rubistudios.com

New! Samples!

No, really, this is a sample of a sampler. I am guessing it represents about 40 hours of my time, blissfully spent listening to chic indie rock outside, smelling jasmine on my back deck.  This is hard work, on 25 count linen it means every square inch represents 1,250 actual stitches. By this math, the above sample is 3,024 stitches. When I drink water, it spurts out my fingertips like I am a sprinkler.

The actual piece will be larger and take forever to complete. It is from this photo, which I took at a big membership store two years ago and have been trying to make art from since. I think it is hilarious. My goal is to complete the piece (I am guessing it will take a few months) without a cheeseball passing my lips. The color is quite seductive.

Timing being everything, this article by Rob Walker appeared in yesterday’s New York Times magazine. I usually read it online on sundays, but I was so focused on finishing my sample I didn’t get to read it until today. It’s like a dairy fairy sprinkled cheesedust and made the whole world a bit more naturally cheese flavored (with artificial flavors).

9pm on a beautiful Friday evening in May, I should be sitting outside drinking a playful red wine while sitting among the blooming jasmine but instead I have decided to introduce a new feature to the site.

I have a small collection of notable food packaging I have gathered around the world. We’ll begin with the most obvious. I purchased these in Male, the capitol city of the Maldives, an island archipelago in the Indian Ocean.  A small island in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Male is remarkable as one of the only places on earth where coca-cola is bottled from reverse osmosis desalinated sea water.  The staple of the local diet is rice and fish. I suspect these treats have more to do with tourism.

This is my website and i just realized I am not posting very many (any) pictures of my work. My own mom can’t even pick out my artwork from a line-up! I finished this piece last week just in time for the show.

Here is a detail.

I generated a barcode similar to this one at Barcode Art.  Scott Blake is a Savannah College of Art & Design alum whose artwork involves barcodes. You can barcode yourself there.

Even more detail:

Sitting on imy back deck yesterday, stitching amongst the blooming jasmine and gardenia, listening to Tanya Donelly and Neko Case, I spied this little guy on my mint marigold. FYI, the plant hasn’t bloomed in years but smells beautiful.

I spotted this shadow effect last night. Oddly enough, it isn’t a pin cushion, but one of Handsome Husband’s juggling blocks.

This weekend stop by blankspace to see some amazing work by SCAD graduate students in the fibers department.

Opening is Friday, May 1; 6:30 pm to 9 pm.

See you there!

Each of these bags contain 9 ounces of chips.

The bag on the left measures 16.5 x 9.25 inches (42 x 23.5 cm). It is on sale for $3.50. It is made with certified organic blue corn.
The bag on the right measures 13.25 x 8 inches (33.6 x 20 cm). It is on sale for $2. It is made with certified organic blue corn.

Blackwork is a counted cross-stitch technique executed in black thread on a light background evenweave fabric. Please note, blackwork may not be done with black thread (it can be red, white, or any color). It also can be done on a non- evenweave fabric, and it doesn’t have to be light colored.

Motifs and designs are generally outlined in running stitch (also called Holbein stitch–see below) and filled in with different shading patterns. This is a very old technique, sometimes called “Spanish work,” because of it’s introduction into the English court by Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Spain’s Isabella and Ferdinand. Catherine was sent to England to marry Prince Arthur, who died and she subsequently married his brother Henry the VIII. Suffice to say huge drama ensued, the likes of which makes any Joan Collins’ character appear tame. Affairs were carried out,  bastard children conceived,state religions formed and wives divorced or beheaded. (Catherine gave birth to Mary, and Henry fell in love with her lady-in-waiting, Ann. Neither the Pope nor Catherine would grant Henry an annulment, so Henry formed his own church (the still existing Church of England), annulled his marriage to Catherine, married already pregnant Ann, who gave birth to Elizabeth; then Henry executed Ann so he might marry his next wife, Jane Seymour [not the one who “designs” butt shaped jewelry]).
Throughout all of this hullabaloo in the early to mid 16th century, one of the favored forms of embroidery was blackwork. Technically difficult, blackwork can be made reversible for use on cuffs, but is not necessary. There exists no actual samples from this time, because the fabrics’ tendency to decompose was further hastened by the corrosive nature of the iron-based dye which gave the thread its distinct color.

We do, however, have record of the patterns preserved in the paintings of Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543). Holbein was the court painter to King Henry VIII.  His Jane Seymour portrait from 1537, the pattern is available here.

Elizabethan blackwork underwent a resurgence in popularity in the Victorian era. I am on a quest to find contemporary embroiderers who are employing this technique in new ways. I would love to find more.
Maria delValle of Argentina recently produced this piece.

Jocelyn at Pinsneedles in Auckland, New Zealand has this to offer.

Yikes–I seem to have quite a few projects on the go. A map sampler, a blackwork sampler and yet another family portrait. I have a critique in 4 and a half days. Go fingers, stitch like the wind.

The (crustless) Whitebread Gallery is pleased to announce the dissemination of its latest gallery show: Kate T Williamson. Images from Williamson’s year abroad in Japan were collated into a postcard collection. A selection from those illustrations comprised the recent gallery exhibit.

next month: Rex Ray