Farewell for Now

Hand Drape by Diane Komater

steel wire, 48 x 36 x 1"

After much consideration, we have all decided to say farewell to the blog for now. It's not for good, just for awhile. We have so loved bringing you beautiful things every week, but our lives outside of the internet have recently become very busy, so we need to put Swings and Arrows on hold for the time being. 

Thank you for your support over the years. 

Your readership has been appreciated more than you know. 

You can see more work from marvelous wire sculptor Diane Komater on the artist's website: 

www.wireist.com

Love, 

Cathleen, Grace, Alissa and Brian

Artwork of the Week: Personal Work

Personal Work by David Abrahams

(though I have a feeling that's not actually the title of the piece)

The first official day of fall this year isn't until September 22, but now that Labor Day has come and gone, summer feels over for me mentally. Physically I'm still at the beach and it's still hot as ever. Actually TOO hot to go down to the shore today if you can believe it. So we're spending our morning indoors, eating melon and watching our fourth episode of Curious George. Oh yeah. 

You can see more work by London-based fashion photographer David Abrahams on www.mbklondon.com

- Cathleen 

[via trendland.com]

Artwork of the Week: The Clasp

The Clasp by Tim Lahan

Last week was not as bad as I feared it would be. Don't get me wrong—there were plenty of moments that tested my mettle, but I did it. I ran necessary errands, I took morning walks, I kept us both fed, and I single-handedly bathed a little twisting mister five days in a row without (too many) tears or life-threatening incident. There's also this hyper-vigilance that sets in when you become the main person responsible for keeping your child alive. The 24-hour high alert state is exhausting. I know women everywhere do this kind of thing on their own all the time, and I deeply admire them. I only had a handful of days to get through, and I probably shouldn't be surprised that I did just fine, but I am. Still, I feel incredibly lucky to have the partner and the support that I do, and these last few days made me appreciate him all the more. The best part of my week was definitely when Micky came back. 

- Cathleen 

Artwork of the Week: Long Braid

Long Braid by Diem Chau

porcelain plate, silk, thread, 6.25" in diameter

Tomorrow marks the second anniversary of Swings & Arrows! Hurray!! So I thought as our gift to you I'd find an Artwork of the Week to commemorate the occasion that blends the traditional (cotton) with the modern (china), something I think we strive to accomplish here daily. 

Artist Diem Chau embroiders drawings on a fine silk muslin that is stretched like canvas across various serving dishes. The effect is quite ethereal, an image floating just above the surface of a saucer or bowl. My favorite pieces are the ones where the line comes off the canvas, engaging the territory around the work, or when the thread pools in the space beneath the scrim.  

You can see more of Chau's work on her website: www.diemchau.com

- Cathleen 

Artwork of the Week - Grace Edition

Merijm Hos
via This is Paper Magazine

Loving this wood sculpture by Merijn Hos. You can see more of his/her (?) work here.

Happy Thursday! Alissa will be back tomorrow to infuse our Fridays with a little bit of inspiration!

-Grace

Artist of the Week Redux: Stacy Scibelli

So good we had to feature her twice (!), Stacy Scibelli The Wundermaker is at it again. This time she's working on a most interesting project titled Suit Yourself wherein the artist has undertaken the Herculean task of designing, cutting, sewing, and wearing a new outfit—down to the underwear!—every day for 30 days. And not only that, but she also arranges and displays each piece of clothing as a wall sculpture that she then photographs. But wait, there's more! Stacy is also documenting her process everyday on her website where you can see each piece she's created, on her person and on the wall, and read her thoughtful commentary on her sometimes frustrating but always revelatory creative process. It's all super inspiring. 

This one goes two ways!

Among her daily expositions, she also talks about what audio books she's listening to while she works and what she's eating for lunch, mundane details to many perhaps, but I for one love peeking inside the artist's studio to get a closer look at who they are behind the grand explanation of what the work MEANS. I often find my eye wandering away from what's on display towards the shelf where they stash their favorite tea and the table where pencil cups brim with their best pens. An aside, I know, but getting to see the personal details makes the whole professional picture so much rounder and fuller, don't you think?

Stacy's only eleven days deep right now and I'm already hooked. 

You would be too! Check out her daily posts on stacyascibelli.com

- Cathleen 

  

[All images courtesy of the artist.]

Artwork of the Week: Zip Thorax

Zip Thorax by Elodie Antoine

zippers, 30 x 20 cm, 2008

The grotesque combined with an everyday object? Gets me every time. 

