#simon peers

[art-in-context]

Nicholas Godby and Simon Peers, Spider Silk Cape, 2009 11'x14'

photo via

Serving as the largest existing textile made from spider silk, fashion designer Nicholas Godby and art historian and textile expert Simon Peers decided to make this 11x14 foot cape after living for years in Madagascar. Eighty-two people worked for four years collecting the silk of 1.2 million golden orb spiders to create the piece. The fabric is undyed, displaying the natural color of golden orb spider silk.

Spider silk's incredible elasticity and strength (greater than that of steel of equal diameter) has lead many to unsuccessfully attempt to replicate the fiber. In 2000 a Canadian biotech company injected DNA from a spider into a goat. That goat's kid had a significant amount of genetic material in its milk to slightly mimic the properties of spider silk.

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[numptybumpkin]

Something Inspirational

Cross-Posted because I can:

"Now it appears to me that almost any man, like the spider

spins from his own airy citadel

The points of leaves and twigs on which the spider begins her work are few 

and she fills the air with a beautiful circuiting:

man should be content with as few points to tip with the fine web of his soul and weave a tapestry Empyrean--

full of symbols for his spiritual eye, of softness for his spritual touch, of space for his wandering."  ~Simon Peers~

...from a poem that inspired a work of clothing art, currently on loan to the Victoria & Albert Museum through June 5th 2012.

 I was listening to a song by wirrow, and I started sniffling, in a good way. 

 I needed a day full of beautiful things :D

[bradleybowers]

 . . . fantastic material inspiration

[edit-view-go]

A Golden Spider-Silk Textile at the Art Institute of Chicago