BAM

Hello:

Last weekend Moogie and I went to the Bellevue Arts Museum.  The museum features crafts instead of fine arts, and the three exhibits there right now all have a fiber content. 

Counter-Couture: Fashioning Identity in the American Counterculture "celebrates clothing and styles from the 1960s and 1970s.

The exhibit featured crocheted clothing, embroidery, knitted items, and dying. 

Some were beautiful and some were just hilarious.

Moogie wants me to make her a bikini like the one above.
and a dress like the one below.  They are both crocheted.  I probably could make something similar.  I especially love the dress.

The next exhibit was Nathan Vincent: Let's Play War

The artist, Nathan Vincent made toy army men about half the size of real people, then covered them with crochet.  They were positioned in one room.  I spent some time looking at the crochet fabric to see what types of stitches he used.  For instance, the helmets were single crochet, and the jackets looked like half-double crochet.  The soft fabric of the crochet on the traditionally masculine surfaces of the army men is supposed to "disrupt gender roles." 

I found it frustrating that we couldn't touch the figures.  Ok, I know that if everyone touched the fabric, it would wear out.  But the thing about fiber art, well, fiber in general, is that you want to touch it.  The exhibit was supposed to make me think about how kids "play war."  I was fascinated by the construction, and wanted to see how the crochet was done.  Also, did he use acrylic?  It looked like acrylic, but I thought that wool would have been easier on the hands.

The third exhibit was In the Realm of Nature: Bob Stocksdale & Kay Sekimachi. 

Bob Stocksdale does wood working, and these few bowls that I photographed do not capture the beauty of his work.  Kay Sekimachi mostly showed weavings.  She had woven bowls and baskets, some beautiful wall hangings, and some jewellery. My favorite pieces were these bowls made of leaves that were somehow glued together into the bowl shape.  They were amazingly delicate.  If you follow the link above, you can see a photo of the leaf bowls.

All three exhibits were unique and interesting, and I love that the museum was filled with fiber art.

Peace,
f1bercat
shaping the planet with fiber art.