folk art – Co-Geeking

Tiny Baskets out of Local Materials

March 12, 2025October 27, 2024Eppu1 Comment

Artist Suzie Grieve harvests materials from the local woodlands and fields in the Lake District, U.K., with a focus on the weeds and invasive species, and weaves baskets out of the fibers. And they are very neat and beautiful:

The twist? Some of her baskets are not just neat and beautiful, and they’re not just small, they’re tiny. T I N Y!

Instagram Suzie Grieve Tiny leafy basket

Even if these baskets were of a more typical size, they would be impressive: the careful selection of materials to create stripes from naturally different colors, the planning and placement of patterns to create a pleasing whole, and the high quality of the work.

Then you shrink everything down to mere millimeters and centimeters, and the challenge grows larger. MUCH larger! I’ve done enough small-scale sewing to comprehend some of the challenges involved when scaling down the size of a project.

This is seriously impressive work requiring skill, imagination, and dedication. Kudos!

Found via Colossal.

Images by Suzie Grieve on Instagram: Miniatures. Tiny leafy basket. Two baskets.

In Making Stuff we share fun arts and crafts done by us and our fellow geeks and nerds.

Visual Inspiration: Traditional Textile Patterns and Colors on Outdoor Stairs

November 17, 2021October 24, 2021Eppu

In Lima, Peru, artist Xomatoc and local residents painted a number of stairs with colors and combinations more typically associated with traditional South American blankets and other textiles.

Colossal Jeremy Flores Xomatoc Striped Staircase

This project was a part of the Pinta Lima Bicentenario. Xomatoc’s project was only one of public art installations painted around the municipality to celebrate each participating neighborhood’s history and cultural memory.

Municipalidad de Lima Bicentenario Painting

Colossal Jeremy Flores Xomatoc Diamond-Pattern Staircase

The length of the stairs, the vibrant colors, and the large enough scale of these patterns make them really eyecatching. And, good grief, the degree of the slopes! (I grew up essentially on a flood plain, which is why mountains look so drastic to me.) The stairs definitely will be visible a long way.

Found via Colossal.

Images: Striped and diamond-patterned stairs by Jeremy Flores via Colossal. Painting in progress via Municipalidad de Lima.

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

Folk Art Blooms in Zalipie in Southern Poland

April 15, 2020October 15, 2022Eppu

In the village of Zalipie in southern Poland, some blossoms never stop blooming: they’re painted. Not just on the walls inside or outside, but on ceilings, beams, stoves, sheds, dog houses, wells, buckets, paved ground, and bridges.

No one apparently knows exactly how the flower-painting tradition came to be. Common features of the origin stories involve covering up stains, or simply perking up the homes, or uplifting people’s mood following World War II.

Regardless of the custom’s origins, it’s a fascinating feature of village life. These kinds of details would make spec fic stories even more alive, wouldn’t you say?

Found via Good Stuff Happened Today on Tumblr. More photos e.g. via My Modern Met or your favorite search engine.

Images via Flickr: Cabin by magro_kr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Museum interior by mksfca (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Sweep well by magro_kr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0). Shed by Mariusz Cieszewski via Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (CC BY-ND 2.0). End of house by magro_kr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.