Ornament is the leading magazine celebrating wearable art. Explore jewelry, fashion, beads; contemporary, ancient and ethnographic.
Issue link: http://ornamentmagazine.epubxp.com/i/476566
31 ORNAMENT 38.1.2015 suddenly, wonderful color shifts in ochre, moss, teal, and burgundy enliven the overall atmosphere. Claudia Grau hails from Los Angeles. In the late 1970s at twenty-one she started her own company Grau Design and since that time has maintained an independent profile in L.A.'s fashion scene. Her work attracts performers like Cher, Diane Keaton and Bette Midler. Early on, her deconstructed and collaged clothing caught public attention and today she stills uses primarily recycled materials in bright eye-catching simple forms suitable for different sizes. An energetic entrepreneur, Grau has had shops on trendy L.A. streets, from Melrose to Sunset Boulevard where her own eclectic clothing is currently featured along with other artisans specializing in the handmade. First known for the application of beads to painted surfaces for additional decoration, Betsy Youngquist went on to challenge herself even further with beaded sculptures. This format has moved her into a singular niche in which to explore the intricacies of beaded embellishment. No one on the art scene is quite like her. Youngquist's works take on an in-your-face assertive presence no matter the height, width or girth of her imaginative creatures. Fanciful, enchantingly strange even, the surfaces are mosaically bejeweled with beads and found objects resulting in figures born of magical worlds, far beyond our comprehension. A resident of Illinois, she is one of many this year who are previous entrants in the Smithsonian Craft Show. Youngquist has also exhibited at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, VIDA Museum in Borgholm, Sweden, and the International Doll Show in Kiev, Ukraine. Working with his son Shawn in the studio and on the show circuit, Horace Thomas is an award-winning leather artisan from Belton, Texas. Together they make handsomely crafted bags, belts, backpacks, and briefcases. Thomas's work is not only of high quality, but also shows a sophisticated design sense that takes leather construction to a more intriguing level, such as with his more unusual pyramidal shapes. An CLAUDIA GRAU: WEARABLE ART