Lauren DiCioccio Mixed Media Inspiration - 'Sewn News'
I was flicking through some Art journals in the library a few days ago and came across some Lauren DiCioccio's work. I love combining stitch with unusual mediums and using the thread as an adornment as well as to emphasize and manipulate.Her series of sewn newspapers are inspired by nostalgia and her love for old-fashioned objects that she believes are becoming obsolete as we are continuing to use television and the internet as a way of reading the news. She describes reading a newspaper as a 'ritual experience' and how the paper is a fragile and tactile object in the language of craft.
The process she uses involves encasing the New York Times in hand embroidered cotton muslin and then selecting a strong image 'suggestive of power, leadership or communication'. She hand stitches over the image using a variety of colours to emphasise and highlight certain areas. She applies the stitch in a 'painterly quality' and leaves thread dangling down from the face.
I love her approach and find it really similar to that of Lotus Peles Chen's (above) who is one of my absolute favourite artists - you can see an older blog post of my work inspired by her here: Stitched Portraits I, Distortion & Masking Photographs and Stitched Portraits IIDo you use a similar process in your own work? Share with my your own ideas & techniques in the comment section below!For more of Lauren DiCioccio's work you can read her artist's statement and view her current work which includes beautiful hand embroidered letters to U.S soldiers and her altered books.
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