NSFW Big Yes! 99 Doilies by Ellen Schinderman

LA-based artist Ellen Schinderman's latest series blows me away.

For the folks who have a snapshot of my blog on their blog roles. 

She is creating a collection of 99 doilies with gorgeous, simple images of female nudes stitched upon them, sometimes with a single strand of red thread.

Marta by Ellen Schinderman.

Schinderman writes that what started out as a fun bit of stitching transformed into a study of the female form. From her project statement: “I’ve got 99 doilies, but a bitch ain’t one: A study of the female form, also, stop calling women bitches.”

Lois by Ellen Schinderman.

The Hive Gallery. Photo by Daisuke Okamoto.

Seven Big Yeses! about the Doilies

1. Schinderman has turned something traditionally associated with home, hearth and female domesticity -- vintage doilies -- on its head and made them erotic. Almost subversive.
2. As a woman artist she has reclaimed the female form, in all of its wonderful variety.
3. Each portrait is named. Although the images are headless, they represent, as art, individual women with names like Eleanor, Marta, Becky.
4. Taken together, the white, lace-trimmed textiles look like snowflakes streaked with red.
5. Anyone who knows me knows I adore series, repetition that breeds change, from one piece to the next.
6. This project's development, from a simple, playful beginning to a larger body of work, shows the creative process at work. An artist becomes inspired by the work itself. This is a powerful example of my own ideas about the creative process.
7. They are so delicate and freaking beautiful!

Eleanor by Ellen Schinderman.

Schinderman is an artist-in-residence at the Hive Gallery in LA. She has a website and blogs about her work. You can see more images of the project in her flickr gallery. And what's more, you can purchase these lovely doilies in her shop. 

She is currently curating a textile art exhibition called Stitch Fetish. Yeah. Think of the possibilities.

Big Yes! to Schinderman for creating textile art with such skill and passion. 


"Big Yes!" is a blog feature where I share, with the artist’s permission, a piece of textile art that has opened my eyes to the possibility of what we can create.  When faced with things that are truly beautiful or moving or that fill me with awe, I try to say yes. More than that, Big Yes.