The Collective

The B. Yellowtail Collective is finally up and running, and looking great!

Anthony Thosh Collins - Thoshograpy.com Models: Linsay Willier (left), Shania Russell (center), and Gabrielle Lopez (right). Native fashion designer icon Bethany Yellowtail (Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes) just launched a e-commerce retail expansion in partnership with a group of Native American artists on her website known as The B. Yellowtail Collective.

Anthony Thosh Collins – Thoshograpy.com
Models: Linsay Willier (left), Shania Russell (center), and Gabrielle Lopez (right). Native fashion designer icon Bethany Yellowtail (Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes) just launched a e-commerce retail expansion in partnership with a group of Native American artists on her website known as The B. Yellowtail Collective.

Native fashion designer icon Bethany Yellowtail (Northern Cheyenne and Crow tribes) just launched a e-commerce retail expansion in partnership with a group of Native American artists on her website known as The B. Yellowtail Collective.

The Collective will benefit a group of Native artists selling their Native made fashion retail goods on the BYellowtail.com website.

According to a release put out by Yellowtail, the e-commerce retail initiative features jewelry, beadwork, textiles, handbags, and other accessories handmade by each of the artists. All pieces are one-of-a-kind, created through traditional design methods passed down for many generations.

Since the inception of Yellowtail’s clothing line in 2014, the designer says she has envisioned a collaborative project with Native American artists and designers who often lack retail opportunities due to their remote locales.

“What makes The Collective so unique is that the people will now have a direct connection to the authentic, creative source of what they’re purchasing. It is very important to know and understand the artist behind the work,” Yellowtail said.

“There will now be a face and a name behind their work, not just a generic idea of Native American product,” Yellowtail said, “Consumers will be able to see their faces, hear their voices, and understand the significance and individuality behind their designs and concepts.”

 Yellowtail tells ICTMN she was inspired to create the Collective when she was moving from Los Angeles back to her home communities on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne nations. Shifting from the fast-pace of L.A. caused her to rethink and re-evaluate her goals for her company.

She says one moment in particular inspired the Collective.

“I was at a gas station in Lame Deer, MT and a man came up to me and asked if I wanted to buy some earrings he made. I asked him, ‘WOW, how much?!’ They were absolutely exquisite. He said, ‘15.00, I just need gas money.’ That moment, a light bulb went off. At first, I felt really sad because the earrings were incredible and what he was asking for was so beneath their true value. Poverty, unemployment and lack of job opportunities is so real, especially in the Northern Plains region. So, accompanied by several other moments like that while I was living back home, I decided I need to use my platform as an opportunity to create real sustainable change. Launching “The Collective” is just the stepping stone for the true potential of our brand.

Yellowtail says that she hopes to provide more opportunity for artists in her life. She also offered words of advice to aspiring native designers and young native people in general.

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Model Martin Sensmeier (left) Necklaces by Alaynee Goodwill & Kendorina Redhouse Cuffs by Alaynee Goodwill & Thomas Yellowtail. Model Stephen Yellowtail (right) Choker by Karis Jackson, Bolo tie by Susanne Stewart, Cuffs by Elias Not Afraid. Photo: Anthony Thosh Collins – Thoshograpy.com

The B. Yellowtail Collective. Article at ICTMN.

Alchemy: Into Flesh.

Japan-based, Chinese designer Leonard Wong creates his latest collection and accompanying fashion video, both named Alchemy. In stark monochrome, the Alchemy video features ferrofluid-like orbs that morph and transform into human figures, namely performance artist Sylvia Lajbig and dancer duo AyaBambi.

Alchemy: Into Flesh:

A mesmerizing video, to say the least. For those of you at work, have a care, this opens with a nude person, however, it’s not graphic. After being mesmerized, I visited Leonard Wong’s site, and oh…well, if I could afford designer clothes, I’d find myself buying most of the lot, both from the collection, and the experimental – particularly the overthrowing tradition pieces. Fabulous! You can read more about Leonard Wong and this current collection at The Creators Project. If you do watch the video, I recommend full screen.

Balanced Art.

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There’s something beautifully surreal about seeing inanimate objects, be they playing cards or matches, precariously stacked on top of one another. Over the years, it’s actually been developing into its very own genre of art, “balanced art,” inspiring creative minds all over the world to start stacking. Artist Ishihana-Chitoku is but one of these creative minds who’s spent years working to imbue the serene sensation into his balanced rock sculptures. Chitoku’s catalogue is filled with mind boggling assemblages of stacked rocks that you won’t believe were made by human hands.

More at The Creators Project. Check out more rock sculptures from Ishihana-Chitoku on Instagram, and keep abreast of new projects on his website. I have been picking up rocks for decades. Now I’ll have to get them all out and play.

Los Angeles Launches City-Wide Exhibits on Water.

Geentanjal Khanna/Unsplash.

Geentanjal Khanna/Unsplash.

Los Angeles (and greater California) has a complicated relationship with water. Diminishing sources, droughts, and overuse have troubled the city since its inception. “Current: LA Water” seeks to address these issues through public art installations.

The project was born from a $1 million dollar grant from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Public Art Challenge, which, in June 2015, challenged cities across the country to create temporary public art projects that celebrated creativity, enhanced urban identity, encouraged public-private partnerships, and drove economic development. “Current LA: Water” was one of the projects selected.

