Lichen Love

Lichen is a strange and beautiful life form, or rather a mutualistic relationship between algae or Cyanobacteria and fungi to make a composite organism. They have different shapes, sizes, parts, colours and somehow have properties which differ from those of their component parts. Like plants they photosynthesize, but they have no roots. I recall learning as a child how they were the trailblazers, making their home on the rocks of the Canadian Shield, and allowing a succession of other organisms to grow on top, till we have large trees which appear to grow straight out of the rock, but without lichen it could not be there. When lichen grows on trees it is not a parasite, it just uses plants as a surface on which to grow. They grow in a huge range of environments, even tundra, deserts, mountains and rainforests on virtually any convenient surface. Scientists estimate 6 to 8% of the Earth's land surface is covered by lichen, and yet we can walk right by without giving it a second thought.

Some though, have long admired lichen, especially its extraordinary colour palette and variety of textures and forms. This is a selection of the colour charts based on lichen from the Svensk Lafvarnas Farghistoria by Johan Peter Westring. Printed in 1805-09. Via the Biodiversity Heritage Library archive. 

One of my favourite lichen artists is Dr. Immy Smith (website, Etsy, Patreon). They make a wide variety of artwork, much of it about natural history, or drawing on their background in neuroscience, but clearly they love lichen and have observed it very closely.

'Lichen makes the landscape' - Immy Smith with Herbarium RNG curators

They collaborated on the 'Symbiosis' project as part of the part of the Imagining Science Polymathic Art & Science Collaborative, with fellow member Scott Mantooth and other artists, scientists and the University of Reading Herbarium and EM Lab (Centre for Advanced Microscopy). Other drawings illustrate scanning electron microscope images of lichen. You can read more here.

'Reading campus twig' - Immy Smith with Herbarium RNG curators

UK textile artist Amanda Cobett makes papier maché and machine embroidered sculptures, often fungi and extraordinarily life-like lichen.

Amanda : Moss and Lichen TQ 085 439, 2018, Built up layers of free machine embroidery (Photo credit, Fraser James)

Amanda Cobbett: Moss, bark and Lichen detail TQ 085 44, 2018, Built up layers of free machine embroidery, materials used; paper, silk, thread, dye, backing cloth, (Photo credit, Fraser James)

Artist and researcher Sarah Hearn makes artworks inspired by biology. She has made several lichen-inspired series of artworks. 

Sarah Hearn, Artificial Lichen Colony #8

10" x 15" cut photographs and watercolor, 2015

Sarah Hearn, Artificial Lichen Colony Collage #5

42" x 24" cut photographs, watercolor and graphite, 2016 (private commission)

Sarah Hearn, Artificial Lichen Colony #6

15" x 10" cut photographs and watercolor, 2016

There are whole worlds to contemplate in these extraordinary things if only we stop to look.

Insects in Textiles

 Insects have been used as adornment and recreated in textiles for centuries. I'm sharing a smattering here of some beautiful contemporary textile art of insects.

Check out the sensitive textile nature art of Dutch-born Australian artist Annemieke Mein here. She works in various media including textiles, and the textile art includes these beautiful insects:

Textile insects by Annemieke Mein

Born in England and based in Kenya, artist Sophie Standing uses textile art to portray the wildlife she sees. I absolutely love this bee:

Bee textile art by Sophie Standing

She does a lot of the African megafauna, but this dung beetle is charming:

Dung Beetle textile art by Sophie Standing

Michele Carragher is a London costume embroidery for film and TV who has done extraordinary work (for shows like Game of Thrones). Some of her insect-themed work: 

The Head Artfact, Hairpin, (c) MCE 2021

The Hand Artefact, Gauntlet detail cicada motif, (c) MCE 2021

Detail of Game of Thrones costume embroidery by Michele Carragher

You can find the delightful work of UK embroiderer Humayrah Bint Altaf on instagram and Etsy as The Olde Sewing Room. 

She wished for wings, Papilio Demoleous Swallowtail Butterfly with Goldwork Embroidery

Goldwork scarab beetle with crystals and antique wires

Madelaine (n.), something that triggers memories or nostalgia - gold work dragonfly embroidery

Hadrons and Textiles

Kate Findlay became fascinated with images of CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2008, and has been making quilts inspired by circular cross-sections of the machinery, and more recently, the underlying fundamental partical physics, ever since.

