Posts by Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met, Manager of My Modern Met Store, and co-host of the My Modern Met Top Artist Podcast. As an illustrator and writer living in Seattle, she chronicles illustration, embroidery, and beyond through her blog Brown Paper Bag and Instagram @brwnpaperbag. She wrote a book about embroidery artist Sarah K. Benning titled "Embroidered Life" that was published by Chronicle Books in 2019. Sara is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art. She earned her BFA in Illustration in 2008 and MFA in Illustration Practice in 2013.
Creative Products
May 12, 2018

Yoda Bookend Uses the Force to Keep Your Shelf Organized

Master Yoda is a beloved part of the Star Wars universe, and now, it's not only Luke Skywalker that gets to benefit from his help. Your books can have a much needed boost thanks to this charming Yoda bookend, which features a slanted metal frame and a tiny portrait of the Jedi master. When in use, it appears that Yoda is summoning the power of the Force to prop up a selection of your favorite lightweight books.

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Design
May 3, 2018

Designer Spends a Year Creating Logos That Subtly Reveal the Meaning of Words

Art director Daniel Carlmatz looks at language as more than just words on a page. For one year (November 2016 to November 2017), the Swedish creative challenged himself to visual wordplay by turning otherwise ordinary terms into playful logos. He did so by manipulating letterforms and incorporating a few clever additions to the minimalist compositions. Though subtle, the results are ingenious. Carlmatz’s minimalist designs reveal the definition of the word it is illustrating.

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Installation
April 27, 2018

Yayoi Kusama’s Latest Installation “Obliterates” an Entire Apartment in Red Flowers

Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama is a living legend thanks to her whimsical, awe-inspiring installation art. Perhaps best known for creating immersive and infinite spaces called Mirror Rooms, another facet of her career revolves around the Obliteration Room, in which viewers “obliterate” otherwise ordinary interior spaces with colorful dot stickers. One of her latest commissions tweaks the obliteration concept ever so slightly and makes it feel totally fresh.

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Portrait Photography
April 20, 2018

Photographer Transforms Everyday Subjects Into Fractured Versions of Themselves

The contact sheet has a rich place in the history of photography. Long before the days of digital, the positive print of negatives allowed you to see all of the images on a roll of film as a page of thumbnails. Photographer Thomas Lang reimagines this tradition through his series Gestalts—a German word that translates to “patterns” in English.

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My Modern Met

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