You can see more of this interesting Belgian artist's work, including this cool mushrooming easy chair, at www.elodieantoine.be

- Cathleen

[Image courtesy of the artist's website www.elodieantoine.be]

Artist of the Week: Aimee Baldwin

Scarlet Ibis -- Eudocimus ruber 2011

Aimee Baldwin is the wonder woman responsible for these fine feathered friends. Sculpted from white pellet foam, paper clay, crepe paper, paint, wire, resin, and glass taxidermy eyes, every bird is individually hand-crafted and unique. She creates lovely framed botany specimens as well. You can read more about her construction technique and see photos of all of her work on her website vegantaxidermy.com, where no plants or animals are harmed in the making of her beautiful art. Brava!

Belted Kingfisher -- Megaceryle alcyon 2011

Detail of Acorn Woodpecker -- Melanerpes formicivorus 2010

Detail of Cedar Waxwing -- Bombycilla cedrorum 2010

- Cathleen


[All photos courtesy of the artist's website & Etsy shop]

Artwork of the Week: Shrunken Heads!

Vincent Price's Shrunken Head Apple Sculpture Kit by Milton Bradley 1975

Yes, you know that if it's endorsed by the pretty mug of Vincent Price, this shrunken head kit MUST have been amazing! Milton Bradley put these out in the 70s, five years before my time, but I discovered this vintage set while searching for Halloween-y things to post this week. There are a few available on Ebay and one from LovesAllThingsYou on Etsy, so pick one up if you're looking for the perfect finishing touch to your mad-voodoo-science-lab party. You never know, you may just have an artiste's touch when it comes to sculpting disfigured shrunken heads. [Or you could just try the old-fashioned method.]

Included in the kit: 

1. The Shrinker

2. Face Templates

3. Plastic Sculpting Tool

4. Synthetic Hair (white and orange)

5. Little White Beads (teeth)

6. Large Black Beeds (eyes)

7. Watercolor

8. Jar of Gloss Finish

9. 3 Pieces of Aluminum Wire 

10. Cord

11. Instructions

12. Apple Hanger

13. Wing-nuts and various pieces for hanging the apple and attaching it to a lamp

Happy Halloween!!

- Cathleen 

(last photo via drgangrene)

Artwork of the Week: Cabbage Bowls

Yasuhiro Suzuki, Cabbage Bowls, paperclay, 2004

Each leaf can be peeled from the cabbage head and used as functional bowls.

I would serve coleslaw in mine. Exclusively.

You can see more of the artist's work on his website www.mabataki.com

- Cathleen 

[Photos via buzzaurus.com]

Artwork of the Week: Relic

Relic is one of my newest sculptures, cobbled together just in time for open studios at the beginning of this month. It's actually something I wanted to make when I started grad school four years ago (yikes!), but it never quite fit with whatever theme I was working on. This piece was inspired by several ideas, namely the story of St. Thérèse the "Little Flower" of Lisieux, the spontaneous stigmata of Padre Pio, relics that hold a mystical power, and epidermodysplasia verruciformis, a skin disorder that manifests itself with a proliferation of hard, scaly growths on the hands and feet. I learned about that last bit watching this video of the Treeman on Youtube. Amazingly his nearly lifelong crippling affliction was cured with a simple regular dose of vitamin A. 

- Cathleen

Artwork of the Week: TV Dinner

Continuing the theme of my favorite things of yore: this ceramic tile sculpture by Gregory Hicho reminded me of the TV dinners my mom used to buy me as a special Friday night treat. I usually picked Salisbury Steak or Beef Stroganoff after a careful survey of the freezer section, but the sectioned plate with meat, usually two starches, and dessert were all pretty much the same. I can still feel that grainy mashed potato mush on my tongue. Mmm. Good. 

- Cathleen 

Artist of the Week: Kimberley Laurenti

Cute Plant, $39 via HermanMarie on Etsy

Kimberley Laurenti is the painter/illustrator/sculptor extraordinaire responsible for these cute little guys. She has two Etsy shops: Herman Marie, where the first five of these flat wall sculptures hang out, and My Grey Sky, where she features the rest of her 3-D Mooks and 1-D prints. Though there is a distinct difference in color and content between the two stores—one's a bit brighter and more whimsical, while the other strays into slightly darker territory—you can definitely tell they were made by the same funny hand. Kimberley lives in Florida and has a blog that she occasionally updates with sweet shots from her daily life and sneak peeks of what's soon to be in store. You can check it out here: www.ilovegreyskies.blogspot.com

