MetaFilter posts tagged with textiles

Map Quilts.

grapefruitmoon — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 10:31:58 -0800

Leah Evans is a textile artist who maps imaginary worlds in her quilts.

divabat — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 22:07:56 -0800

Asparagirl — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:20:09 -0800

"King Cotton" created a huge demand for land and (slave) labor that changed early America's borders, population, and economics. But just as cotton affected history, history affected cotton: the story of naturally colored cottons -- brown, green, yellow, mauve, and reddish cottons -- has almost been lost. Slaves in the American South, forbidden from planting white cotton lest they sell it for profit, grew this colored cotton in their gardens to spin their own clothes. These heirloom varieties, and colored cottons being grown in the former Soviet Union, were considered too difficult to spin commercially, and were almost lost until an untrained textiles enthusiast named Sally Fox single-handedly pioneered the revival of some of these cotton colors. Her cotton plants are grown organically (amazing for cotton, the most pesticide-dependent crop in the world!), drought tolerant, and their fibers require no toxic bleaching or highly carcinogenic dyes. Undyed colored cotton, raised organically in Peru by artisans through a collective called Pakucho, is also sold online here (Knitter's Review likes it a lot). And on a fun note, companies like Levi Strauss & Co. have now come full circle -- the original Levi's jeans were made in both the traditional indigo-dyed white cotton and in natural brown cotton, the latter of which fell out of favor. Now Levi's makes jeans out of Sally Fox's cotton.

paduasoy — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:56:10 -0800

VADS is a resource for visual art, a huge range of things from students' work to collections of historical art and design. I particularly liked the Bookbinders's Women's Suffrage banner and the Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture

bunglin jones — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 22:43:31 -0800

The invisible axe. Australian scientists build a real air guitar.

jonson — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 14:49:58 -0800

From this collection of framed art made only from the wings of African butterflies to Jan Fabre's beetle shell encrusted sculptures, the centuries-long war between artists their tiny insect enemies continues unabated. But never have I seen a more massive salvo for the artist community than "Terrible Beauty", an installation by Jennifer Angus. Featuring over fifteen thousand insects from the artist's personal collection (!), the exhibit features a series of rooms with textile geometric patterns on the wall created entirely by pinned insects of various forms, hues & sizes. All info on the amazing war between artists & insects found via the amazing Museum of Dust

If I Had An Anus — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 06:39:57 -0800

majcher — Sat, 28 Aug 2004 14:47:31 -0800

Rachel Wingfield does all sorts of cool stuff with electroluminescent technology. I want some.

lobakgo — Fri, 16 Jan 2004 08:50:17 -0800

Shibori is an amazing Japanese textile dying technique--a very sophisticated form of tie-dye, where nubby, lumpy, bizarre things like this are transformed after dying into this fish or these flowers (scroll for detail) or these starbursts. Specifically this odd thing became this (detail). You can find excellent photos and descriptions of the process here, here(scroll down and hold mouse over photo), and here. There is also information at the World Shibori Network . This photo shows partially dyed fabric and here is a video of the preparation for dying. Shibori is very labor intensive (carpal tunnel syndrome-city) and was a one time subject to a sumptuary tax and one form was outlawed by an emperor for being too extravagant. There are many different knots and ties for different patterns--browse here, here(gallery1-7), and here. Shibori can be used to make some striking and detailed images. Diverse examples of shibori --iris, layered squares, waves, kimonos, large bridge banner, subtle black and white winter scene, , a nifty “aerial view” of earth as a tidal pool with hot air balloons (detail of anemones). Don't miss the stunning work of Hiroko Harada (English/Japanese). I especially like Rain In the Forest, There Are Ripples On the Cloth, Seasonal Changes, and this large installation. You can browse more here, but the Japanese page has more.

plep — Fri, 07 Feb 2003 05:15:54 -0800

Gifts & Blessings. The textile arts of Madagascar.