This past April I had the chance to meet fellow Pittsburgher-turned-Austinite Rebecca Rothfus, and my oh my do I adore this lady. She’s best known for her series of colorful and geometric cell tower paintings, but my favorites are the intricately designed monochromatic collages she creates. Rebecca’s patience astounds me. Hoping to be able to afford an original one of these days that my OCD side can obsess over and dissect for hours!
Nike Schröder’s most recent exhibit, Transition, is stunning. Schröder has a way with string that I’ve never seen before, each piece seems at once calculated and haphazard. If you’re in L.A. and would like to see it for yourself swing by Walter Marcel Gallery!
I’ve never seen beads like this before, and I’m betting you haven’t either. Lauren Wilcox Puchowski takes copper tubing and kiln fires glass enamel onto its surface to create these beautifully finished baubles. I want to wear this red beauty with a white t-shirt and cutoff shorts for a fast and easy summer look. She also creates larger pendants and shapes in the same style.
I’ve been admiring Jozef Mvra’s mask creations from afar for sometime. According to Jozef, they’re created in cardboard in a primitive manner because their primary intention is fun via an exploration of identity. Looks like a blast to me, which one would you choose?
Erin Lightfoot‘s hand printed porcelain jewelry pieces are covered in bright geometric patterns that are her bread and butter and sure to catch eyes. Each design is created in a limited edition run, while each piece is hand formed, polished, patterned and glazed by Erin herself.
Kristina Krough‘s artwork is inspired by different materials, their surfaces, and the ways they interact with one another. They can feel cold, warm, soft, hard, heavy, or light. Krough works with marble, ply, wood, cork, and paper to create the most interesting natural/manipulated results.
Last week I told you how fantastic/amazing/awesome the Anthropologie + Design Crush String Art Workshops were, today I’m going to tell you all about the project we created and how you can make your own. Ready, set, go!
1. Print out an outline of the state of your choice. If you have Photoshop on your computer you can use it to size appropriately, if not simply use the percentage function on your printer or use a copier. (Quality doesn’t particularly matter here.) Using either Photoshop or a marker, draw a heart around the city of your choice. It’s important to make it at least the size of a quarter while staying inside the boundary of the state’s outline (you may need to cheat if it’s near the border).
2. Cut around the edges.
Leave about a half inch border or so.
3. Tape it down.
Don’t be too skimpy with the tape either. Secure every side to the wooden canvas because the paper will want to slip and slide once you start hammering.
4. Start nailing.
Choose the upper right corner to begin with your first nail. From there add another, each one roughly 1/4″ away from the next. You’ll want to make the slightly closer – without touching! – when you make your way around the heart, you’ll see why later.
5. Remove the paper. This is the most gratifying part to me, once you’re finished nailing around your border tear up the template and tape.
6. Wrap away.
To begin, tie a knot around the same nail in the upper left that you started with earlier. From there wrap back and forth between the nails on the border and the interior heart, I like to wrap around each border nail twice to make the color of the string pop more. You’ll use the same interior heart nail to anchor several border nails. Move onto the next when it feels right (i.e. there’s too much thread around one or visually it’s time).
7. Finish up.
After making your way around the entire state outline it will be time to tie off on the same nail you began with. And that’s it! Instant art.
Another option is to abandon my OCD way of wrapping and create a more random design. To do this simply use a random pattern to wrap between border nail-to-border nail-to-heart nail, etc. Brewed Together wrote about attending the workshop and Kaleb (our lone male crafter!) killed it with his random design, take a peek. You can also opt to fill in the heart with a second color of string, Kaleb’s wife Marilyn did just that. In other words, have fun and make it your own!
A huge thank you to everyone who came out last Wednesday and Thursday for my string art workshops at Anthropologie! We had a great time crafting, snacking, and raising money for Adopt a Classroom. More specifically Plaza Towers and Briarwood Elementary Schools that were demolished by May 20th’s Moore tornado. Check out everyone’s creations and stay tuned because I’ll be sharing the DIY for the project next Monday!
