Sand Circles

Posted by hil

SandAnalogia (Andres Amador) has a lovely gallery of large scale sand circle patterns, made on the beaches of San Fransisco. The patterns are made by raking the sand , exposing the wetter, and therefore darker, sand underneath. Phidelity has other images of the same circles, and includes some designs to be considered for future circles. Glen Tregurtha in New Zealand is also a sand artist, and his gallery is here. I can understand liking the impermanence, seeing it washed away, rather like the Tibetan monks that spend days making intricate sand mandalas, and then brush it all up in minutes.

Updated 2015: some links broken.

Artist Trading Cards

Posted by hil

I’ve been making a few artist trading cards: an edition of just three. One of them is in exchange for Mimi‘s night baby.

atcy

Close-ups below.

I find the concept of artist trading cards quite seductive. It must be the idea of miniature art, like stamps and other mailart. But I am also wary of getting into it, on time grounds alone.

For a long time I wanted to make an installation – sometimes I still do! – with the little images I did for The Republic of Pemberley years ago. (Some of them were money and stamps invented for that imaginary world, featuring Colin Firth’s Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, but those particular ones are not online at the moment). The idea was to print and frame the pictures at the scale they were made – 200 x 150 pixels – and then exhibit them in a purpose-built miniature gallery. The way you would view them would be through peep holes, or being able to pop you head up into the individual gallery rooms from underneath. The idea connects into ideas I have long played around with, to do with how cyberspace impacts on our understandings of public and private space.

atc3 atc2 atc1

Japanese Manhole Cover Patterns

Posted by hil

Manhole_Cover_Hiroshima_08.thumb
Frangipani has a gallery of some beautiful manhole covers in Japan. Some of them are very colourful.

Updated 2015: links broken, but google them :)

July’s Month of Softies: Sock Monkey

Posted by hil

This is my submission for Loobylu’s July’s Month of Softies, a sock monkey. I’ve been curious about sock monkeys since first reading about the tradition a year or two ago, so I’m glad to have tried it out. This one started out plain and ugly, and I nearly abandoned him altogether, but I kept going back and reshaping bits. Now he is more refined, and I have grown quite fond of him.

Sock monkey-4

Here are a few more pictures of him:

Green Cape Lighthouse

Posted by hil

Green Cape Lighthouse in Ben Boyd National Park, on the south coast of New South Wales. Built in 1883.

Two other photos here and here.

Cloning yourself; well kind of…

Posted by hil

Happened across Duct Tape Rachel, a bold photo of the process of making a self-form-fitting duct tape dressmaker’s dummy. It links to an article called Clone yourself a Fitting Assistant by David Page Coffin, which in turn shows you four ways of making your own dummy:

Speaking of Carpets

Posted by hil

Flyingcarpet1_1I do love public and community artwork! A few days ago the Wooster Collective pointed to the public art of Seyed Alavi. There are lots of great projects to browse through, but the Flying Carpet, an aerial view of a 50 mile stretch of the Sacramento River translated into woven carpet, which was made for a pedestrian bridge at Sacramento International Airport, is extra cool.

I also like What do you think? and Solitude.

David D. Schwartz has an interest in casino landscapes, and has a fine gallery of casino carpets (updated link to Wired article 2015). The Treasure Bay carpets make me smile thinking what might have been done with the old Pemberley site map.

I’m meandering now, but you also ought to check out the miraculous Peace Rug. Don’t miss the picture page. Lets ship one to our world leaders! (update: links no longer exist)

Stencilling Carpet

Posted by hil

My husband’s grandfather had a wide notion of what might be fixed with paint, and it got more extensive as he got older, until he was happily fixing stains in upholstery and carpets with dabs of paint. I’ve been thinking about him today, because I have been spraypainting a border pattern onto a large piece of carpet which is to be used in a play. The design was cut as a stencil:

Stencil design

Stencil cutting

Moss graffiti and secret worlds

Posted by hil

mosscastle

We have been deep in drought for some years, but in just the last few weeks we have had enough rain to encourage small patches of green to peep through, and suddenly there are beautiful verdant mounds of moss appearing in nooks and cracks in the pavement, and around trees in the gardens. I’m beginning to think I might be able to experiment with this recipe from Stories in Space for getting moss to grow in specific areas:

Recipe:
(serves to create several small pieces or 1 large piece of graffiti)
1 can beer,
1/2 teaspoon sugar
several clumps garden moss
Plastic container with lid, blender, paintbrush

‘To begin the recipe, first of all gather together several clumps of moss (moss can usually be found in
moist, shady places) and crumble them into a blender. Then add the beer and sugar and blend just long enough to create a smooth, creamy consistency. Now pour the mixture into a plastic container.
Find a suitable damp and shady wall on to which you can apply your moss milkshake. Paint your chosen design onto the wall (either free-hand or using a stencil). If possible try to return to the area over thefollowing weeks to ensure that the mixture is kept moist. Soon the bits of blended moss should begin to re-couperate into a whole rooted plant – maintaining your chosen design before eventually colonising
the whole area.’

I love the other images and ideas at Stories in Space, in particular Myrmidon Castle (pictured above), and Hideaway.