ghost closet

My side blog / closet

[heartsl0b]

tiny gas station paintings

[gouged-doll]

pages of hilma af klint's sketchbook

[saeta-obscura]

Details of the Crowning with Thorns door at the Passion Façade of the Sagrada Família

[cafeinevitable-deactivated20220]

Over The Waves by Setsuko Matsushima

art quilt

[shitposting-extraordinaire]

QUILT??!?!?!?!?!??

[creative-type]

Back when I was still in high school while visiting my grandparents out of state, my mom took me to a quilt show where there was this one appliqué wall hanging piece that haunts me to this day. It was of a girl who’d gotten her kite stuck in a tree, and had the vibes of an Edward Gorey piece, all black and white  except for the kite, which was red.  And the damn thing was reversible. If a piece of material was black with white spots on one side, the other would be white with black stripes. The dude who made the piece said he had to go to material shops across 4 different states to make the concept work. Understandably, he wasn’t interested in selling at that time, so I snapped a few crappy pictures on my pre-smart phone cellphone.

Except my phone unexpectedly broke shortly thereafter, and I lost those pictures forever. It’s been like 15 years, and I still think of that little wall hanging quilt and feel a little sad that I’ll never see it again.

Anyway, quilts are art and too many people sleep on that artistry without really understanding the work that goes into making them 

[periodinteriors]

Martin Drolling (French, 1752-1817), La fille de l'artiste copiant un dessin (The Artist's Daughter copying a Drawing), oil, undated.

[fatartappreciation]

Evening by Russian digital artist Andrey Surnov

[vanessagillings]

Calico cat in a calico coat!

[weepingwidar]

Anthony Hurd (American, 1975) - You Have This Hold Over Me (2025)

[maulscrafts]

^ embroidered a net onto the front pocket of these overalls

^ shrimp in there

[mobilis-in-mobili]

@teaboot we have been woefully ignorant of the possibilities

[divineofficial]

RIP David Hockney.

Divine (1979)

[worldsandemanations]

Photo by Rotimi Fani-Kayode

[sixohsixoheightfourtwo]

The Art of the Deal

By wearing this watch you confirm that you are not Anish Kapoor

The Fence has published an exposé on Stuart Semple (of Anish Kapoor 'feud' notoriety) which they have been working on for six months.

investigation reveals Semple / his studio / his partner Emily Mann (who's described as acting as his 'enforcer' in his business) :

mishandled £400k grant of public money intended for a public gallery, allowing the money to flow freely between the public project, his own personal studio and personal projects such as Culture Hustle (his online business selling paint etc)

underpaid or failed to pay many of his assistants to the tune of several thousand pounds each.

former assistants have taken him to court and he simply hasn't bothered to show up and he's threatened to sue former assistants who asked for their back pay

repeatedly funds ambitious projects that never see release eg Abode, an 'Adobe-rivalling' suite of creative software (he claims he still intends to release this)

encouraged a cult-like atmosphere at his studio in Bournemouth

was frequently in debt and having to negotiate with bailiffs etc for his debts while at the same time crowdfunding various projects

ran fake social media accounts boosting Semple and his work

The portrait that emerges is one of decades-long scam artistry tbh and someone who's juvenile, manipulative, narcissistic.

The Fence btw is a decent fairly small-circulation quarterly magazine from the UK which specialises in satire, investigative journalism, culture, and fiction. You can read the piece in its entirety if you register (which is free).

a few links:

The Fence's newsletter from April discusses this article & how Semple has tried to muddy the SEO waters

Semple threatened to sue The Fence for publishing this story - many of you are American so here's the relevant UK law on defamation.

& the subreddit r/culturehustle is worth a look to get an idea of just how badly run his paint business is

[nessochist]

Kandy G. Lopez R ² - Roscoe and Reggie 2024 Yarn and acrylic paint on hook mesh

Orlando Museum of Art’s 2025 Florida Prize in Contemporary Art

[fillianore-moved]

so metropolitan museum of art has a register of books they’ve published that are out of print and that you can download for free! they’re mostly books on art, archeology, architecture, fashion and history and i just think that’s super useful and interesting so i wanted to share! you can find all of the books available here!

[mybeingthere]

Sheila Hicks (born 1934 in Nebraska, lives in Paris) is an American artist and a pioneering figure in fibre art. Working across six decades, she expanded the scale and ambition of textile art from small hand woven works to monumental hangings.

"Hicks has lived in Paris since 1964, always on the Left Bank. Leaving the studio we stroll around the neighbourhood while she points out former homes and studios, reflecting on how the steets have changed – or not changed. Compared to most major cities, Paris is a museum. It’s as if Baron Haussmann’s sweeping makeover in the late 19th century exhausted the Parisians’ appetite for urban renovation.

For Hicks, who was born in Hastings, Nebraska, and spent her childhood roaming around the mid-west, Paris is her ideal city. it’s long been the only place she ever wanted to live, although in 1959 she had thought to settle in Mexico, where she married a beekeeper and worked on a farm. It was an impulsive union, and after five years the rural idyll had lost its appeal. She took her infant daughter – “kidnapped” is her word – fled to Paris and has never left. A second marriage followed, to Enrique Zanartu, a Chilean painter born in France. Her son, Cristobal, who does much of her photography was born in 1965."

"The stories of Hicks’s early life have been told many times: how she became one of the few women admitted to the Yale School of Art in 1954, on the authority of Josef Albers, the renowned colour theorist of the Bauhaus, who had migrated to America.

“I met Albers when I was a student at Syracuse University and had to change schools,” she recalls. “A fellow student said she was going to apply for Yale, for both of us, and asked me to give her something she could carry. She went and interviewed, and Albers accepted us. When he saw my painting, he said: “Take her on and give her advanced standing.” He was very sure of himself. When he made pronouncements, everyone knew that was the way it was going to be. Later on he would send me to Chile in the same commanding fashion.”

[sesamie]

“Spontaneous Combustion” (54″ x 77″) by Amy Meissner Wool, cotton, vintage domestic linens. Machine pieced, hand embroidered & appliquéd, hand quilted, 2013.

[smsomah]

Braided camel toy made in Zagora, Morocco, by a boy of about ten years old; before 1970