In a Tribute to Ever-Changing Rural America, Brendon Burton Collects a Decade of Photographs in ‘Epitaph’
From the wheat fields of the northern Great Plains to misty days in the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, Brendon Burton (previously) captures a side of America many of us rarely have the opportunity to explore in depth. Despite the vast square mileage of the nation’s rural areas, hundreds of counties see declining numbers of residents each year.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/08/brendon-burton-epitaph/
A Pair of Fluffy Felted Lambs by Holly Guertin Spring to Life in a Wooly Pasture
Two spirited lambs bound across a new wooly work by Philadelphia-based artist Holly Guertin. Inspired by a spring visit to a local farm, Guertin felted a pair of sprightly youngsters with striking detail. Pink lines their ears and noses, and their adolescent bodies are covered in tight, wavy fibers, all sculpted through a combination of wet and needle felting techniques.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/08/holly-guertin-the-invitation/
Jay Lichter Illuminates Stunning Colors and Textures in Macro Photos of Elusive Slime Molds
For years, New Zealand-based mycophile Jay Lichter didn’t think of mushrooms as much more than produce one buys in the supermarket. But he began to notice how much variety exists in the fungi world as he learned to identify different species and appreciate their important ecological role. It wasn’t long before he started paying more attention to slime molds, which often emerge in similar habitats as fungi.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/08/jay-lichter-slime-molds/
Seth Globepainter Brings Youthful Joy and Discovery to Walls Around the World
From France to Kenya to Hong Kong, Seth Globepainter (previously) continues to traverse the world, sharing moments of curiosity and discovery on the sides of buildings and in neighborhood parks. Evoking the joy and optimism of children at play, he adds vibrant color to walls at a variety of scales to encourage imagination. Recent paintings feature a young girl unzipping a blue sky—an interior world—on the side of an apartment building in France, a group of children playing within arched windows in Cyprus, and a young boy painting a picture in his bright school uniform in Kenya. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/08/seth-globepainter-world-murals/
Vivid, Translucent Quilts by Willy Dion Stitch Together Indigenous Culture and Making Traditions
For many rural and economically strapped communities throughout history, quilting was a necessity. Tattered clothing and blankets were cut up and refashioned into new blankets, their patchwork styles evidence of the fabrics’ earlier uses. For Indigenous people, though, quilts “hold a particularly important cultural value,” says artist Wally Dion, “appearing as gifts, ceremonial objects, and celebratory markers.”
Grass Quilts series, Dion stitches translucent textiles into large-scale pieces. More
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Vivid, Translucent Quilts by Willy Dion Stitch Together Indigenous Culture and Making Traditions
For many rural and economically strapped communities throughout history, quilting was a necessity. Tattered clothing and blankets were cut up and refashioned into new blankets, their patchwork styles evidence of the fabrics’ earlier uses. For Indigenous people, though, quilts “hold a particularly important cultural value,” says artist Wally Dion, “appearing as gifts, ceremonial objects, and celebratory markers.”
Grass Quilts series, Dion stitches translucent textiles into large-scale pieces. More
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Vivid, Translucent Quilts by Willy Dion Stitch Together Indigenous Culture and Making Traditions appeared first on Colossal.
Silhouettes and Surreal Drawings Echo Strife and Self-Preservation In Valerie Hammond’s ‘Dreamers Awake’
According to Greek mythology, Daphne was the descendant of river gods. Born with a surging hunger for freedom and autonomy, the nymph committed herself to living a life rooted in solitude as she poured herself into deep passions like nature and hunting. Although Daphne devoted a great deal of time to exploring her tranquil surroundings, she eventually found herself in the chaotic throes of unrequited love as Apollo desperately sought to seize her for himself. More
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Voluptuous Growths of Thousands of Porcelain Layers Erupt Across Olivia Walker’s Works
Innumerable, wafer-thin layers of porcelain ripple into the collapsed sides of Olivia Walker’s vessels. The Devon-based artist throws small bowls on the wheel before affixing countless fragments that appear to rupture and spread across the forms. Layers are attached while leather-hard, the perfect pliability for sculpting growths evocative of fungi, coral, and other organisms.
tadelakt, a naturally waterproof plaster made of lime. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/08/olivia-walker-porcelain/
Hidden for Centuries, Rare 17th-Century Miniature Papercuts Have Been Discovered Under Floorboards in Hackney
For middle and upper-class girls, 17th-century education included lessons in core subjects like reading and writing, along with embroidery, housekeeping, and paper-cutting. The latter craft typically involved using minuscule pairs of scissors, knives, and pins to carve a design from themed books. Girls would then paint the tiny cuttings with watercolor or embroider within their lines before affixing the images to boxes or other decorations, a sign of the maker’s taste and skill.
Sutton House, a Tudor home built in 1535 in Hackney that served as a girls’ school in the 17th century. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/08/papercuts-sutton-house/
Looking Sharp: Twin Gables Invite Light and Nature Indoors at This Destination Coffee Shop
In the beachside town of Chonburi, Thailand, a slithering, twin-gabled building takes shape in a grove of trees. Home to a coffee shop called Harudot, the design is the fruit of a collaboration between a coffee roaster and a landlord who sells exotic plants. IDIN Architects conceived of a building that merged form and function, creating inviting spaces to sit and meet while placing nature at the apex both physically and conceptually.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/08/idin-architects-harudot-chonburi/
In ‘Old Growth,’ Mitch Epstein Travels the U.S. to Capture Monumental Ancient Relics
Sometime around the end of the last ice age—around 20,000 years ago—a single aspen seed rooted, sprouted, and began cloning itself in what is now central Utah. Known as Pando, which comes from the Latin “I spread,” the world’s largest known organism continues to grow today, comprising more than 40,000 individual trees. Every trunk emerged as a shoot from the same root system, and scientists estimate Pando weighs about 13 million pounds. That’s one massive plant. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/mitch-epstein-old-growth/
August 2024 Opportunities: Open Calls, Residencies, and Grants for Artists
Every month, Colossal shares opportunities for artists and designers, including open calls, grants, fellowships, and residencies. If you’d like to list an opportunity here, please get in touch at hello@colossal.art. You can also join our monthly Opportunities Newsletter.
