Textile Anatomy

Where textile art meets human anatomy!

Shannell Papp, Lab (skeleton), detail

Shannell Papp, Lab (skeleton)

Canadian artist Shannell Papp created Lab (skeleton), a complete, full-scale crocheted model of the human skeleton and organs. She writes, "I was pretty serious about making a very exacting replica of the human body. There are parts of the work that nobody sees–the brain has gray and white matter, the bones have marrow, the stomach has half digested food in it. I made it to understand my body better and I think this is why people like it," in  this interview. She has also made other textile works, whether crochet or embroidered, about human anatomy.

Shannell Papp, Bonebook (detail)

Shannel Papp, Bonebook and Blood Pools

Another Canadian artist was working on knitted and embroidered works about human anatomy in the late 90s. Sarah Maloney made these beautiful embroideries and knitted sculptural and multimedia works.

Sarah Maloney,
Knitted Arms, Shoe Forms, Gloves, 1997,
variable dimensions, multimedia, Photo: Ned Pratt

Sarah Maloney, Brain, Knitted cotton, stainless steel armature
35.6 x 35.6 x 152.4 cm
1988-1989, Photo: Paul Litherland

Sarah Maloney, Skeletal System,
Embroidered cotton on silk
305 x 112cm
1998-99, Photo: Geoffrey Gammon

Sarah Maloney,
Vertebrae, Sacrum, Coccyx,
Knitted cotton, stainless steel armature
36x 36 x 189 cm,
1998-99, Photo: Geoffrey Gammon

Sarah Maloney,
Circulatory System
Embroidered cotton on silk
305 x 112cm,
1998-99, Photo: Geoffrey Gammon

Similarly, LA-based artist Ben Cuevas has produced a knit skeleton and various organs and blood vessels.

Ben Cuevas, knit skeleton

Ben Cuevas,
Knit Veins: Fiber of Our Being

Some fibre artists are creating anatomical works about anatomy on an entirely different scale. Consider the 'macro' work of New Mexico-based artist Betty Busby. (Do, check out her portfolio. I'm in love with her dinosaur skull quilts).

Betty Busby, Neurotic 36x42

Betty Busby, Purkinje 37x44"

Betty Busby, Retia 60x45

 
 The neurons might be something most can identify in 'Neurotic'. Likewise, Purkinje refers to a class of neurons located in the cerebellum. 'Retia mirabilia' are a complex of arteries and veins lying very close to each other, found in some vertebrates. Purkin

Doily Science

Sometimes I neglect to mention artists who strike me as well-known, or blogosphere favorites. But, I would be remiss to neglect Lisa Solomon's 'doily drawings' which are at the cross-section of art, science and needlework, as they are both beautiful and very much in keeping with magpie&whiskeyjack's favorites things.


doily brain: 2006, coloured pencil and embroidery on duralar, 12 x 9 inches


doily lungs: 2006, coloured pencil and embroidery on duralar, 12 x 9 inches

Solomon writes, "when I started drawing doilies I realized that en masse they reminded me of internal organs.... these doily body drawings represent the 4 things I think you need to make art: your lungs, heart, brain, and guts." She's also used doilies and colour pencils to show beautiful versions of the chemical structure of toxins and the geometry of viruses. More recently she's moved on to even more sculpture representations of molecules by combining the crochet with glass balls.


carbon tetrachloride, 2007
colored pencil, acrylic, graphite, watercolor and embroidery on duralar
10" x 10"


chloro benzine, 2007
colored pencil, acrylic, graphite, watercolor and embroidery on duralar
16 3/4" x 20 1/2"


Chloroform
2011
crochet doilies on glass
3.5 x 8.5 x 8.75 inches
8.9 x 21.6 x 22.2 cm

As well as anatomy, chemistry, toxicology, and microbiology, she's also tackled deforestation, tanks and rifles (which would fit in with the craftivism post) and a variety of domestic themes. Her work includes the aim of fusing and 'mending' masculine icons with traditionally feminine crafts. You should check out her extensive portfolio.

