Monday, September 13, 2010

This is handmade

The most often asked question about my embroidery works is, "How long did it take you to stitch that?". Penny Nickels is also a stitcher (along with her husband, Johnny Murder, aka the Manbroiderer) who has been asked this question a lot. She was also tired of people who baulked at the prices of her incredibly intricate and beautiful works, such as Haeckel's Siphonophorae (in progress, below).

Siphonophorae in progress, 140 hours so far...

So Penny created a website in which artists are invited to share five-minute videos of themselves doing their work: not talking, or giving a tutorial, but simply sitting and stitching, or sawing, painting, cutting out, etc. The theory behind the site is,
"If you can't sit through 5 minutes of mind-numbingly boring ass handwork, then you don't get to whine about how much it costs. It's just as tedious for us as it is for the viewer. It really is.
And we don't get health insurance."

Click on the link to watch some of the videos. They are mind-numbingly boring, but also educational.
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1 comment:

  1. Penny NickelsSeptember 13, 2010 at 3:10 PM

    First, thank you so much for correctly mentioning that that piece is a work in progress! It's my greatest fear that people will see unfinished photos of it and think I'm sloppy, or half-assed. :) And thank you for the wonderful write up about This Is Handmade! I'm always accepting submissions, even multiple ones, and the 5 minute limit is a guideline. I don't really care if they're 4:52 or 6:20.

    Anyway, thank you again for your nice words! I hope to see a video from you!
    -Penny

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