Sunday, November 06, 2011

A Fiber Twist on Newspaper Blackouts

I'm still doing the weekly exercise of Newspaper Blackout using the Sunday obituaries and posting them on my own blackout blog here as well as following others' efforts. I was quite surprised to see some fiber-related interpretations such as Patch Poem by Jenny McCabe. You'll have to follow the link to see it, but essentially she has overlain printed text with a gauzy fabric and cut portions out to reveal certain words - the fabric provides the blackout rather than marker. She's also added stitch to hold the gauze in place, and similar stitching to the fabric that abuts it - actually, the photo is just a close-up of one section of a larger piece. It reminded me of a journal quilt I did where I stamped words on muslin, layered tyvek over it and then burned away spots of tyvek to reveal some of the words underneath (see this post).

Another extraordinary fiber blackout is The Desert by Jen Bervin. Here a poem has been created "...by sewing row by row, line by line, across 130 pages of John Van Dyke's, The Desert: Further Studies in Natural Appearances (1901). I used atmospheric fields of pale blue zigzag stitching to construct a poem “narrated by the air”— “so clear that one can see the breaks.”" Again, follow the link as I do not have permission to post pictures of these works. Maybe you will be inspired to try your own version of newspaper blackout.

2 comments:

MulticoloredPieces said...

I find it fascinating, what you're doing with the Blackouts. It's a way of seeing differently, a bit of a jolt. Thanks for the link to other artists. Jen Bervin's book poem is very interesting, and Jenny McCabe's work is marvelous. Also really like your leaf quilt.
best, nadia

Sherrie Spangler said...

This is a very thought-provoking post. I love what you're doing. "The Desert" by John Van Dyke is one of my bibles, and I was in awe of what the poet did with it.