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.
July 27, 2015

209 Hillside Homes Painted in Swirling Colors Makes a Positive Impact in Mexico

The Palmitas district in Pachuca, Mexico was recently beautified with a vibrant mural by a youth organization known as Germen Crew. Joining forces with the Mexican government, the massive project encompassed 20 thousand square meters and painted the surfaces of over 209 houses. The ambitious street art utilizes bright, marbled colors to visually connect all of the buildings as they lead up a hillside – it's instantly eye-catching.

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July 20, 2015

Artist Discovers the Beauty of Life Emerging from Visual Chaos

Canadian artist Glen Ronald has the incredible ability of finding beauty in visual chaos. Looking beyond crackled paint and frenetic ink splatters, his popular Instagram shows him transforming unruly media into portraits of people and animals. Faces, fur, snouts, and beaks are created by drawing into these drips, and they produce the illusion that they're somehow emerging from the abstract forms.

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July 15, 2015

Playful Rope Installation Adds Multifaceted Color to Gray Concrete Space

Located in a residential complex in Dumbo, Brooklyn is Prism by artist and architect Ins Esnal. The vibrant linear installation occupies the building's lobby, where its colorful ropes provide a bold contrast to the concrete, industrial-style walls and flooring. Prism is constructed with elastic cords that stretch, twist, and intersect one another. Their multifaceted arrangements create simple geometries that are ever-changing depending on your vantage point.

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July 13, 2015

Artist Reimagines Everyday Objects as Playfully Over-Sized Sculptures

Artist Rmulo Celdrn reimagines everyday objects as larger-than-life sculptures for his playful series called Macro. Things like bottle caps, ice cube trays, and sponges are scaled hundreds of times bigger for the sculpture series. Sometimes, this makes them well over seven feet tall. The gigantic sizing acts like a magnifying glass for these objects. By blowing up the small details, we see characteristics of the item that we'd normally miss because they're so small.

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