Okay, story time. I was in the bargain basement of an Urban Outfitters this last weekend and I came across this book I had heard about called By Hand: The Use of Craft in Contemporary Art. I was excited to flip through it because, as you’re all well aware, I am a craft nerd. There were some very strong pieces, and I wish I had more time to really investigate. But there were a couple of people doing embroidery on muslin and I was disappointed. They did it well, don’t get me wrong. But looking at their pieces transported me back to an art show I had seen long ago (insert wavy flashback lines here).

In 2003, I took a trip to Ireland and one of my favorite parts of the whole week I spent there was a stop into the Crafts Council, an art gallery dedicated entirely to crafts as an art form. The exhibition at the time was for the Jerwood Applied Arts shortlist and it featured all textile artists. The entire show was incredible (in fact, I think it helped take my appreciation of craft to the next level, from common hobby to means of expression and mode of design) and the crowning jewel was the artist Shizuko Kimura and her series of nudes and portraits embroidered by hand into muslin. They are amazing and powerful. One piece in particular (pictured in poor quality below), depicts the view of someone on an operating table in a way that is so disturbing, it is beautiful. All of her portraits are done in front of the models and the time constraint, “creates a tension between the need to handle the needle and thread and respond dynamically to the subject.”

Like the foreign romance it was, once I returned home I couldn’t get her work out of my mind. I have searched high and low for information about Shizuko Kimura, and the tidbits available are few and far between. But it saddened me, looking at that book in UO, that with this new wave craft movement, and a renewed appreciation in the art of craft, that someone so talented may be overlooked. Hence, this ridiculously long blog. So, enjoy the images I have found below. Start your own romance. And maybe we can collectively help bring her name to the forefront of this movement.