiring post from Textile Arts Resource Guide. Many links to articles on Lois Mailou Jones provide insight into a long career as an artist, a woman and the effect of being an African American artist from the 1930s through the 1990s. A must read. Textile Arts Resource Guide: Textile Designer: Lois Mailou Jones

heather dimarco  Knit Sculpture In general, crochet is faster. Crochet is a more open technique, and allows for more open design Crochet can be made in many different stitches Knit Anemone by  Simone Russell  There are two stitches in knitting - knit and purl. These stitches are combined in a variety of ways to create patterns.  Crochet uses a single hook, knitting uses two needles Joan Dulla  Crochet "Recreating Myself" Joan Dulla "Niobium Glory" Beautiful exploration of the coloring of niobium wire in her jewelry designs. An aside for a moment, we won't be using  niobium  as Dulla says it cost way more than gold and silver.  Crochet is denser than knitting and uses more yarn  Knitting stretches more than crochet and is ideal for items needing flexibility or drape.  Both knitting and crocheting may be worked in the round.  Yvette Kaiser Smith Creating shaped garments is less difficult in knitting Circular knitting need...

(this post is related to the art meets fashion evolution team project that i'm participating in.  we're making things now, and bringing our creations to meetings for collaborative review.  for some reason, many things japanese arrived independently at yesterday's meeting. i wanted to trace japanese pleating techniques because the techniques interest me as a surface textile designer in the form of shibori and as a student of art and design in the work of noguchi, miyake, and fortuny. the project has led me back to looking at other folks' art. something i stopped doing after i realized that i would struggle with a design trying to make it resemble some imaginary, or so i thought, image in my head, only to realize at completion that i was trying to copy an image i'd seen. i find that when we are comfortable with art, it is because the art resonates with some image in our past or maybe even present.) issey miyake 's name came up in our meeting yesterday. (note: ...

Great post from HandEye magazine. Be sure to view the slide show for images of Benin looms. Rites of Spring

I picked up my jacket/coat from the Encinitas Public Library Environmental Art Exhibit yesterday. So good to see the piece hanging in a kind of empty exhibition space. The Encinitas Library is impressive. Beautiful building on a hill overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Full of folks, used books for sale, large computer area, art gallery, coffee and pastry kiosk outside. From as far back as I can remember libraries have always served as places of wonder and community. My mother recreated herself through books and magazines and early on figured out that if she was going to have time to read, we needed to learn to read too. What child would not be totally impressed by the huge stone lions guarding the entrance to the magical world of reading that urban main libraries all seemed to have in the 1950s? Segregated schools in that same period were both a curse and a blessing. My segregated public grammar school fell into the blessed category. In addition to being taught by friends and ...

Many of my posts for a while will be research for the Art Meets Fashion Project that I expect to be working on until April of 2011. There are four people on the team, which is named Evolution, and has it's own blog. The members consist of a metalsmith, two fashion educators and me, a surface textile designer. The project is a collaboration. The team is in the process of establishing how we will collaborate, defining roles, and researching images, styles, relevant definitions, etc. I'm also working through several ideas I have, and the background for those ideas I'll blog about here. Jensen Conroy jewelry provides inspiration. I like the tribal influence and the collaborative interests of textiles and metal. The Jensen Conroy website is the best place to view the work.

STYLE Musée des Arts Décoratif's History of Fashion null Published: May 24, 2010 A Paris exhibition at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs re-assesses the style of the 1970s through multimedia installations that bring each designer’s spirit to screen life. View the slide show .

I'm not sure how far I will go with Indigo dyeing. The possibilities range from growing my own indigo to buying pre-fermented cakes or so-called Instant Indigo. Remains to be seen. Meanwhile here is a tutorial on indigo and indigo dyeing from Cheryl Kolander whose website is Aurora Silk . Dyeing with Indigo - Natural Fermentation Vat click to enlarge Buy Indigo Why Indigo? Indigo is a dye different than any other. It does not require any mordant. Rather it is dyed through a living fermentation process. The process "reduces" the Indigo, changing it from blue to yellow. In this state, it dissolves in an alkaline solution. The fibre is worked in the solution, or "vat". When brought out to the air, it is a bright green. Slowly the air changes it to the beautiful deep and rich blue of Indigo. Indigo in some form is used in all traditional cultures, for it is the only clear and fast natural blue. Indigo dyeing was one of the first speciality professions. Ye...

Surface textile design is defined as: the art of changing the appearance of natural and synthetic surfaces by the application of traditional, stylized, digitized, and illusionary techniques to embellish a product. It’s also the art of enhancing a surface’s structure by applying three-dimensional techniques, such as weaving, knitting, embroidery, lace, devoré, beading, and embossing. Surface textile design encompasses the coloring, patterning, and structuring of fiber and fabric. This involves creative exploration of processes such as dyeing, painting, printing, stitching, embellishing, quilting, weaving, knitting, felting, and papermaking. Surface textile design techniques use colorants (dye, pigments, paints, natural dye stuffs). Colorants are defined as any material applied to cloth that imparts color to it. Dye is a colorant that chemically bonds with the fibers. Pigment is a colorant that adheres to the surface of the fibers. Painting is the application of a co...

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Central St. Martins Graduate Show: The Clothes, The Designers, The Stars