PATTERNS AND TONES

"Amanda Quinn Olivar" from the series Home as Hat While I was photographing Kim Shattuck for my " Day in the Life of a Rock n' Roller " series back in March,  a new body of work emerged.  As we were walking around Kim's neighborhood with her sweet pup, we suddenly passed a home with a portico that just begged to be in the background. I ended up positioning her under the distant porch covering and a new series of portraits was born.  "Home as Hat" consists so far of six lovely ladies and a couple underneath various entryways. The "hats" range from rounded colonial style awnings, and late 40's transoms, to pointed rooftops in the background, which when positioned just right takes on the shape of a hat. I h ave spent a long time thinking about how I would emphasis the "hat" in each photograph and came up with the idea of sewing the photographic paper directly with thread.  I felt it was important for the hat to be t...

"Andrea Minton" from Home as Hat   FASHION AS SHELTER 'The fashionable woman wears clothes. The clothes don't wear her.' - Mary Quant There is a sense of security we all feel in the sanctuary of our own home. Fashion, on the other had, is a portable cocoon - a way of creating a sense of security and protection from the elements (and others) when we are out in the world away from the comforts of home.  Looking at different ways in which we protect and project ourselves has been the focus of my attention for the past 6 months. I've been combining these two subjects in a personal project called  Home as Hat through  photography and embroidery. The contrasts between mediums and subject matter has given me a vehicle to create a link between the inside and outside worlds. I decided to start a visual dialogue between ways in which we present ourselves to the world and the security we derive physically from our homes. By creating portraits of fashionable l...

"Home as Hat: Andrea Minton" 2019 Digital inket print and yarn 40x40 in. There are four 40x40 in. digital inkjet prints in the exhibition which have been stitched with yarn. Embroidery floss would have gotten lost on this large image, so I tested different types of yarn, rope and thread to see what would work best. I ended up using both a combination of a merino wool and regular cotton to construct this piece. This simple line stitch was a perfect counterpoint to the busy houndstooth dress Andrea is wearing. It also helped to tie together the architectural element behind her into a hat she is actually wearing. I had originally thought that I would weave another hat for her as I did in the second Home as Hat: Andrea Minton Part 2  7x7 in. print but once I had laid down the first horizontal lines with the only multicolored yarn in the show, I knew it was just the right accent for this piece. It also looks like a party hat and since my 50th birthday is tomorrow, it seeme...

Kelly de Martino from Home as Hat Hood as Hat "When in doubt, wear red" - Bill Blass When I began to think about how I was going to approach stitching this Home as Hat, the overwhelming feeling of a hood emerged. I began to think in earnest about the implications of the hoodie as another form of a covering, a form of protection which was heavily laden with symbology.  The hood is a mysterious hat that allows one to partially cover not only the head but the face giving the wearer a deeper sense of anonymity and protection. Little Red Riding Hood, the ancient folktale also known as " Little Red Cap ", immediately came to mind as I selected the crimson red thread. The tale was first written down in the 1600's and was popularized by The Brothers Grimm in the 1800's.  The red hood has been in interpreted in many ways as a symbol of menstruation, the sun and the natural cycles of the seasons,as well as the ritual of going through puberty, and sexual...

"Sue Davis: Home as Hat" 2017 Headdresses worn by mystics, genies, sorcerers and wizards, that's the type of hat I think of when I see turrets. Its pointed apex echo the stereotypical witches hat and conjures well established images of spell casters dabbling in the occult. Photographed at The Magic Castle , a clubhouse for the Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood, also got me in the mood to create this Steeple Hennin hat. This cone shaped covering worn mostly by noble women in Europe during the Middle Ages, is almost always depicted with a circular veil draped behind the headdress. It is with great pleasure that I could produce this hat for this magical lady and add another Home as Hat to the series! Julie Green January 7, 2017

"Lora David" 2017 from the Home as Hat series Much like the hand made  Vietnamese leaf hat known as  Nón Lá , this conical hat I wove for this image was inspired by the Nón Bái Tho , the "Poetical Leaf" hat from Hue in Central Vietnam. On the inside of each hat poems  were woven into the very fibers of the hat. When you lift the hat up to the sun, you could read romantic poems, provers or old sayings in the shadows!!! This variation of the palm leaf and bamboo hat is a cone consisting of sixteen bamboo ribs with palm leaves stitched into place with thread made from reed. A verse of poetry was usually cut from the palm leaf and inserted in between the layers.  Modern versions also include paper shapes as well as poetry. Hats cover, protect and shelter us when we are out in the elements much like our homes. This particular version I created this week has finally started to express the visual narrative I was hoping to achieve. Next ste...

"Home as Hat: Amanda Quinn Olivar" 2019 Digital inkjet print and yarn 40 x 40 in. This final "hat" was created from one of the first photographs taken for this series. Walking around Beverly Hills, we spied this Tudorbethan style gable,  a subset of the Tudor Revival architecture of the 1930's. Once I began to stitch this piece together in yarn, it was evident to me that a drab brown color of the timbers was not going to pop against the wild shrubbery and couldn't possible compete with the dominant patterns in the incredible coat created by Zandra Rhodes which Amanda had on, so I chose the color red. Amanda, who is currently producing a feature documentary called " Seeing is Believing: Women Direct " and the play & film " Paint Made Flesh ", is also an editor for the online magazine Curator . She recently interviewed me about my work as well as my thoughts on this series. You can read the interview here . I am delighted to ...

