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Awkward family moment informs art-making aesthetic

by | Jul 14, 2024 | Activism, Aesthetics, Aging, Art Discourse, Art Show, Beauty, Carlyn Yandle, Creative Process, Critique, Dissent, Domestic, Embroidery, Fabric, Fiber, Fiber Artist, Fibre Arts, Flow, Found Materials, Fuckwit, Garment, Hand Stitching, Handmade, Handmaking, Ideas, Inspiration, Joyful Making In Perilous Times, Knotting, Macrame, Material Exploration, Motivation, Needlework, Painting, Scaffolds, Unbridled, Wall Hanging, Wearable Art

When I first started out as a suburban-newspaper reporter I had a single original artwork tacked to the wall in my basement suite. It was a life-sized acrylic-on-paper, a nude holding her maybe-pregnant belly against a landscape of spewing factories and...

Materials matter, and Those of loved ones gone can live on

by | May 26, 2018 | Art, Challenge, Composition, Craft, Creative Process, Design, Domestic, Fabric, Failure, Fiber, Fibre, Fibre Arts, Film, Found Materials, Found Objects, Garment, Innovation, Inspiration, Making, Quilt, Quilting, Recycle, Sewing, Upcycling, Use Object, Use Objects, Wool

Clockwise from top left: Great-Grandfather Quilt; Dad’s Throw; Tie Cushion. (Carlyn Yandle photos) Materialistic. People say it like it’s a bad thing.But there’s not necessarily anything selfish or hoardy or wasteful about feeling deeply connected to...

Wild, brilliant colour is rocking my concrete-grey foundations

by | Nov 17, 2017 | Abstract Painting, Aesthetics, Appropriation, Architecture, Beauty, Color, Colour, Domestic Interventions, Eggbeater Creative, Embroidery, Fabric, Garment, Maya, Needlework, Sewing, Textile

A wall of a Peruvian restaurant in Merida, Mexico is devoted to customers’ reviews written on ribbons. Carlyn Yandle photo Modern science calls it bunk but I am fully on board with chromotherapy, an alternative medicine branded by the labcoats as a...

A beautiful craftivism in a flowery part of the world

by | Nov 8, 2017 | Appropriation, Beauty, Colour, Craft, Craftivism, Cross-stitch, Doilies, Domestic, Embroidery, Fabric, Fashion, Fibre Arts, Garment, Handwork, Inspiration, Making, Needlework, Rug, Semiotics, Sewing, Social History, Textile, Visual Field

MORE THAN DECORATION: Flower images carry deep cultural significance for the Maya. Left: A figure dating from 600-900bc nestled in a lily. Centre: Needlepoint detail from a huipil (top), part of a traditional everyday dress. Right: Jesus emerging from a lily in an oil...

Nothing new on halloween, and that’s a good thing

by | Oct 31, 2014 | Buttons, Children, Collaboration, Craft, Creative Process, Expression, Fabric, Fibre Arts, Garment, Halloween, Mister Rogers, Performance, Thrift Stores, Vancouver

What do you do when one of your closest friends is in the hospital with complications and the weather outside is the perfect visual for seasonal depression? You make!And so I devote this column to the silly business of making and make-believe in trying times. First,...