For his graduation project from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, Siggi Eggertsson designed a quiltbased upon his childhood memories (obviously a Michael Jordan fan).
It’s 2 x 2.5 metres and made from 10,000 pieces. The quilter, Johanna
Viborg took 250 hours over six weeks to complete it.
Ray
Materson began making his intricate needlework pictures, which measure
about 3 by 2 inches each, from unraveled socks. He was in prison at the
time, serving a 25-year sentence for kidnapping and robbery after
becoming an alcoholic and drug addict. His unlikely life story of
redemption through art is aptly, if punningly, told in Sins and Needles: A Story of Spiritual Mending, written by Materson and his wife Melanie. www.raymaterson.com
This year has been creatively fruitful and recently I have realized
that 'happiness' is found through work. Not because of the final
outcome but because of the process which in turn gives me a sense of
purpose. I have been working on a film project that has slowly been
evolving. The following imagery are just bits and pieces of stories and
inspirational artifacts Ive been researching of people who live such lives, specifically in the baron desert landscapes of the western united states.
Pester had a cabin in Palm Canyon and another next to a hot
spring in Chino Canyon, where he lived during the summer months. He
was the first "nature boy," putting on clothes, often a
monk's robe, when curious canyon visitors came into view. He earned a
living making canes from palm blossom stalks, fashioning Indian
arrowheads, and selling postcards with a message urging proper diet
and healthful living. Though he spent many hours roaming the canyons,
he had an equal passion for reading. Years later a large library was
discovered in his deserted cabin. In the 1920s, Pester moved from Palm
Canyon but returned every weekend with his telescope, charging ten
cents to look at the moon or at Lincoln's profile on the distant
canyon wall.
Bill Pester at this palm log cabin in Palm Canyon, California, 1917. With his "lebensreform" philosophy, nudism and raw foods diet, he was one of the many German immigrants, who "invented" the hippie lifestyle more than half a century before the 1960s. He left Germany to avoid military service in 1906 at age 19, for a new life in America. (Photo Courtesy of Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California)
"Rudolph Valentino, while working on a French Foreign Legion movie in the desert about 1920, is entertained by Peter Pester, the hermit of Palm Springs."