Extraordinary Embroidery

‘Lessons from my mother’ series by visual artist Andrea Dezso

“They fuck you up, your mum and dad” Philip Larkin

‘Crapestry’

I have invented (insofar as one can) the word ‘crapestry‘; a rather obvious contraction of the words ‘crap‘ and ‘tapestry‘.

Contemporary commercial tapestries might be argued to be the exemplification of superficial chintz; spectacularly vapid, vividly dull, unquestioningly conformist, gaudily bourgeois, and at the same time unyieldingly time-consuming. The subject matter is often romanticised, uncritical, and both exploits and reinforces established stereotypes. The outcome? Standardised ‘precious things’ cherished by the softly smiling, callous fingered Grandma’s of the world – harmless old dears who quietly revel in the creation of ‘cheeky terrier’ and ‘dewy chrysanthemum’ cushions, or ‘God bless this house’ picture frames. No mention of mortality, no depiction of suffering, nothing surprising, nothing funny.

Crapestries capitalise on cross-stitch orthodoxies, exploiting their established themes. Some crapestries are funny, some are sad, and some may cause offence; but that’s fine.

Even the desperately sad crapestries make many people laugh, whether by a curious schadenfreude or simply because they are unaccustomed to encountering troubling subjects addressed through the medium of tapestry; it’s incongruous. One might ask “What’s funny about a dead penguin chick or a thermonuclear attack?” Quite a lot apparently.

If you have ever graffitied a penis onto a magazine in a dentist’s waiting room, shot delicate ceramic ornaments with a rifle, or thought something was desperately sad when everyone else thought it was harmlessly funny (or the other way around), then you will likely enjoy having a look at my work.

All text and images from http://crapestry.wordpress.com There’s even a section on how to make your own crapestry.

Shizuko Kimura 

All of my life studies are worked in thread directly from the life model without using preliminary sketches or photographs. Working under strict time pressure in this way produces a dynamic tension that arises from the need to work at speed with the needle and thread in response to the model’s pose and is essential to capture the ‘Ki’ or essence of the subject.

My work fuses Oriental concepts of art and aesthetics with western concepts of figurative sketch and abstraction. The finished work demonstrates the subtlety of the sewn mark and the variety of line, weight and emphasis that can be achieved.

I use mainly fabric or paper as backgrounds, often combining the two surfaces in the same work to achieve greater textural and dimensional interest.

My early work was almost entirely monochromatic, using black threads on cream backgrounds. I am now experimenting with the use of a wider range of thread colour and coloured backgrounds in order to expand the scope of my work.

Source

Helena Vaari

My techniques are application, free machine embroidery and textile collage. I call it painting by sewing machine. The yarns are my colours and the needle is my brush.

The tiny yarns have special power. The yarn is three-dimensional, it has the twist and the beautiful shine. When I sew hundreds of tiny twisted yarns together, the power and the three-dimensional effect of the yarns will strengthen.

The picture is very lively, when the light reflects from the yarns and gives power to the whole works.

My ideas come from nature, water, summer, joy of life, children, garden, flowers or just everyday life´s things. I am very interested in folds of the clothes, shadows and lights. I want to represent fabric by fabric; to sew pictures where human is wearing shirts and coats and to see the three-dimensional movement of the fabrics by painting sewing machine.

I want to share the feelings of joy and beauty through my works to people.

Images and text from the artists website 

Satoru Aoyama 

Born in Tokyo in 1973, Aoyama completed his BA at Goldsmiths College, London in 1998 and his MA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002. Over the years, he has developed some highly original ideas and methods. He believes the black of thread is deeper than the black of any pigment and pursues that depth of blackness through the use of embroidery. It seems the understanding of shade, like the analysing of colour, is a significant process for his works. Speaking of colour, he creates his hues not as a result of mixing of pigments, as with painting, but by an assemblage of fine ‘Pointillistic’ stitches, like pixels on a computer monitor. Encountering his work, questions relating to his medium naturally came up for me. I asked him whether he dyes his own thread to get precise colours and about the limitation that embroidery imposes on colour expression. He says, “I haven’t dyed my own thread as there are many shades of ready-made thread available. I do sometimes feel a deficiency of colour gradation in thread but I can usually solve this problem by using different combinations of upper-thread and lower-thread in my sewing machine”.

http://www.tokyoartbeat.com/tablog/entries.en/2007/10/satoru-aoyama-embroidering-the-traditional-and-the-contemporary.html

I see embroidery as a contemporary method in art that illustrates my artistic thought. To be honest, I’ve never been influenced by the craft tradition. I don’t mind if people want to use my work to discuss the similarities of art and craft, though, because it is open to interpretation.

I studied in the textile department in art school where I learned this technique in during my sophomore year. I take a photograph of of the subject I want to emboirder then trace the contour and embroider it using a sewing machine. I use polyester thread and polyester organza.

Hung. S and Maliagro. J (2007) By Hand- the use of Craft in Contemporary Art Princetown Archetectural Press

Mizuma Gallery