Hailing from Johannesburg, textile artist Billie Zangewa makes intricate stitched collages from raw silk that celebrate the joys and struggles of her life as a black woman and mother. Her work reflects on the ways in which black women’s wider political status bleeds into their everyday lives, a process she calls “daily feminism.” Yet there…
Daily Feminism: The Textile Art of Billie Zangewa
Taking body measurements always felt daunting, so I often avoided it. Even with a fashion design degree, our curriculum only skimmed the surface on this crucial skill, focusing instead on creating patterns for a “standard” size 10. However, a recent digital pattern-making course helped me overcome this. I had to take my full body measurements…
There is a quiet, understated elegance in the art of French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, whose dreamlike paintings and murals came to encapsulate the spirit of late 19th century Symbolism. His timeless models, adorned in drapes and gowns, drift through panoramic scenes, where muted shades like PALE GREEN spill out onto the ground or…
What is more luxurious than linen pyjamas? (Okay- that is a rhetorical question because everyone has their own vision of luxury.) Linen pajamas evoke slow mornings and leisure. They are more elevated than your partner’s old sweats and a toothpaste-stained sweatshirt…which tends to be in rotation for me regularly this season. As I was preparing…
The tapestries of American textile artist Erin M. Riley are remarkably frank, depicting dark and emotionally raw subjects ranging from nude selfies and private wounds to messy, unkept tabletops scattered with the kind of awkward detritus that would make most cringe with embarrassment. In doing so, her art becomes a powerful form of catharsis, laying…
I’m sure most of us in the sewing community have experienced feeling like we have lost our “sewing mojo” – a dip in our motivation that can leave us feeling stuck and frustrated. Don’t worry! With a little self-reflection and by implementing a few of the strategies in this article we can reignite our motivation…
French 19th century artist Eugene Boudin captured vast, soaring skies filled with flickering patches of dappled cloud, which flit between soft shades of pale grey, light blue, and the hazy lilac grey of Grey Pearl. His mastery of cloud painting even prompted Barbizon painter Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot to coin Boudin as the “king of the skies.”…
I started writing (and sewing) about dopamine makes just over a year ago. Thank you for coming along this journey with me- it means the world to know there is a place that extends beyond the practical and into the….unabashed silliness of sewing with no purpose except to feel. (That is NOT to say I…
Contemporary textile designer Lisa King makes striking prints which are an eclectic blend of influences, from the lush plant life of her childhood in Thailand to her mother’s vibrant collection of textiles and antiquities, her background training as a dancer, and her current life in industrialised London. She says, “I draw a lot of parallels…
Scottish artist and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh might be best remembered for his Art Nouveau architecture and furniture, but he was also a highly skilled painter who made distinctive, stylised paintings of flowers and landscapes filled with quiet, understated wonder. Cool, crisp shades of metallic green like Laurel Leaf were a recurring feature of his…
There are some joys we keep to ourselves, and some, once we break their secret code, we want everyone to know it too. To join us in the joy. In my twenties, it was salsa dancing and more than once I was the person at a dinner party counting steps and demonstrating the basics to…
The colossal, tactile artworks of contemporary Ghanaian artist El Anatsui have a ghostly, liminal quality that is impossible to pin down, hovering somewhere between sculpture, woven textile, and installation. Made from salvaged scraps of plastic, wood, and, most recently shiny metal, his suspended structures perform the challenging trick of turning discarded scraps into treasure; whether…
Bands of horizon where sky meets and merges with water were a recurring theme in the art of the Symbolist painter James Abbot McNeill Whistler, flooding his canvases with the atmospheric light of a faraway dream. As much as Whistler is known as the painter of the night with his sombre, subtle ‘Nocturnes’ series, he…
I have made shorts, towels/washcloths and the coziest robe out of this waffle texture fabric. Robe and shorts shown here.We’ve been pleased with every one of these garments so far but if trying this delicious waffle fabric with clothing is intimidating to you or not to your taste, I’m happy to suggest another fun and…
Personal and collective stories about place and the need for belonging are woven tightly into the textile art of South African contemporary artist Igshaan Adams. His richly layered visual language brings together everyday ephemera from his home town, including shells, nylon rope, strips of fabric, plied cords, and beads. But it is also conceptually bound…
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