Wonderwebs

Shane Waltener, who lives and works in London, has an extensive portfolio here. I think cross-breeding lace doilies with cobwebs is more than granny-chic meets natural history; it is genius. He cites both cobwebs and dreamcatchers when describing some of these needlework and crochet fantasies.






Auntie Peggy Has Departed 2003, mercerised cotton, audio equipment, 2 part looped soundtrack. Aldwych Tube Station, the Strand, London.


Showroom Doily 2004, knicker elastic, 350 x 350 x 300cm. Disused shoe factory, King's Cross, London.



A World Wide Web 2007 - shirring elastic, 25 sq. meters. Museum of Arts and Design, New York.


The 26,000 2003, nylon thread, 300 x 300cm. St Mary’s Churchyard, Museum of Garden History, London.


Chihuly Doily 1&2 2004, knicker elastic, each 270 x 350cm. Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

I love that something so beautiful (though perhaps ephemeral) can be created in the medium of "knicker elastic".

(via The Jealous Curator)

The human-working-in-the-spiderweb-medium reminded me of the 'uninvited collaborations' mended spiderwebs of California and Finland based artist Nina Katchadourian. She searched for broken spider webs and repaired the damage as much as posible with (starched or glued) red thread. Day and day, the spiders rejected her repairs, leaving piles of red thread under their own re-repaired webs. She displayed her photographs of the webs with her repairs alongside the later rejected patches.


Mended Spiderweb #14 (Spoon Patch)
Cibachrome, 20 x 30 inches, 1998


Mended Spiderweb #8 (Fish Patch)
Cibachrome, 20 x 20 inches, 1998


Marketing Tips for Spiders
Cibachrome, 30 x 20 inches, 1998

See also suspended spiderwebs and feathers, Working with insects (& other animals) and collecting wunderkammer.

Juxtaposition & Craftivism

german panther, 2007, Luftballon/Luft/Kleber (balloon/air/glou), 960 x370 x 300cm

A balloon tank by German-based Dutch artist Hans Hemmert (via Adapt)


Pink M.24 Chaffee
A tank wrapped in pink

Danish artist Marianne Jorgensen stitched together a pink cozy, knit and crocheted in a collection of three thousand 15 cm x 15 cm squares for a WWII tank as a protest against the involvement of Denmark (UK and US) in the war in Iraq, by volunteers in Europe and the US in 2006.


Barb Hunt
antipersonnel, 1998 and ongoing
approximately 50 knitted sculptures
Collection of the artist
©2001 Barb Hunt

Canadian artist Barb Hunt knit replicas of antipersonnel land mines in various shades of pink wool, inspired by protests againts land mines. While Marianne Jorgensen cites how knitting and pinkness allude to coziness and home, the antipathy of war, Barb Hunt relates knitting to caring for the body, bandages and hand-knit socks for soldiers abroad and thus to caring, recooperating and protection.


Barb Hunt
antipersonnel - detail landscape

I find Hunt's collection very moving; to ponder the sheer inventiveness of human evil in creating such an array of civilian-killing devices along with the irony of justaposition with the cuddly medium and feminine* pink colour.

The wikipedia entry for Craftivism includes instructions for knitting your own "purse grenade" from Political protest turns to the radical art of knitting by Charlotte Higgins published by The Guardian, Monday 31 January 2005.

*At least according to current colour-biases.

Things are better if covered in textiles...

More than a decorating scheme, this, for some is a philosophy of life.
Consider, for instance, rocks:

by Margie Oomen of Resurrection Fern and knitalatta [via make something]

The delightful tree cozy from Ward's Island, Toronto:

by Canadian textile artist Janet Morton.

Or this tree in Cleveland by Carol Hummel:


Or the work of Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos including this crab

this bull's head

and this piano