Monthly Archives: July 2011
bangle:blown glass encased in silver
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eastern market bottles
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Rows and rows of bottles neatly arranged, filled with colorful oils at Eastern Market in Washington DC. I remember being mesmerized by the bottles, the peddler and the stories he told. From my collection of images – one of my favorites.
Eastern Market Bottles
A high resolution download of Eastern Market Bottles is this month’s Bonus for members of the Archives Level. If you are a member, log in and you will see a thumbnail of the image in the sidebar of your dashboard. Click on it to download the zip file.
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claire moynihan’s entomological collections
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When she lost a small ball of felted wool in her home, Claire Moynihan had no idea that it would change the course of her art. Upon finding the lost ball some time later, she discovered it had moth holes in it and on a whim decided to embroider a moth onto it’s surface, making a ‘moth ball.’
Moynihan’s curiosity about the moth that was responsible for the holes took her to the Museum of Zoology in Cambridge where she learned about the Common Clothes Moth and became mesmerized by the world of insects.
{click image to see the collection up close}
Inspired by the display cabinets filled with rows of insects and hand written labels, she began to embroider the insect collections that have quickly become her signature work. Moynihan’s story reminds us that inspiration often comes in surprising packages when we least expect it.
lizz aston burns out
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Negative spaces. In life we run from them. In art we look for them.
Lizz Aston exploits the shadowy beauty we ultimately come to understand exists within the negative spaces. Aston uses free motion embroidery on paper to create textile patterns, then burns out the paper around the threads, resulting in a hauntingly beautiful paper fabric.
For many of her pieces she spins paper fibers on an old fashioned spinning wheel, first tearing handmade Japanese papers into long, thin strips, preparing them to be spun into paper threads. Aston crochets delicate doilies with the paper threads. Those doilies become her canvas, and again she burns these to get to the negative spaces and the beauty within.
Lizz Aston’s website
Lizz Aston’s blog
Lizz Aston at the Telephone Booth Gallery