On the Shelf: A Photo Book Exhibition (International)
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/august-2024-opportunities/
A Life-Giving Tree in Blue Sprawls Across a Mosaic Tile Facade by Michael Chandler
A fashion boutique in Miami features a one-of-a-kind facade thanks to Michael Chandler, artist and founder of Cape Town-based Chandler House. He created a bespoke, hand-painted, nature-inspired tile installation with “May all the doors of the world always be open to you” appearing on a ribbon floating above the entryway. A large tree unfurls throughout the composition, bedecked with myriad birds, flowers, and a silhouetted climber.
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/michael-chandler-tile-facade/
A 2,000-Year-Old Marble Mosaic Floor Emerges from the Sea in Italy
Around 100 B.C.E., wealthy Romans began building villas in the town of Baia, which sits on the Gulf of Naples. The region was considered superior to other outposts of the elite like Capri, Herculaneum, and Pompeii thanks to its relaxing, resort-like atmosphere and beautiful surroundings. It is also, however, in an area known in Italian as Campi Flegrei, or Phlegraean Fields, from the Greek meaning “burning earth.”
Campanian volcanic arc, which includes Mount Vesuvius, the peak that erupted and shrouded Pompeii in ash in 79 C.E. More
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https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/baia-submerged-marble-floor/
The Oldest Example of a Prestigious Red Dye Was Found in a Rare 3,800-Year-Old Textile
With waxy coverings and no limbs, female scale insects known as kermes vermilio are small parasites that attach themselves to oak plants to feed on sap. Native to the Mediterranean, the critters also produce a red dye that has been used since antiquity, the oldest example of which was recently found in a tiny woven textile.
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Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article The Oldest Example of a Prestigious Red Dye Was Found in a Rare 3,800-Year-Old Textile appeared first on Colossal.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/oldest-red-dye-textile/
The Oldest Example of a Prestigious Red Dye Was Found in a Rare 3,800-Year-Old Textile
With waxy coverings and no limbs, female scale insects known as kermes vermilio are small parasites that attach themselves to oak plants to feed on sap. Native to the Mediterranean, the critters also produce a red dye that has been used since antiquity, the oldest example of which was recently found in a tiny woven textile.
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Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article The Oldest Example of a Prestigious Red Dye Was Found in a Rare 3,800-Year-Old Textile appeared first on Colossal.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/oldest-red-dye-textile/
Saad Qureshi’s Elaborate Sculptures Play with Scale to Create Remembered and Imagined Places
Saad Qureshi’s Something About Paradise comprises three large-scale sculptures that rest on the floor or stretch up to meet the wall, supporting tiny houses and trees as if the earth has come alive and begun carrying the structures around. While developing the work, the London and Oxford-based artist traveled around the U.K. asking people what they thought paradise was like. He listened to descriptions of indistinct, fantastical places, fuzzy around the edges as if recalled from memory or dreams, and from these narratives he crafted what he refers to as a series of “mindscapes.”
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Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Saad Qureshi’s Elaborate Sculptures Play with Scale to Create Remembered and Imagined Places appeared first on Colossal.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/saad-qureshi-mindscapes/
What’s That Mark on the Wall? A Dryly Humorous Short Film Plunges into One Imagination’s Quest for an Answer
Anderson Wright plunges viewers into one woman’s inventive search for reason and rationality.
The Mark On The Wall” is based on Virginia Woolf’s short story of the same name, which opens with the mysterious line—”Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall.”— before sinking into a stream-of-consciousness style monologue of speculation and intrigue. More
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article What’s That Mark on the Wall? A Dryly Humorous Short Film Plunges into One Imagination’s Quest for an Answer appeared first on Colossal.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/the-mark-on-the-wall/
What’s That Mark on the Wall? A Dryly Humorous Short Film Plunges into One Imagination’s Quest for an Answer
Anderson Wright plunges viewers into one woman’s inventive search for reason and rationality.
The Mark On The Wall” is based on Virginia Woolf’s short story of the same name, which opens with the mysterious line—”Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall.”— before sinking into a stream-of-consciousness style monologue of speculation and intrigue. More
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article What’s That Mark on the Wall? A Dryly Humorous Short Film Plunges into One Imagination’s Quest for an Answer appeared first on Colossal.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/the-mark-on-the-wall/
What’s That Mark on the Wall? A Dryly Humorous Short Film Plunges into One Imagination’s Quest for an Answer
Anderson Wright plunges viewers into one woman’s inventive search for reason and rationality.
The Mark On The Wall” is based on Virginia Woolf’s short story of the same name, which opens with the mysterious line—”Perhaps it was the middle of January in the present year that I first looked up and saw the mark on the wall.”— before sinking into a stream-of-consciousness style monologue of speculation and intrigue. More
Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article What’s That Mark on the Wall? A Dryly Humorous Short Film Plunges into One Imagination’s Quest for an Answer appeared first on Colossal.
https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2024/07/the-mark-on-the-wall/