Posts by Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes

Sara Barnes is a Staff Editor at My Modern Met and Manager of My Modern Met Store. She is a graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art where she earned her BFA in Illustration and MFA in Illustration Practice. Sara is also an embroidery illustrator and writer living in Seattle, Washington. She runs Bear&Bean, a studio where she stitches pet portraits and other beloved creatures. She chronicles the creativity of others through her website Brown Paper Bag and newsletter, Orts. Her latest book is Threads of Treasure: How to Make, Mend, and Find Meaning Through Thread, published in 2014. Sara’s work has been recognized in Be Creative With Workbox, Embroidery Magazine, American Illustration, on Iron and Wine’s album Beast Epic, among others. When she’s not stitching or writing, Sara enjoys planning things that bring together the craft community. She is the co-founder of Camp Craftaway, a day camp for crafty adults with hands-on workshops in the Seattle area.
Creative Products
December 27, 2019

This Crafter Will Crochet a Custom Bird Sculpture of Your Beloved Feathered Friend

Crochet is about more than creating blankets and clothing. Did you know that there is a technique called amigurumi that invites you to make adorable figures from yarn and a hook? Crafter Tanya Zhylyayeva uses this approach to construct her own flock of parrots, lovebirds, cockatiels, and more. In her popular Etsy shop, you can purchase one of her ready-made birds as well as downloadable patterns to try on your own.

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Art
December 24, 2019

Interview: How a Pigment Forager Is Creating an Exhaustive Archive of Ochres Around the World

Heidi Gustafson is an artist and pigment forager who is archiving ochre from around the world. Through her artistic research studio Early Futures, she focuses on finding and documenting these iron-based earth and pigments. This requires her to take to the land. Located in rural northern Washington state, Gustafson scours shorelines and scrapes rocks in order to gather shards.

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Embroidery
December 20, 2019

Embroidery Artist Meticulously Recreates Art History’s Most Iconic Works as Tiny Brooches

Embroidery artist Ira Pashkevych translates some of the most famous works of art history into tiny textiles you can hold in your hand. Meticulously constructed, each short stitch acts as a brushstroke that captures a faithful likeness of paintings by artists like Vincent van Gogh and Monet. Pashkevych recreates their tactile strokes on a much smaller scale, and it's a testament to her incredible abilities to reproduce the works in this way.

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Inspiring
December 12, 2019

Artist Fed Up With Reading Bad News Illustrates the Good News From 2019

It’s no secret that the news can be depressing. With seemingly endless headlines about corruption, violence, environmental disasters and more, illustrator Mauro Gatti has created a salve for these dark times. His ongoing project The Happy Broadcast shines a light on the good happening in the world. The popular Instagram account features colorful illustrations that share a positive headline and a corresponding news story in the caption.

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My Modern Met

Celebrating creativity and promoting a positive culture by spotlighting the best sides of humanity—from the lighthearted and fun to the thought-provoking and enlightening.