What does Intel’s Pentium computer chip have in common with Navajo textiles? More than you might think. For artist Marilou Schultz, the ancestral practice of weaving melds with an unexpected contemporary source of inspiration. Merging analog loom methods with the patterns found on computer processor cores, Schultz entwines the histories […]
Month: November 2024
A Samurai-Inspired Backpack Elevates Leather Scraps to a Bag Befitting a Warrior
In Japan, randoseru are small, high-quality backpacks, typically made of leather, designed to withstand years of use by school children. Manufacturer Murase Kabanko, for one, departed from its typical offerings with a highly detailed nod to a different tradition altogether: samurai. Also known as bushi, samurai were an elite military […]
Pigeons Get Pretty in This Historic, Illustrated Profile of Fancy Breeds
Dubbed “rats of the skies,” urban pigeons are often viewed as a nuisance today, but these wily birds are in fact feral descendants of esteemed domesticated ancestors. Documented in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian cuneiform, pigeons have been historically valued as food, holy symbols, pets, and—thanks to a remarkable homing […]
Arcimboldo-esque Portraits Emerge from Tools of the Trade in Early 19th-Century Aquatints
In the 16th century, Italian Renaissance painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo spurred an idiosyncratic trend in portraiture, elaborating on the symbolism of fruits, animals, and objects by arranging them compositionally into human faces. Arcimboldo’s work inspired some European illustrators to portray tradespeople as physical embodiments of their work, such as Nicolas de […]