Celebrating India and Shooting Stars

I'm still wrestling with my deadline this week, but my open windows of sites I want to link to are piling up, so here are a few, and forgive me if this post is a little rambling.

• In honor of Slumdog Millionaire's unlikely ascent to the top of the entertainment heap, and the absolute, sincere joy and curiousity on the Indian kids' faces last night at the Oscars, here's Indian By Design, a very beautiful blog full of contemporary art, textiles, architecture and ideas from the  subcontinent.
• A few more for India. I've mentioned this one before - I'm a big fan: Anaka's BrassTacks Madras blog. Anaka has a small but growing clothing company based in India, and her thoughtful blog chronicles her experiences as a sustainablity-minded entrepreneur with a love of beautiful textiles and intelligent fashion.
• Amazing photographs of India here -- the colors are just astonishing. 

Hmmm, I guess I should go see the movie. Next week.

I also want to link to Judy Martin's wonderful post called New Art History. Judy considers the idea that "19th century quiltmakers were artists and knew themselves to be," instead of the modern notion that these women were just scavenging scraps of fabric and making do,  and that any art on their part was almost accidental. Traditional quilting has such a bad name in some textile art circles -- so much so that at least one very popular art quilter/blogger refuses to call her quilts quilts, and my comment on her blog, saying that it was really a shame that this was the state of things, was deleted for not supporting her marketing goals. Seriously. (And as an aside, please always feel free to be honest in your comments here -- I promise you that you won't interfere with my marketing goals.) Maybe, to Judy's point, if we saw old quilts less as mending and more as true creative efforts, we could take some of that quilt stigma away. 

Finally, Harmony (who'll be speaking at the Surface Design Association conference in May) sent a link to the work of fiber artist Carolyn Kallenborn. A professor at the University of Wisconsin, Kallenborn makes very powerful garments and sculptures that are drawn from, she says, moments of transformation. An exhibition of her work opens this week at the Quincy Art Center in Quincy, Illinois. This garment is made from 40 pounds of river rock and taffeta:

It made me think of the idea of 2009 as the mineral year -- the year of what remains when everything has been burned or washed away. I thought of that, too, reading Dijanne's accounts of the Australian fires. 

And tonight's the night to see the green two-headed comet Lulin! I have no idea what that's all about, but here's a song for it:

I saw a shooting star tonight

And I thought of you

You're trying to break into another world

A world I never knew

I always kind of wondered if you ever made it through

I saw a shooting star tonight

And I thought of you. 

I saw a shooting star tonight

And I thought of me

If I was still the same

If I ever became what you wanted me to be

Did I miss the mark, overstep the line

That only you could see . . . .

I saw a shooting star tonight

Slip away.

                   Bob Dylan, Shooting Star

Comments

[Heather]

You really must see Slumdog. It is amazing. Of course, I like anything Indian right now. Fingers crossed I can go in May.

[marja-leena]

Lainie, thanks for all the links. I'm taking my time exploring them all. And yes, we must see Slumdog!

[Mary-Frances Main]

I just adore the dress! Wow - it looks so "wearable" but can you imagine that much riverrock? I'm just shocked it looks so fluid.

[Indian artisans]

very nice Indian artisans design get more information visit on http://www.thesoulofindia.com