I'm in the midst of planning my wedding and with great crafting spirit have taken on a handful of projects that involve sewing, serging and stitching, en masse. In creating sewn objects, my greatest goals are the basic ones of a beginning crafter: making sure my lines are straight, loose threads aren't showing (at least on the outside), and that the fabric lays against a flat surface without too much unevenness.

Pair (35mm slide), 2010 by Lauren DiCioccio

In Stitches, a show currently on view at the Armory Center for the Arts' Caldwell Gallery in Pasadena, CA, twelve artists take the age-old techniques of sewing, knitting and weaving to an elevated level. This is not craft for the everyday home, it's a much more complex intertwining of materials—involving but not limited to blankets, wire, buttons, canvas, wood, string, twine and towels. With their works, they aim to "illustrate the sophistication and complexity of work that has evolved out of the twenty-first century global curiosity with domestic practice..."

The threaded forms are both two-and-three-dimensional, some large-scale and site-specific installations. Others, like the work of Lauren DiCioccio, operate on a tiny scale. In Pair (35mm slide), DiCioccio recreates a 35mm Kodak slide featuring a tiny stitched "transparency" of a couple standing in front of flowers, with loose threads hanging out the back side as though a tangle of electrical wires. At 2"x2", the slide is true to the scale of the real-life object it mimics, the tiny details embroidered into silk organza pin prick by tiny pin prick.

To see all of Stitches, hurry out to Pasadena, 'cause it's only up for another ten days or so, till June 6th.

Stitches
Armory Center for the Arts
Caldwell Gallery
145 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena, CA
On view through June 6, 2010
Opening: Saturday, April 10th, 7-9pm
Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, Noon-5pm
Curator: Sinead Finnerty-Pyne
Featuring work by: Jane Brucker, Lauren DiCioccio, Elisabeth Higgins O’Connor, Ruby Osorio, Titus Kaphar, Nuttaphol Ma, Ulrike Palmbach, Maria E. Pineres, Dinh Q. Le, Jim Richards, Elias Sime, and Nicola Vruwink.