Described as a favourite of Bjork, Katy Perry and Beth Ditto, Tatty Devine is a small UK company that recently made news when it accused Claire's Accessories of copying its designs. When I looked at their website, I was struck by this clever necklace, which translates traditional Mexican embroidery into Perspex (also known as Lucite, or acrylic glass).
You can buy coloured and all-white versions from the Tatty Devine website. Other noteworthy pieces include the gin bottle necklace and the magpie necklace. All the pieces are manufactured in the UK.
2. Devorah Sperber's pointillist works
I like to think of these fine art pieces as the anti-embroidery. Sperber uses thread to recreate beloved pop culture images without ever unwinding or bringing it near a needle. Instead, the spool become pixels in blurry images that can only be understood through a lens. You can see more of her work at Caren Golden Fine Art.
Marilyn 3
2009
2,728 spools of thread, stainless steel ball chain and hanging apparatus, clear acrylic viewing sphere, metal stand
77" x 77"
3. Amanda McCavour's Thread Drawings
York University graduate Amanda McCavour makes ghostly hanging images by machine sewing on water-soluble fabric. Once the backing fabric dissolved, only the threads remain. As she writes in her Artist's Statement, "These thread images appear as though they would be easily unraveled and seemingly on the verge of falling apart, despite the works actual raveled strength ... Tracing actions and environments through a process of repetition, translation and dissolving, I hope to trace absence. My work is a process of making as a way of tracing and preserving things that are gone, or slowly falling apart."
Stand-in for Home
2009-2010
Thread
8' x 10' x 10'
Also, Toronto readers should check out her contribution to the Pre-Occupied pop-up exhibition running from March 11-April 1 at 173 Macdonell Ave.
