Woven Trash Cans, Nashville TN

I was excited to see these cans elaborately woven with wire during a recent trip to Nashville (found along 12th Ave South). If anyone has information about who did these (and by the weathering, it appears they were done some time ago), please let me know!

ETA: Embroidery friend Lauren (aka giddy99) contacted me today with a link to Mary Lucking's website. This was a community project that she led in 1999 called "Can Do":

As part of Nashville, Tennessee's 12South streetscape redevelopment project in Spring 1999, youth and seniors at Sevier Park Community Center created colorful patterns for four new litter receptacles. Based on African and Native American beading and weaving designs, the patterns are created by weaving colored telephone wire into the perforated metal surfaces of the new red trash cans that were ordered to be installed in the Phase I area (the blocks closest to Sevier Park) of 12South project. The patterns on the cans highlight the interaction between rules and free-form creativity in art. Each pattern has a set of rules, within which the weavers will be encouraged to follow their own visions of color, pattern, and texture.

(Thanks, Lauren!)

Raf Simons Embroidered Shoes

Embroidered shoes by Raf Simons that were available once upon a time at Colette in Paris.


Reminds me of the work of Peter Crawley.

About "This Work Never Ends"

This Work Never Ends, by Jenny Hart 2002

I received an email today asking about this piece and its meaning. If you'll indulge my laziness, here is what I said in an interview with My Love For You Is a Stampede of Horses:

One of my very favorite pieces of yours is "This Work, Never Ends." It reminds me of samplers I have inherited from my Great aunt. Can you tell us a little bit about your motivation and inspiration behind that piece?

I made that piece for myself. It was two rectangular doilies, and I stitched "this work" on one and "never ends" on the other. They sat for a long time on the back of my armchair where I used to do a lot of embroidering. It was kind of a message with multiple meanings to myself about how work is never done no matter how you try, and also how embroidery lives on forever and grows and changes.

Link to full interview

Jillian Tamaki - Monster Quilt

Jillian Tamaki's Monster Quilt (click to enlarge)

Thanks to an auto-generated "you might also like", I saw a tiny image of Jillian Tamaki's Monster Quilt out of the corner of my eye. I clicked away accidentally before I could follow the link. I did some hunting to turn up what I thought I saw. Wonderfully worth the effort.

I am particularly interested in artists who depart from their usual medium to try embroidery. I think it's important to recognize that when we do, we are not textile artists in the traditional sense. Personally, I've never been comfortable being referred to as a textile or fiber artist (because I don't have that background). We are artists trying embroidery with a new curiosity and different approach to its challenges. Jillian speaks to that in her blog entry about doing this work. It's the "not knowing" that produces fresh results and roads not yet taken.

Link to Jillian's blog entry on her quilt
Link to Jillian's illustration portfolio

ETA: After posting about Jillian's work she contacted me: "Thanks, Jenny! I started embroidering with the help of one of your starter kits." That made my day. I am now hoping she'll consider a Sublime Stitching collab.

Wrap Your Head Around This - Group Show

Lou Reed as Christ (in progress), Jenny Hart 2009

Wrap Your Head Around This
@ The Drake Hotel, Toronto, Canada
November 18, 2010 - February 7, 2011

Works by:
Jenny Hart - Heather Goodchild - Lisa Anne Auerbach
Whitney Lee - Suzie Smith - Shuyu Lu - Rob Wynn

Link

Washington Post Cover

(click to enlarge)

I can now reveal my first foray into cross-stitching. This cover for the Washington Post magazine ran this past Sunday, October 31st, 2010. True, I didn't tell the editor I had never really worked in cross-stitch before, but I figured it was time that I tried it. I have new insights into cross-stitching that have inspired me in ways I really didn't expect. It was challenging for me, but I also found it enthralling in many ways I hadn't expected.