[…]

“Los Angeles is the creative capital of the world, a place where we appreciate how art inspires us to see the world through new eyes,” said Mayor Eric Garcetti. “’Current: LA’ will make Angelenos rethink our relationship with water, and better understand how the L.A. River connects the diverse communities and cultures that make our city great.”

No. No, LA is not the creative capital of the world. American exceptionalism, it’s everywhere. And inside that exceptionalism, there’s state and city exceptionalism. Stop that.

Work will be available to view for one-month at 14 different sites throughout the city. “A narrative about our relationship to water and its allied systems will be demonstrated through the voice and visions of the ‘Current: LA’ artists, an exciting group of internationally recognized and emerging talents that are as culturally diverse as the inhabitants of Los Angeles themselves,” said Felicia Filer, DCA’s Public Art Division Director.

If you happen to be in this particular area of the world at the pertinent time, have a look. Via Out.

Cool Stuff Friday: Ebru Art.

Ebru Art, by Garip Ay. I am overwhelmed by the art work, as well as the skill and talent it takes to produce such intense beauty.

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History of Ebru Art

Ebru, which is generally known today as a decorative paper art, is one of the oldest Turkish arts, but exactly where or when it started remains unknown. Ebru is an art from the realms of history, presenting to us a beauty that is full of love. It can be described as painting on water. Patterns are formed on the surface of water which has had substances added to it to increase the viscosity; the patterns are then transferred to paper. The results of this process are unique and it is never possible to achieve the same design again.

Those who have traced the history claim that the many hued Ebru that we know today was born in Turkistan in Central Asia, a place that was the center for many cultures. From the 17th century on, it became known as Turkish Paper in Europe, and from here the art of Ebru reached the rest of the world.

The Turks started to make paper in the 15th century. With their sensitive souls and their mystic personalities they became very advanced in the art of paper decoration. Ebru paper, especially those of a fine design, was first used as the background to important official state papers, a variety of treaties and the records of important events. It was used as a means to prevent the alteration of the document. The same logic can be found in the use of complicated designs on banknotes, cheque books, deeds and bonds used today. In addition, the edges of commercial registers were decorated with Ebru in order to prevent the removal of pages. Ebru holds an important place in the history of Islamic art; it was used alongside calligraphy and in publishing. Moreover, its mystic nature, that is, “the search for religious beauty”, led to its being used in many tekkes as a reflection of sufi thought.

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The captions are easier to read at full screen, but if you’re like me, you’ll be busy gawking. And getting ideas.

And in wide-eyed awe…Van Gogh on Dark Water Animation.

I could watch his channel all day, but Verizon would punish me severely.

At least it isn’t 65 years. Yet.

I’ve been working in textiles for a while now, specifically, completely hand-made art quilts, with the main attraction being hand embroidery. Anyone who hand embroiders knows how time intensive it can be. For a while now, I’ve been so damn busy, I have not had time to work on the current project, the Tree Quilt. That ends up being a bit depressing, because I’d like to just be able to work on it and get finished. 65 years ago, a woman started an embroidery art piece, and has now finished it at age 90.

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Click for full size image. 90-year-old Priscilla Faulks stands by “My Jesus,” her 65-year embroidery project now displayed at Victoria’s Restaurant in Trotwood.

TROTWOOD — During the two years Cincinnati native Priscilla Faulks studied at the Cincinnati Art Academy, her medium was painting and her favored subjects were nature and portraits. But, after returning to her grandmother’s house at 25 in 1950, she was inspired to start a life-sized Jesus — which she finally completed in January, just a few weeks after her 90th birthday.

Now, the framed embroidered “My Jesus” is on display at Victoria’s Restaurant at West Third and Union Road in Trotwood.

“I wasn’t religious, but my grandmother, who raised me, was a highly Christian woman, and I was living with her when I was inspired to draw Jesus,” Faulks said. “Grandmother had saved government potato sacks from the Depression, and I asked her to sew them together to make me a large canvas that we tacked to the wall.

“I drew the Jesus, and she was elated. Both she and my mother were seamstresses, and they taught me. I made all my own doll clothes. I decided to use embroidery on the piece.”

Faulks began the work, then got married and had two children. She rolled up her Jesus and worked on it when she had time. Her first husband, injured in WWII, eventually died of his injuries, and she returned to school at Wilberforce until she re-married and had two more children. She was widowed a second time two years ago.

Hired as secretary for McLin Funeral Home by then-Ohio House Rep. C.J. McLin, “I’d take Jesus to work, and when I wasn’t busy, I’d work on him,” she said. “At night, I worked on him to relax, then roll him up and put him away. The more I worked, the more I wanted to finish him.”

Finally, on Jan. 5, she completed “My Jesus,” and approached various places to have it displayed, but was told that, at 4-feet-by-6-feet, it was too large for most spaces.

[…]

Faulks is thrilled that her Jesus is finally finished and now has a space where it’s appreciated, with an accompanying explanation of her long-term project.

“I’m happy, elated and relieved,” she said. “It took so long, just one stitch in, one stitch out, for 65 years.”

That is a seriously impressive piece of work. I think I better get back to work. I don’t have 65 years.

Full story here.