"Lynn Peril" from Home as Hat THE HISTORY OF STITCHING AND WOMEN IN THE ARTS "I don't do fashion. I am fashion." — Coco Chanel The history of fiber art and its implications for women is a fascinating subject in and of itself. As I sat stitching this picture I couldn't help but wonder home many times this repetitive but decorative act had taken place over the years. Both my grandmother and my mother had taught me how to sew as a young child, and I remember how excited I felt to stitch two pieces of fabric together. Its alchemy was intoxicating. Yet my younger brother was never taught the magical art of sewing and I never questioned why my male counterpart was not introduced to it. Fiber art has long been viewed as representing domesticity and feminine nature. It has been a vehicle for women to express themselves in the confines of a male dominated social structure but it has also a means of commerce and power. The manufacturing of cloth c...

"Robin Jackson" 2017 from Home as Hat series Fish scale shingles were the inspiration for this Home as Hat entry. The steep roof top Ms. Jackson posed in front of prompted me to think of the Victorian gables I frequently saw in San Francisco. The American Queen Anne Revival architecture seen by the Bay always reminded me of exquisitely decorated birthday cakes. Their turrets were usually covered in fish scale shingles with an inset bay window. Coupled with contrasting paint colors, these formidable ladies always appeared to be so regal yet comical at the same time, depending on the color combination. Often described as "fancy cuts", the fish scales were also practical with their pattern of staggered and overlapping shingles which helped shed water efficiently. This ornamental siding was not an easy to replicate in embroidery floss on paper. I had to improvise its rounded edges with a scalloped pattern but feel that the finished "Hat" gives a hi...

"Kim Shattuck" from  Home as Hat FASHION VS. STYLE  “Fashion fades, style is eternal.” -  Yves Saint Laurent While working on this series of portraits I started to discover the distinction between fashion and style. The individuals I have been photographing are all very fashionable but each actually had something a bit more that was adding to the image. I realized it was their personal style that was coming through, the strength of their character which made the image more compelling. The decorative "hats" that I have been stitching into these portraits now have become a symbolic gesture to fashion, a connection between the exterior world we create, wear and live in, while the individual in each photograph has taken on a more spiritual transcendence of the fashion world in the projection of their individual style. It is the intersection between fashion and style that I find very interesting. Combining person...

Susannah Mosher for Home as Hat BONNET AS SHELTER "Style is a way to say who you are without having to speak." - Rachel Zoe There are as many styles of head coverings as there are entries to the home. The bonnet is one hat that was you don't see too often anymore but was extremely usefully during periods when people were not as protected from the elements as we are today.  The bonnet started life without a brim. Less used to shade ones face from the sun, this bonnet was widely worn during the 19th century to protect ones hair and face from dust and dirt. The head covering evolved to eventually extend the brim to protect the individual to sun as well. While doing a bit of research on bonnets, I came across a variety styles I never even knew existed.  A calash, for example, is a collapsable bonnet, while t he coal-scuttle or sugar scoop bonnet were structured from straw and were stiff, limiting the view of the person wearing it. Thes...

"Catherine Butler" 2017 from Home as Hat series I've always been intrigued by the woven conical Vietnamese Leaf Hat known as  Nón Lá . Its symmetrical cone shape is extremely efficient at keeping the elements away from the face making it a personal sun roof! Traditionally woven from palm leaves, bark or bamboo, these hats (which have been around for centuries) can also be found in other Southeast Asian countries but is attributed mainly to the farm workers in Vietnam. When stitching the home above, I was struck by the same conical shape emerging from the roof line. I selected the yellow yarn to help emphasis the shape and color of this traditional hat. I added color to the base to separate it from the hat, as if it were the silk chin strap used to hold the hat in place. There was a palm tree sticking up behind the roof line, so I thought I would embellish the image with a vine-like flourish, tying the local flora to the very material originally used to make the hat...

"Home as Hat: Andrea Minton" 2019 I originally started stitching this series of images with regular thread and came to the conclusion that I needed to use the thicker embroidery floss so that the colors would pop out from the background. Since I am working on an exhibition of this body of work, I decided to redo some of the earlier works that only used regular thread. This portrait of the lovely Andrea Minton was originally shot in 2016. As you can see in the original  Home as Hat: Andrea Minton , the regular thread I used was too small to have any impact on the "hat" I was trying to create. Looking at the structure of the roof in the photograph, I realized weaving the floss would mirror the asphalt shingles. I have not woven the thread before and feel that this treatment worked perfectly for this particular image. Julie Green April 27, 2019

Jonnie Green for Home as Hat THE HAT IN UNIFORM "Elegance is not standing out, but being remembered." — Giorgio Armani The facade of our dwelling is very revealing of who we are on the inside. It immediately shows what our tastes are, our economic status, and whether we welcome others into our lives or not. I often walk around neighborhoods looking at the variances each front yard displays and wonder how each selection of plant, fence, pot and door mat was obtained through the experiences and tastes of its owner. Large swaths of America are covered in various shades of beige tract homes. I suppose uniformity is comforting to a large majority of the population and its economic benefits of the housing development helps to keep homes affordable. This notion of uniformity in architecture led me to think of the implications of the hat in the context of uniforms people wear at work. The uniform, much like tract housing, provides a shield of protection against i...

Five years ago on February 4th I started my weekly blog Patterns and Tones because I was stuck. I needed a self imposed deadline that would drive me to create work, as a way to push myself to perpetually create. It's been an inspirating platform for me to explore ideas and create visual narratives that I want to share with others. This year I thought I would explore my passion for painting but quickly realized that it takes large swaths of time and that is one luxury I do not have much of these days. I also missed shooting and thinking about the photographic processes.  So back to the darkroom I go and hope you continue to visit and enjoy my weekly blog. Every anniversary I like to look back at the top 10 most visited posts in the Patterns and Tones departments.  I'm very happy to see that the Tone of the year went to punk rock legend and all around great guy Frank Portman in " A Rock 'n' Roll Checkup with Dr. Frank ". This blog post saw more than 1...