Two Orange Snakes, $56 via HermanMarie on Etsy

Yellow Bear with Bow Tie, $46 via HermanMarie on Etsy

Anatomical Art, $56 via HermanMarie on Etsy

Egg Cups, $55 via HermanMarie on Etsy

Bear Hood Mook, $36 via ilovegreyskies on Etsy

Mook Love Print, $15 via ilovegreyskies on Etsy

Wolk Mooks, Mounted, $40 via ilovegreyskies on Etsy

- Cathleen 

Artist of the Week: Amy Brener

Glowstick, 2012

Born in Victoria, British Columbia and now based in New York City, Amy Brener is a mixed media artist whose most recent body of work looks as if it were created in a mad science lab with super high tech equipment and giant lasers. Or! In some deep dark crystal cave in the Andes mountains. Or! Maybe on another planet made entirely of ice and unobtainium! These futuristic-looking light-sensitive sculptures are produced by layering resin, glass, and Fresnel lenses, a type of lens that was developed for lighthouses to conduct a beam of light over great distances. Boy, what I wouldn't give for a piece of this psychedelic rock candy. Amy is currently a 2012 Bemis Center Fellow in the Artist-in-Residence program at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, NE. 

Cipher, 2011

Jag, 2012

Switchboard, 2011

Switchboard detail

Wing, 2012

- Cathleen 


 [All images courtesy of the artist's website: amybrener.com]

Artist of the Week: Rue Five

Rue Five is a young Scottish fellow whose art reminds me of equal parts Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt, with a dash of renegade typography and various tribal elements mixed in to taste.

From the look of it (“it” being his website), he makes drawings and paintings mostly, his figures beautifully bruised and rough around the edges, with red stitches holding it all together. And his photography renders everyday moments quiet, whether the camera be focused on friends self-consciously flashing looks at the lens or scraps of daily life—a brick wall, a deli counter, the shingles of a roof.

An exhibition at The Changing Room in Stirling Scotland two years ago was titled How Children Learn and featured work by Rue and another artist named David Galletly. Though I’ve only seen photos of the show online, I was immediately struck by the installation of the work in the gallery space. I really loved how the drawings and photographs were hung salon-style, neatly crowded in the corner, some with old tags trailing from their frames. But the fireplace spewing forth an amazingly marked-up geometric sculpture was absolutely my favorite. Look see:

[All photos courtesy of artist’s website.]

- Cathleen 

Artist of the Week: Stacy Scibelli

Kiss Off, 2009, c-print - kiss machine, 20"x 24"

Stacy Scibelli: incredible artist, seamstress, dominatrix. Just kidding about that last part. Though her work does often involve a lot of leather and participants submitting to wearing and interacting with her work, it’s more about the connection being made (or not being made) than any sort of discipline being wielded.

Sabotage, 2010, 36"x 24"x 2

One of my favorite pieces is called Sabotage, a “tickle machine” wherein two people are snapped into the apparatus, their arms confined in sleeves that direct their hands straight to the other participant’s armpits, daring you to tickle one another until you both collapse and pee yourselves. There’s an element of trust involved in the interaction. In order to fully participate, you’ve got to let yourself be truly vulnerable. I’m really intrigued by the subtle violence of this gesture as well, how you can squeal and scream and try and twist away from the aggressor, you might even laugh until you cry from what this person is doing to you, and your only means of getting them to stop is to retaliate, to tickle them back as hard as you can, and you’re both trapped in this hysterical battle until one of you screams uncle. 

I Don't Want To Get Over You (install view), 2008, c-print/costume/sculpture

I Don't Want To Get Over You, 2008, c-print/costume/sculpture

I Don’t Want To Get Over You is another one-on-one participatory piece that makes you feel like you’ve been set up on a strange and tenuous date. Two people sit across from each other at a table, but instead of reaching over for a spontaneous hand-hold, you’re required to slip your hands inside a fur-lined conduit that lies between you. You’re kind of blindly feeling your way through a soft warm tunnel that narrows until finally the sweaty tips of your fingers meet your counterpart’s in the middle. Maybe you lock eyes and maybe you look away from each other, but there’s definitely an intimacy that takes place. There’s also a very different interaction that happens when you do this with someone you know versus doing it with a total stranger. I felt so exhilarated when I experienced the work for the first time. 

 

 

 

Stacy’s work often has a beautiful, poignant awkwardness that I have always found fascinating. Made with Love is a project she recently completed which is a series of 500 different garments that were handmade in various hues of blue, gray, and green, each piece sewn with an armhole here, a neck hole there, all with an indistinct use and peculiar look to them. Viewers were invited to try on, wear, and interpret each piece as they saw fit, some even stretched to contain two or three people at once, creating these funny multi-headed multifarious monsters.

She also has an Etsy shop where she sells beautiful dresses and super cool leather bags and cute skirts and cat prints. Check out her online shop here and more of her art online here: http://www.stacyascibelli.com/

[All photos courtesy of the artist's website.]

- Cathleen