Intelligent Asking

This, just finished and sent to be a part of Intelligent Clashing's 'Dream Shop'; in turn, a part of ROLU's epic residency at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis. In Rhiannon's words, it's the shop she "dreams of opening", behaving as a "snap-shot of a current community of artists/makers/designers who operate and communicate online". It looks like she is bringing her unimpeachable curatorial eye to the 'stock', in the way she has gently specified or selected palette and material mix.

It has been a good opportunity to work through the first of an ongoing series of embroidered totes, presented schematically in a previous post. I'm using readymade bags in 12oz cotton canvas available colours. Down the line, the intention is to design and make the structure from scratch but I do also like exponentially adding worth through handwerk, to such a staple. A significant step is to have pre-punctured stitch holes so that I — as a stitch novice — could do it. It also bonds the project with the boxes and other pieces which owe a good deal to Friedrich Froebel's 'Gifts and Occupations' lineage through to the Bauhaus' preliminary exercises.

I'll collate more reference points in a subsequent post. This bag developed as a kind of sampler, especially within these bars. I feel encouraged by the reductive but glitched turnabout symmetry and gaudy, bubbly spurts. It's a little marker for Matt and ROLU, too, on technique to be carried through to the chair covers. Their Walker residency is looking somewhat exciting.