“In a lot of my work it’s important that there is this ambiguity, that it doesn’t answer these questions and that there are no definite statements being made. So it’s more a type of poetry; it’s a poetic statement.” Yinka Shonibare’s art is a balance of opposites, combining irreverent, playful fantasy with the shocking brutality…
The Colourful Poetry of Yinka Shonibare
This is not the article I hoped to write this week. It comes with a heavy heart that it’s even a topic of discussion; nevertheless, we need to talk about how to support makers, small businesses, and local shops during this time of social distancing. Right now is not exactly a fun time to be…
Growing up, my mother told me stories of how young women used to work away making all of their own tablecloths, quilts, dish towels, etc. by the time they got married. It seems like a romantic idea, doesn’t it? How lovely it would be to move into a new home and to be able to…
“It’s that notion of gravity pulling on things, making things collapse, and that potential to collapse.” Multicoloured fabric is bundled into oversized pom-poms, stretched across posts or draped over concrete slabs in the wild, rugged world of Phyllida Barlow. Colossally huge and disarmingly bright, her sculptural installations transform the simple, everyday materials of concrete, plaster,…
I mentioned in my previous articles that fabric needs to be cleaned or ” scoured ” in order for it to take up the dye effectively. I also mentioned that after the fabric is scoured it needs to be mordanted, which will increase the light & wash fastness of the dyes. Once your fabric has…
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. I’m a mother of two who lives in San Francisco and grew up here in the Bay Area. When I’m not sewing, I work as a nutritionist and cooking class instructor at the VA. I also started a SF bay area sewists IG account recently where I…
Kaleidoscopic colour bursts forth from Takashi Murakami’s world of fun, spilling out from canvases into the walls and carpets beyond. Amidst his myriad displays of riotous, wildly optimistic colour, the pale, candy hue of SOFT PINK Linen is usually lurking somewhere, tinging the faces of his manga-like characters, the petals of beaming flowers or the…
“The work of art is a scream of freedom.” The astonishing, monumental ambition of husband and wife duo Christo and Jeanne Claude was limitless, covering vast swathes of land, sea and architecture. Merging textiles with land art, they transformed some of the world’s most famous sites, draping, wrapping and adorning them with specially engineered, vivid…
Not only does the Fabrics Store have the best linen for the best price out there, but now they’ve got me hooked on their patterns too. If you haven’t tried one, trust me – start with the LILY pattern. The LILY pattern has four options for multiple different looks. I’ve chosen to do the top…
In this new series, we are exploring how versatile one item of clothing can be, it is a reminder that we don’t necessarily need to have many clothes in our wardrobes, but instead, we can play and experiment with textures, accessories, stepping out of comfort zones and honouring our bodies and at the same time…
OLIVE BRANCH Linen’s earthy green rolls outwards across Bosch’s fantastical scenes, forming endless pastures of muddy grass and fervent trees that evoke the utopian paradise of Eden. His paintings are brimming with moralising stories about life, love, loss and repentance, as impish humans, birds, fish, insects and machines form mini-dramas that play out in a…
The role textiles play in contemporary art is a hot topic right now, one that countless galleries and publishers around the world are keen to pick up on. Some of the most publicised, recent examples include Turner Contemporary Gallery in Margate’s Entangled: Threads and Making in 2017, Tate’s stellar and widely popular tribute to the masterful…
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. I’m Gurusurya I work as a professional photographer and spend pretty much all my free time with friends or crafting or both. I have always felt a strong pull to create things with my hands. I love the magic in a thing that was created by hand…
British based painter Tomma Abts chooses retro, in-between shades that are hard to place, particularly the dusty, vintage pink of SHADOW GREY Linen. Woven like strips of found fabric into her abstract designs, ribbons of these unusual colours fold over and intersect with one another, creating complex visual puzzles that shift in and out of…
“Elegance is the balance between proportion, emotion and surprise.” Valentino Garavani, known worldwide by his first name alone, had an immaculate, Italian touch, one which earned him widespread, international acclaim. Finding his voice in the 1960s, his old-school, Hollywood glamour was an antidote to the proliferation of androgynous, tomboyish styles that were rising around him,…
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