I absolutely love this series by American artist Evie Woltil Richner. Feathery, delicate drawings lovingly applied to old, family photos – memorializing those who are no longer with us. I would try to explain further, but Evie’s words are so much more powerful:

“…Each of these pieces is a burial, but also a memorial. Working from photographs of deceased relatives, I am physically burying them in a shroud of drawn feathers. Through burial, we acknowledge loss. The person is removed from our lives.
My Grammy, as I always called her, moved in with us when I was in elementary school. She had Alzheimer’s disease and we took care of her. Over time, I could see her memory disappearing. She would forget who people were and repeat the same stories and phrases over and over. She lives now only in my memory and in the memories of those who knew her, but my memories are wispy, like bits of dreams a few hours after you’ve had them. Some of the memories are barely there. I can see only a sliver of them. Afraid of the erosion of my own memory, my creations are also an act of remembrance – remembering my Grammy as she was when she lived with us, and also reconstructing who she might have been before I knew her. Through the ritual of drawing over images of her, I return to thoughts of her again and again.
When finished, the pieces become a signifier, like a gravestone, of a person who once was, and just as gravestones serve to connect us with a loved one after they’ve passed, these pieces are a physical connection I have to her. The feathers specifically reference the cross-cultural symbolism of the bird as a connection between heaven and earth.”

Beautifully said… and beautifully executed.

YAY! I love this little sketchbook oh so much! I’ve written about Chicago based artist Kate Pugsley a few times over the years. I was poking around on her blog last night, and found these pages! Jackpot!!! Boy oh boy, I wish my sketchbook looked like this. And also, I wish that I could have that red and pink jell-o for lunch… mmmm, jell-o.

I’ve tried embroidery on paper… but never on a chunk of driftwood! These are the lovely works of British artist Ella Robinson. In the top and bottom images, she has used cotton thread. For the other two, it’s colored plastic lacing that is weaving so beautifully in and out of those holes. Oh boy, and now I want one in the corner of my living room. A lot.

{via Poppytalk’s Pinterest board}

Found images, AND thread? Oh, be still my beating heart! California based artist Lisa Kokin is killing me with this work. Here are Lisa’s words about these images, from her Sewn Found Photos series:

Sometimes there are inscriptions on the back (“Susie, 7 years old”) but more often they come to me stripped of all identity. I sit in my studio and speculate about the nature of the photographed people’s lives. I will, of course, never know the truth, so I feel it is my job to give them new lives and rescue them from the obscurity they would be headed for were it not for me, humble servant of the arts. I try to invent an altogether different identity for them but of course, in the final analysis these works are more about me than any of the hundreds of anonymous individuals who appear in my work.

I am intrigued with other people’s photographic recording of their lives both for the generic quality they possess — the family and social rituals, studio portraits, vacation shots — and for the feeling of sadness and nostalgia that acquiring other people’s memories provokes in me. I feel somehow that it should be illegal to own them, yet since they are for sale it might as well be me who buys them.

… and this is literally only a fraction of her portfolio. Just wait til you see what she does with old books!

{I found the first image in the post on Pinterest, via Artsy Forager}

I’m not sure if this is my dream, or my nightmare? Yowza, Brooklyn based artist Aya Kakeda has some crazy images floating around in her head… and I love them! I love them all! Oompa Loompas, strange little mouse girls, flowery candy as far as the eye can see… and she can embroider?! Love.

I found this work through a very cool project, that is part of a Masters thesis by Sara Barnes {of Brown Paper Bag fame}. She has created an online gallery, called eyra to:

“…celebrate illustration as a popular art that helps us to understand and interpret the world at large. It strives to showcase not only beautiful and thought-provoking illustration, but to add to the greater cultural dialogue. With each exhibition, eyra has original illustration, high-quality prints, and limited-edition projects that correspond to the theme and spirit of the show.”

Fantastic, all’round.

Spanish born, London-based artist Oriol Angrill Jordà has me totally smitten. Wanna know why? The first three pieces above were done using only colored pencils. WHAT?! Yes, it’s true – and I am in complete awe. And, the final two pieces {which look like a whole lot like double exposure photography} are colored pencil and watercolor. Sigh. Gorgeous.

… I cannot get enough of that first drawing. Let’s look at it again, and marvel at his drawing skills, ok? Ok.

♥

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Shall we make a toast… with tea?

Yes! A lovely, papery, tea-cuppy way to ring in 2013! This is the gorgeous work of Swedish artist Cecilia Levy. Delicate, complex, and yet, so simple. Now, this didn’t  really work into the whole ‘new year’ thing, but look at this! Paper eggs, and thistles!!!

Sigh… 2013 is going to be good! Happy happy to you and yours! xo

Oh my word. These mixed-media portraits by Montreal based artist Louis Boudreault grabbed me immediately! They are part of a series titled “Destiny”, as these are the childhood portraits of such greats as Picasso, Warhol, van Gogh, Elvis etc! So, so good. The sweet vintage {and famous!} faces in graphite, the bows, the stripes… and then, you realize this:

The scale! Oh, the scale!!!! ♥ ♥ ♥ {yes, three little hearts worth of love!}

And with that, I hope you enjoy the end of 2012 ~ I’ll see you in 2013! xo

‘

Love. This is the work of Spanish artist Luisa Chillida Bergareche. I couldn’t decide between her manipulated, metal sculptures, or her paintings… so you get both! She also works with monotypes, cuts canvas, and designs metal jewelry. Inspiration overload? Si.

So here’s the thing… I don’t speak Spanish. However, María Revuelta and Núria del Moral, the girls behind the Barcelona based photography studio Las Coleccionistas, do. All of this to say, I love the images from this project titled Meals {perhaps because all I’ve done for the past three days is eat!}, but I really have no idea what it’s about. So I used Google Translate, and this is what I got…

Meals – Exaltation of the pleasures that produces the experience of eating. Editorial fashion in collaboration with stylists barcelonaUnnaked . Posted Pashion Magazine (Middle East), Luxsure Magazine (France) and Spot Magazine (Mexico).

Hm. Well there you go.