Earthen Stitches: Exploring Craft Boundaries
This project utilizes unfired clay as its medium, employs traditional embroidery techniques, and incorporates materials from French haute couture.
It represents a journey of exploring the essence of intangible cultural craftsmanship, while also discovering
innovative methods to preserve it.
Nexus Tool
Drawing inspiration from traditional embroidery hoops, I crafted similar aids from clay to facilitate the embroidery process on this unconventional substrate.
Each piece features a combination of unfired clay shaped into cylindrical forms with intricate bead embroidery embellishing their surfaces.
To ensure that the objects remain securely seated within the cylindrical loops without moving around, it was necessary to adapt and modify their forms.
These objects, with their embroidered beads and specially designed ceramic forms, serve not only as functional tools for crafting but also as artistic expressions that question and expand the possibilities of both mediums.
The project's narrative of reimagining craft within contemporary art contexts is vividly illustrated through these pieces, highlighting the dynamic and evolving relationship between traditional crafts and modern artistic innovation.
By documenting this aspect, I want to capture the intricate and labor-intensive methods involved in merging these diverse crafts.
The visual documentation can help viewers appreciate the meticulous craftsmanship and the creative challenges overcome during the creation process. It also emphasizes the project's themes of transformation and adaptation, providing a dynamic perspective on how traditional techniques can be reinterpreted and preserved within modern artistic contexts.
The overall presentation poignantly captures the impermanence and transformation inherent in the artistic process and the materials used, reflecting themes of temporality and the re-contextualization of craft traditions in contemporary art. It underscores the dynamic interaction between materials, aesthetics, crafts, and forms, demonstrating how diverse elements seamlessly integrate and interact, enhancing the understanding and appreciation of the craft.