Arbito’s Cosmic Hobos and Schmancy Show With Snaggs!

Arbito’s Cosmic Hobo toy!

Arbito and Snaggs will have a show at Schmancy (1932 2nd Ave, Seattle), this Friday, November 14th, from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. The husband-wife duo will have new works on display, and one can expect textile arts, paintings, sculptures, and plushes, all bursting with colors!

Snaggs

Seattle’s Canvas Gallery Blows Minds Yet Again

Since it carved out a hole for itself out of what was formerly the Snowboard Connection, the Canvas Gallery has really set itself apart from other galleries in the Pioneer Square area. Its prime location right below the 619 Building and its selection of diverse artists spanning numerous mediums makes any trip to Canvas an interesting one.

Of particular interest was this month’s show, which had one side of the room largely dedicated to textile art. This side of the gallery housed a complete visual feast.

Take for instance Maura Donegan’s Memento Vitae I and Memento Vitae IV, shown below.

Memento Vitae I

Memento Vitae IV

As their names might suggest, these pieces are a reflection upon her life, playing carefully on her childhood (and current) love for words. In both pieces, words with special meaning in Donegan’s life were selected to create pieces that are as much experimental textile art as they are an extension of Donegan’s literary mind. The six-sided dice in Memento Vitae IV are in fact six-letter words that viewers must piece together for themselves. Memento Vitae I is a crossword puzzle with carefully stitched boxes filled with yet more words that are vital to Donegan’s memory.

Further down the wall was a piece by Lauren Davis, entitled Me/ You. The piece shows two photographs of hands, each from a different individual. The hands are then permanently linked together with bright red string. A simply idea, sure, but well executed.

Lauren Davis’ Me/ You

Remarkably, though, the most entertaining things for me in the whole gallery were canisters of miniature beads glued onto porous rocks and then submerged in water. Jenny Joyce brought forth four ridiculously creative, experimental pieces that simply utilized water, air, and vibrations in the room to bring forth displays that have the hypnotic entertainment level akin to watching jellyfish swim around a tank.

Jenny Joyce’s Doily

Laura Breitman’s Textile Art at UC Davis!

A few months ago, we stumbled across the layered textile works of Margot Lovinger and were blown away by the intricacies in her recreation of the human form using fabrics.

Now another artist with a similar technique but much more detailed subject matter has caught our eyes. A new solo show at the Richard L. Nelson Gallery of UC Davis features the mind-blowing works of Laura Breitman, who similarly collages patterns to create art pieces. The main differences? Breitman’s works are full-blown landscapes, lovingly and painstakingly recreated from photos taken by her husband, Michael Needleman. Also, Breitman uses not only sheer fabrics, but a combination of fabrics and papers, which bring added depth and texture. Her works are not as exacting; they combine the randomness of nature with the randomness of hand-crafted works to create pieces that are organic yet much more artistic than simple landscape drawings.

[Left] Looking Up; [Right] Looking Up Detail View

Breitman’s extraordinarily multi-layered and multi-patterned pieces range in size from 10″ x 10″ to 40″ x 40″. The exhibition will run for ten weeks, from September 25th, 2008 to December 7th, 2008.

The artist will also be holding a demonstration of her collaging process, live at the gallery on November 4th at 4:30pm. The demonstration, which is open to all members of the curious public, is guaranteed to be a learning experience.