Layers of Meaning

Becky Stern demonstrates how she created a lily pad embroidery piece that responds to motion with blinking lights and sound. “I’ve been working with Leah Buechley’s LilyPad Arduino, and in true embroidery sampler fashion, have composed this circuit to see what I could do. The embroidery uses traditional floss and techniques mixed with lights and sounds generated by the onboard software. The amount of light sensed by the sensor changes the speed and pitch of the lights and sounds generated. Move your shadow or hand over it to experience the changes.”

If you want to create a simpler electronic embroidery of your own, Stern has posted a video tutorial at Craft zine: “Using LEDs and conducive thread, you’ll be able to create your own embroidery of a frog with light-up fireflies.” On her web site, Stern has posted a set of photo-based directions and list of supplies and suppliers – including where to find the conductive thread!

O’Reilly has a new book, Fashioning Technology, by Syuzi Pakhchyan that gives a deeper exploration of the current melding of technology and textiles. “With this new palette of materials, we can now create objects infused with magical and mysterious qualities. The first book of its kind, Fashioning Technology is just beginning to scratch the surface of what is possible.” Watch a video of Pakhchyan explaining her book, her background, her inspirations and some future visions. This all goes way beyond the ipod and sneaker embedded chips!

Fiberarts magazine has a new editor, Marci McDade. She has a broad background, though not necessarily in journalism:

“McDade has never demonstrated a shortage of creative passion. Born and raised in Gary, Indiana, she was a member of the first graduating class of that city’s Emerson School for Visual and Performing Arts. She studied visual art, theater, music, and dance in the school’s seven-year program, and was recruited by Columbia College, where she earned all but one credit of a B.A. in film and video in 1994. (She came back and completed the single missing credit in 2001 to officially earn the degree.)” Columbia College, Chicago

McDade seems to have used some of that creativity in an exploration of embroidery as a drawing medium. One outgrowth of that was the “white boy” series a set of portraits of men that she “had crushes on.”

Beyond her own work, McDade has caught attention with shows she has curated. She describes a recent show, Girl on Guy as

“a love letter to men, the ones I’ve known, the ones I never will. It’s a love letter to Chicago, my home for the past twenty years. It’s a love letter to all of the artists who have inspired me during that time to think harder, look more closely, be a better person. Above all this show is my loud and gushing heartfelt declaration in the belief that loving men and being a feminist is not a contradiction.” Girl on Guy catalog (pdf)

Could be some interesting articles ahead!