Breakthrough November 2009
Size: 90 cm square. Materials: silks, synthetics and cottons, a metal ring wrapped in gold cord, metallic mesh.

Hadron 2

Hadron 4 2009
Size: 60 cm square.
Materials: Fabric, wire, cords, foam board, on hardboard.
Note: This piece is not a quilt, although much of it is made with fabric.

Hadron 5

Atom - Silver

She's starting to get some attention from the physicists (like this article in CERN's Symmetry Magazine) who seem surprised that hard, metallic machinery who inspire soft textiles. I'd argue there is actually a history of employing quilts are a means of expressing contemporary society - which includes the science it produces. Consider for instance the collection of The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art, the Genone quilts of Beverly St. Clair, this EEG quilt or the astronomical quilts of Jimmy McBride (who goes by stellarquilts on Etsy). Nor is not a new phenomenon; consider for instance the Solar System quilt made by Ellen Harding Baker in 1876.

You can find more of Kate Findlay's LHC and particle physics quilts on her website along with other quilts she's made.

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roccoco jellyfish

Australian-born, US-based sculptor Timothy Horn has a taste for the roccoco, and tells ironic fairytales with his allusions to ornate historical objects, on unusually large scales or in unexpected media. Check out his gorgeous, yet humourous jewellery on a heroic scale. He caught my attention with his hommage to my favorite (& yours) 19th century German biologist-taxonimist-scientific illustrator par excellence Ernst Haeckel and his jellyfish. These are some chandeliers made in transparent rubber!

Discomedusae
2004
Transparent rubber, copper tubing, lighting fixtures
7ft diameter


Villa Medusa - installation view, 2006


Medusa
2006
Silicone rubber, copper tubing, fiber optics
9ft diameter


Stheno (detail)
2006
Silicone rubber, copper tubing, fiber optics


I have always wanted to create jellyfish in 3D. I have so far made 2D relief prints, inspired by Ernst Haeckel, like my avatar (seen in the column to the right), but no sculptures - with the exception of my Portuguese man-of-war costume, which involved a paper jellyfish headdress. Sometimes I think about learning how to work with glass for the sole purpose of making jellyfish. Of course, I am not alone in my appreciation of the spectacular form and light interactions (transmission, reflection, refraction and emission) found in these creatures. A quick google search reveals many glass jellies for sale. But I also admire those who, like Horn, have made such sculpture in unexpected media.

I really enjoyed Alyssa Coe and Carly Waito -Coe and Waito's ceramic jellyfish installation which appeared in the window of Magic Pony in May, 2007, (amongst other places) as part of the MADE show Come Up to My Room.



25 - 30 handsculpted porcelain jellyfish

American jeweler Arlene Fisch applies textile techniques to metal to produce her larger-than-life jellyfish. Her exhibition involved blown air to allow her creatures to move naturally (encorportating the fourth dimension of time):

Black Sea Nettle


Orthocanna

Miwa Koizumi employed trash - specifically PET (polyethylene terephthalate) water bottles - to make her water animals. She manipulated the shape of the empty bottles using heat guns, soldering irons and cutting tools. The results are magical.

plastic water bottles, 2005
installation view at sawaguzo at Redux


Volvic water bottle, 2005

p.s. Check out Timothy Horn's other exhibitions when you visit his site. Who could resist replica of a gilded 18th-century Neapolitan sedan chair made with crystalized rock sugar?


Mother-Load
2008
Crystallized rock sugar, ply-wood, steel
9ft.6in. x 6ft. x 5ft. 6in.

contemporary embroidered life

Today Modish pointed out the delights of artist and illustrator Kate O'Connor's embroidered artwork. {Modish cites dear ada, one fo my favorite art blogs, but somehow, I missed this.} I could go on about the green-ness of using found vintage materials, about the DIY movement and the resurgence of interest in old-fashioned crafts, about reclaiming 'women's work' and textiles, about high and low culture and needlework as art, about beauty in imperfections, about handwriting and typography... but more than anything, this is clearly a woman with an insightful, au courrant, kick-ass sense of humour.




Her work is more varied than what I have shown, so check out her site for more and works in other media.