Japanese prints

Beautiful prints. 
Good article.
Thanks NYTimes, Arthur Miller, and the Japan Society, Manhattan.

lots of white fabric

My sewing machine and I spent the day surrounded by white fabric.  I've been making this huge piece for Louder Than Words Dance Theater's June show at the Newman Center's Byron Theater.  This piece acts as set and costume.  Clothing half the stage in white fabric under which the dancers perform.

Today I attached to the large piece, pants and shirts made from the same fabric.  The idea is, performers arrive at the clothing elements from under the fabric, find the shirt or pants or gloves, and push into the clothing through to the surface.  Wearing the clothing elements changes the effects performers can have on the fabric piece at large.   Also added to the piece, a tube running the length of the perimeter.  Yards and yards of sewn length.... very time consuming. 

Nonetheless, I did have a Sunday break with my friends.  Christian, Michael and Fil made a picnic to enjoy on our back lawn - the first picnic of 2010! 

one of my favorite things

 While in Barcelona last Fall, one of my favorite things to find was graffiti.  The city is rife with artful graffiti and bold, sometimes clever, placement of such.  I took as many photos as there was graffiti where I went, but the city's collection was far more expansive than my tourista legs were walking.  Barcelona's visual identity was and is powerfully vibrant and distinctive while in colorful graphic flux.  I imagine the city has it's issues with vandalism, but it has learned to embrace the ever-present street arts as it's own.  Today, International Design Network's (IdN) facebook post brought this to my attention: ART BRUT : A Tribute to the Barcelona Graffiti Scene.

what is up

Working on:
hundreds of yards of fabric and finishing Deb's DRESS!

J. Albers & K. Price

Reading about Josef Albers (1888-1976) and Ken Price (b.1935) now showing in SoHo at the Brooke Alexander Gallery, I remember again one of my favorite artists of all time....  Apparently Albers was and is a great inspiration to another (and many others, I suppose).  The juxtaposition of these artists' works is as much complementary as it is one-stemming-from-another. 

"The passion for the inexhaustible possibilities of color is the strongest link here, but the profusion of dots to be connected, of shared interests, inspirations and references, is close to mind boggling." -Roberta Smith, New York Times, 3.18.2010

To read more, please follow the link to the New York Times Article by R. Smith:  Bauhaus Meets Venice Beach

ill iterate

ILL iterate media,  Denver.  Please take a minute to see this rich, dense collection of good hard (art)work.  So glad ILL is in my town.  Submit art, design, and writing....

I'm into one of their blog posts on the Denver paper fashion show this week including a short history of origami.  This Gorilla and other photos re-inspire the origami in me.

In physical (not cyber) space,
ILLiterate can be visited at the address:

82 S. Broadway
Denver, Colorado 80209

at these times:
11am - 7pm
Tuesday - Sunday

Shift

 "Give my your tired your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me
I lift my lamp beside the golden door."

Emma Lazarus, 1883, exerpt from "The New Colossus"

Before the new year, I worked with Chris, Whit and Lacey of Louder Than Words Dance Theater to design a portion of costumes for their January production, Shift.  That was a load of good, hard work, loved by all involved!  Please take a look at the costumes from that performance on this flickr photostream:

For the show's costumes, I consulted with choreographer, Chris Harris and technical designers Lacey Erb and Whit Ryan.  I also had the honor of designing and fabricating costumes (seen in photo at right and at top) for a segment of the show entitled Mourning Grace.  The tops are screen-printed with phrases from the song, "This Land" and the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty, "The New Colossus."  Shift addressed our ways of shifting our thoughts - thereby challenging one's understanding of the general American identity, gender expression, sex, violence and peace. 
Furthermore, viewers became more than viewers as the spatial experience of a dance performance changed from audience-seated to audience-amid-performance.  Standing among powerfully graceful and athletic dancers of this contemporary dance group, one is immediately face to face with some odd and sometimes offensive realities of American tradition and character.  It was a pleasure to work with this crew, and I look forward to our next collaboration.  

Next up, a large, LARGE dancer-interactive fabric installation...  Coming early June 2010!

Photos copyright Staale Veipe