Tattered lace on a black dress

Thumbnails.  How many times has it happened?
Those itty bitty pictures that just beg to be clicked.  I saw one today and had to follow it.
I was certain it was an antique textile and I had to have a closer look . . .

this, of course, was the tattered lace edge on an old black dress.

Ahem.

I've come to accept the fact that I just don't see things as they really are.  It happens so often
I really can't ignore it.  I see what I want to see.
I think it's a habit, this  misinterpreting  reading into things.  Dunno why I embellish with
some sort of alternate reality, but this I do . . .

constantly.

There's an upside to this penchant . . . I head into new territory without even meaning to.
By following that "tattered lace" thumbnail, I discovered a photographer doing some wondrous things
with completely ordinary objects.
Oh, how I admire this!
Don Taylor is on Flickr and has an amazing eye for capturing metallics - yes, metal -
to the extent of being poetic in his renderings.
Even sublime.

This is metal . . . and all I saw was fabric.  My alternate reality.

In fact, I see textiles or work with cloth, in all of these photos.
Call me crazy, but this is how they look to me . . .

 . . . marks from natural dyeing

. . . beautiful seam work

. . .  boro mending

and shibori . . .

rust dyeing over indigo . . .

and embroidery stitching on a nine patch.

This is a thread knot resist . . .

and these . . . layered silks, probably invisibly basted  ;>}

a beaded line over a linen collage . . .

old scraps, torn and frayed, yet anchored with cabochons . . .

and a fragile weaving within a bigger (much bigger) story.


Each one gritty . . . raw. . .
highly textural.
Not exactly the words I might use to describe textile art . . .

ooh, that's right . . . it isn't.


: : :


p.s.  up for one more?  look what Taylor can do with a Victorian hightop shoe...