Some awesome folks: 1

[bzedan]

I bitch a lot about the arts.  I’ve cultivated a fine contempt for most of what I see treacling across my RSS.  However, there are some people who do not make my choke on my own vomitus.  I figure, since I am clearly way too occupied sorting our things away at the new place, I should fill this space with some of them.

First is Chelsea, who’s posted bits of her thesis on her blog, PlainMade.  I think I actually pumped my fist in the air when I read this bit, where she explains some of Christien Miendertsma’s influence in her work:

These politics are evident in my work through the direct, non-gendered use of craft. I use sewing as a simple method of adhering pieces of material together to form a garment. It is not used symbolically to talk about the role of women or gratuitously to suggest an interest in labor. Like Miendertsma, I am using the technique as a means to an end. In choosing textile forms, I try to work with garments that are not immediately symbolic in the way a piece of lingerie or a 1950’s style of dress might be. I am more interested in garments that are familiar and suggest a utility. It is the space within this familiar territory I wish to shift slightly and utilize as a site of communication.

Sometimes stitching is just stitching.

And sometimes strange conceptual work has an underlying sense of that “There’s got to be a better way” bit of David Cross’, Gothic revival gardening, protective camouflage and makes my brain happy and interested.

Chelsea sells prints through her PlainMade site and has another blog focusing on the conceptual work of herself and others, called Fool.  Through Fool is another store, where you can get her freaking awesome flat pack houseplants.

Mirrored from Journal of a Something or Other.