Australian business “Third Drawer Down” create art with domestic products as their chosen vehicle.

Their mission statement:
“By placing art into the most domestic of circumstances, Third Drawer Down® products promote an ongoing dialogue between art and everyday life, whilst promoting the work of International Artists and Designers.

All Third Drawer Down® products are packaged in sustainable pouches, colour coded, and with the artist’s provenance and details of the Third Drawer Down® project on the back.”

Personally, I’m a sucker for intelligent, fun design and TDD doesn’t disappoint. I first came across their tea towels. Their products are innovative and inspiring. With names like lapkin, bubkin, artpron and artkerchief who wouldn’t be curious. Unfortunately I can’t link to individual pages so you’ll just need to head on over and check out the site.

They also promote a product called “Magnart“, a system that allows the hanging of artwork without nails or wire! Great idea.

Audrey Boyle currently practices in Auckland working in installation/sculpture and printmaking, working intuitively with found objects. Kerri-Ann Abbott works in porcelain to achieve the fragility and translucency required to create patterns and textures found in textile crafts.

Victoria (Australia) Craft council has a new exhibition showing ‘common goods’ cultures meet through crafts.

is a Craft Victoria residency program, exhibition and publication. The process is as important as the result. Makers from eight Commonwealth countries have been selected as representatives of a craft particular to their culture. They will arrive in Melbourne and meet a local ‘welcome’ artist who introduces them to current practice. Works from visiting and local artists go on display at the Melbourne Museum from 6 February. Then visitors spend the month of February in residence producing a work of art especially for the Games. These works then join the initial pieces for an opening at Melbourne Museum on 28 February. Through Common Goods, many different cultures coming to Victoria will find a way to work together.

There is a blog for the February residency

Thank you bugheart for the info on the Baltimore craft council show – some great craft artists exhibited – I particularly loved Lynn Whipple and her mixed media art, and Jacqueline Sanchez and her puzzle jewellery.

In the bakery led me to Jessica Smiths fabric designs “domestic element” – I give you some images of her wonderful fabrics – some are hand printed others digitally printed.

katy hackney

oxidised silver & cellulose acetate

Katy’s work evokes words such as ’sensuous seduction’ and ‘tactile enticement’, her jewellery has been called ‘extra-terrestrial cartoon abstractions’ and ‘retro, pop and future graphics’, it has been suggested that her work be ‘adopted as contemporary talismans’. (from CAA)

“Katy Hackney combines gold and silver, cellulose acetate and wood with such dexterity that it makes pieces that seduce the wearer with their charming quirkiness”. (from CAA london)

vintage formica, plywood, silver, enamel

velvet davinci

at alternatives
lesley craze gallery

crochet super heroes and embroidered comic books by Mark Newport.

“Newport works in and around an arena which, no matter how hip, still must be considered under the particular jurisdiction of the adolescent male: comics and the comic-book hero. … The artist’s use of needle craft, typically considered well within the realm of “women’s work,” establishes a challenging relationship between the young man implied by these works, the voice of popular culture/media”

(from Greg Kucera Gallery)

pics at greg kucera gallery (via slashdot) (next exhibition at greg kucera gallery may18 06)

good article at ASU art museum
also at moco loco
article at knitty

I’ve read and admired Brandy Agerbeck/Loosetooth.com for a long time. Her artwork, jewelry, sewing, and overall cheery disposition make her several blogs a joy to read. Lately she’s been working on perhaps my favorite stuff, some really neat octopus, lady, and dress prints posted at her Art/Work one.

Other favorite parts of her site: calendar collages and Craft Show 101 guide.

megan whitmarsh “uses embroidery and sewing techniques in her art. Her works combine the traditional medium of embroidery with elements in pop-culture such as yetis and battling elf girls. While the size of her work ranges from small to large, her characters remain tiny and detailed, forcing the viewer to literally peer into her worlds.” (from non starving artists) This image is titled ‘Shangri-la’

further reading:
layers of meaning
pirate kat
craft joint

Sometimes your are surfing around and similar things come to you from different sources. This morning I somehow ended up at Project Gutenberg, a great site with over 17,000 free books online, and started looking around for craft books. I came across this gem — The Ladies’ Work-Book, which contains knitting, crochet and other needle work patterns as well as some nice old illustrations.

A little more searching found Beeton’s Book of Needlework, which includes 600 engravings! And I’m sure there are more books like this hidden in this site. Days can be wasted with this kind of web surfing.

So I finally pulled myself away from Project Gutenberg, only to be sucked into the beauty that is Illuminated Books (found via meggiecat.) They have taken beautifully illustrated and illuminated books from private collections and scanned them into the website for your viewing pleasure. Some of the children’s books are especially nice.

I love Rosa’s new brown monkey – super adorable. Isn’t this photo fantastic!

while she naps made these adorable scrappy owls with matching cards.

icy suncatchers that iris made. Of course you need freezing temperatures outside for these to work – but what a fun idea.

Heather (our new author – soon to be writing for us – check out her profile in the sidebar) from Making time – has an excellent round up of japanese miniature bears. I loved the link for totona mei – and this picture is from there.

updates:
last time I posted about twelve22’s teacup cozies, now she has a new design for tall glasses – I love it.
And my little mochi is at it again – this time with a kokeshi doll pin – 2 inches high.
patterns:
Don’t you just love wee wonderfuls paper dolls – go and download them now.
love the tutorial that pinned has posted on making a patchwork table runner, more about it here too.
people:
I am really enjoying kraf-o-la and her amazing people interviews.

lisa kokin (via in a minute ago) explores memory and history by using the objects we leave behind.

about her button sculpture:
“I have sewn since I was a child and the stitch plays a major role in my work, so it was natural to join the buttons together to form a reconstructed family portrait. … My work has always had an obsessive quality and this body of work is no exception. Every button is stitched to its neighbor to form a low-tech pixilated composition. Up close each piece is an abstract mélange of colors and shapes; the further back one stands the more decipherable the image becomes. This interplay between abstraction and representation intrigues me.”

About her use of sewing in sculpture and photography:
“Much of my sculpture involves stitching objects which are normally not sewn such as toy ovens or ironing boards. For two generations my family made a living with needle and thread, my grandmother sewing ties, my parents dinette sets and boat cushions. They’ve covered the traditional territory; I am fascinated by the thought of sewing what is not normally sewn.”

There seems to be a meme doing the rounds of using embroidery in contemporary art. I wrote about Kent Henricksen’s work last week and have since discovered a few more artists working this way – I will be posting about them in the coming days.

Sandrine Pelletier (via the cool hunter)

This image is from ‘wild boys’, an installation with mixed media works.
Extract from an interview with her – about her use of embroidery:

“I wanted to show the violence behind the gentleness of embroidery. I find this visual effect intriguing. I discovered by accident that it was interesting to show the back as well as the front the embroideries. It is true that the back of these portraits has a wilder appearance: the figures seem to bleed from their eyes, their flesh seem to be full of scars and their veins seem to be inflating. … The way I embroider is absolutely profane, … [and] working with a sewing machine allows me to obtain a rougher, wilder trait. I never follow the outlines attentively. Sometimes the machine jumps, or it gets stuck and these accidents can create very interesting effects. … it introduces a very physical dimension.”