Happy Super Freaking Amazing Saturdays everyone! It's that time of the week again, when I take off my
snarky hat of self-
possessed and deep-rooted ridicule of all crafts hideous and put on my
technicolour bonnet of unending envy of all artists talented. And boy, do I have a talented artist for you all today to openly adore and secretly resent. Her name is Liza Lou, and she covers things in beads. Don't
underestimate what I mean, though:
homegirl seriously covers things in beads. Millions of beads.
Pallets of beads. Like,
lots and lots of beads.
For example, one of her earliest works was an
installation piece she called
Kitchen (1995), which is really quite a shrewd description of, well, a kitchen. An entirely bead-coated kitchen. And here it is:
I implore you - dare you, even - to contemplate the fact that every single inch of this kitchen is entirely covered in beads. And if your head starts to implode just trying to understand the magnitude of what this implies, don't worry: that is the correct response.
Let's take a closer look, shall we? Here is the fridge:
And here is the broom and dust bin:
In fact, Liza Lou used so many beads in the
construction of this 168 square-foot kitchen she won the Guinness World Record for the Largest Bead Art, by
incorporating at least 40 million glass beads, which, if strung together, would reach from L.A. to San Francisco.
Indeed, just completing this piece left Liza
undernourished and with acute
tendonitis in her hands. Which I could have told her beforehand, let's be honest, if she had let me know that she planned on covering an entire kitchen in 40 million glass beads
individually using only glue and a pair of tweezers.
After completing
Kitchen, Liza Lou began work on, and
subsequently finished, a piece called,
imaginatively,
Backyard (1999). And, as with
Kitchen, it doesn't make any false promises. It truly is a 525-square-foot backyard covered entirely in beads:
With a beaded lawnmower:
And beaded sandwiches with beaded bites beaded out of them:
And beaded
Budweisers laying amidst a beaded full-size suburban lawn composed of 250,000
individually beaded blades of grass.
You get the point.
While you and I might deign to call this
extraordinary level of
craftsmanship "rather thorough", "
manically obsessive" even, Lou evidently resents the implication and explains, "What's far more frightening for people is to consider the possibility that I'm completely aware of what I'm doing." And she has a point. That really is far more frightening. But, and rightly so, she added at a later date, “It’s summing up someone’s lifework as a mental oddity,” which is clearly something I would
never aim to do.
< /sarcasm >The last piece of hers that I would like to highlight is a piece called
Security Fence I, which, in a way, I actually admire more than some of her more vibrant pieces, as the sheer cathartic monotony within the production of this
installation is a bit staggering.
As with the other pieces, this item is entirely coated in millions of silver beads, glued on
individually, effectively
transforming this imposing symbol of
imprisonment and restraint into a shimmering, surreal symbol of luxurious excesses and
unrestrained indulgences.
And look! It's shiny!
Her work, described as "Pop suffused shrine," began in 1989 as a nod to Andy Warhol, but she also notes that part of her motivation is an interest in "rescuing things in some way". And naturally, by "rescuing" she means "covering in
fuckloads of beads", and by "things" she means "massive chain-link structures and/or rooms in the house".
And that's about it, everyone! If you're interested in seeing more of Liza Lou's work, such as her beaded portraits of all the presidents, or her beaded
trailer, or any of her smaller beaded sculptures, I suggest using this newfangled
internet tool called "google.com". It's wicked.
Which, naturally, helped me decide on which craft to highlight for today's tutorial, based on the known capability of the reading audience. Hence, I settled on the "Facecloth Buddy", a new home-made best friend for anyone who doesn't really have any. Friends, that is. Not facecloths. You need to have lots of facecloths.
The Short Distance Between Time And Shadow (2006)
The Core of Everything (2006)
Traces in Snow (2005)
Snowballs (2005)
Snowballs detail (2005)
Looking Back (2006)
Impenetrable Castle (2005)
Impenetrable Castle detail (2005)
Heaven and Hell(2006)
White Hand (2007)
As if I had to tell you, these were indeed made by an adult. A mentally capable adult. Who apparently owns a glue gun and a very singular sense of accomplishment.
This, my friends, appears to be a knit gimp mask. Do with it what you will. 
I LOVE the fact that somebody over at cutoutandkeep.net felt the need to 1) make a pair of not-at-all heinous earrings out of old simcards, and 2) turn it into a 5-step tutorial. Yes, that's right, a 5-step tutorial. Because clearly, I wouldn't have been able to figure out on my own how on earth this stunningly creative genius ever found a way to affix such labyrinthine and rare components together to ensure such a gorgeous result. It just looks so, so, complicated. In fact, I'm dumbfounded that she was even able to figure it out herself! Thank god she spelled the whole process out for me; otherwise I might have just thought that all I needed to do was attach an earring hook to a sim card, and not have even realized that I needed to make a hole in the simcard first, and use a pair of pliers to open the jump-ring! What an unholy catastrophic mess I just narrowly avoided, thanks to the not-at-all-unnecessarily-thorough 5-step tutorial. Thanks CutOutAndKeep.net!
WTF.
I implore you - dare you, even - to contemplate the fact that every single inch of this kitchen is entirely covered in beads. And if your head starts to implode just trying to understand the magnitude of what this implies, don't worry: that is the correct response.
And here is the broom and dust bin:
In fact, Liza Lou used so many beads in the construction of this 168 square-foot kitchen she won the Guinness World Record for the Largest Bead Art, by incorporating at least 40 million glass beads, which, if strung together, would reach from L.A. to San Francisco.
Indeed, just completing this piece left Liza undernourished and with acute tendonitis in her hands. Which I could have told her beforehand, let's be honest, if she had let me know that she planned on covering an entire kitchen in 40 million glass beads individually using only glue and a pair of tweezers.
With a beaded lawnmower:
And beaded sandwiches with beaded bites beaded out of them:
And beaded Budweisers laying amidst a beaded full-size suburban lawn composed of 250,000 individually beaded blades of grass.
You get the point.
While you and I might deign to call this extraordinary level of craftsmanship "rather thorough", "manically obsessive" even, Lou evidently resents the implication and explains, "What's far more frightening for people is to consider the possibility that I'm completely aware of what I'm doing." And she has a point. That really is far more frightening. But, and rightly so, she added at a later date, “It’s summing up someone’s lifework as a mental oddity,” which is clearly something I would never aim to do.
As with the other pieces, this item is entirely coated in millions of silver beads, glued on individually, effectively transforming this imposing symbol of imprisonment and restraint into a shimmering, surreal symbol of luxurious excesses and unrestrained indulgences. 
And look! It's shiny!
Her work, described as "Pop suffused shrine," began in 1989 as a nod to Andy Warhol, but she also notes that part of her motivation is an interest in "rescuing things in some way". And naturally, by "rescuing" she means "covering in fuckloads of beads", and by "things" she means "massive chain-link structures and/or rooms in the house".
And that's about it, everyone! If you're interested in seeing more of Liza Lou's work, such as her beaded portraits of all the presidents, or her beaded trailer, or any of her smaller beaded sculptures, I suggest using this newfangled internet tool called "google.com". It's wicked.
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