The Getty Research Institute is dedicated to furthering
knowledge and advancing understanding of the visual arts. They now have a Facebook page. Why not 'Like' them? There are all sorts of snippets there already.
Here’s two of them!
Coveted
by Venetian noblewomen and creative inspiration for Parisian lingerie-makers,
these 16th-century needlework pattern books are among the rarest of early
modern printed books to survive intact.
The new
2013-2014 Scholars Program research theme, “Connecting Seas: Cultural andArtistic Exchange,” explores how bodies of water, far from being barriers, have
served as a rich and complex interchange in the visual arts. Previous Scholar Projects are linked on
this page
This video, by The Economist, features Andrew Dent, vice-president of Material ConneXion,sharing his thoughts on the evolution of material science.
Material ConneXion's online archive and material libraries, based in seven cities world-wide, feature over 6,500 of the world’s most cutting-edge materials all of them commercially available for use.
Andrew Dent believes Material ConneXion will help bridge the gap between science and design as we move from the “synthetic century” into a “biological century”, where intelligent, nature-inspired materials consume less resources and less energy.
An international panel of experts review 50 to 60 new materials for the library every month, adding only the best. The archive is organized in eight categories (see below) comprising the largest selection of sustainable materials and the only Cradle to Cradle materials library in the world: the 8 categories: Polymers, Ceramics, Glass, Metals, Cement-based materials, Natural Materials, Carbon-based materials, Processes An online Materials Database is available at a price to Universities (not available at Cardiff Met).
NewYork, Bangkok, Beijing, Cologne, Daegu, Istanbul, Milan, Seoul, Shanghai all have physical Material Connexions libraries
Feature articles from Matter magazine (published quarterly by Material Connexions) are available to read online . Each edition of the journal follows a specific theme like the special issues on 'Wellness' and 'Technology' and all contain a wealth of information and images relating to innovative materials and their uses.
The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland is internationally renowned
for its collection of art . It offers an overview of world art from
pre-dynastic Egypt to 20th-century Europe, and counts among its many treasures
Greek sculpture and Roman sarcophagi; medieval ivories and Old Master
paintings; Art Deco jewelry and 19th-century European and American
masterpieces.
In 2011, the Walters launched a redesigned works of art website with 10,000 online artwork images freely licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Apart from their image rich website, works of art from this museum have been donated as 19,000 + freely-licensed images to WikimediaCommons. This is one of the largest and most comprehensive such releases made by any museum.
The images and their associated information join the collection
of more than 12 million freely usable media files, which make up the image repository
for Wikipedia.
The
image donation is part of the Walters Museum’s larger initiative to provide
free public access to its collection, both online and offline, beginning with
the removal of admission fees in 2006.
Cardiff Met Library has a new and exciting electronic
resource. It is called Worth Global Style Network, the resource that predicts
and tracks new trends in fashion, textiles and related areas such as youth culture,
marketing, branding and packaging. Rich in images both still and moving, you can view
worldwide catwalk shows, see what’s in the high street shops right now or read
what fabrics are likely to be appearing in two year’s time. Special features,
news items and trend forecasting for colour, fashion and materials make this
resource valuable for fashion, and textiles students but also definitely of
potential interest for media studies students, illustrators, graphic designers, product
designers, interior designers and anyone interested in fashion and textiles and
their world of image and fantasy, theatricality and display, invention and
style. Available only to Cardiff Met staff and students it is part of the
Electronic Library. Here is a link to it. Help and advice on this and all our other databases and resources available at Llandaff Library
from Catherine Drake and at Howard Gardens Library from Jenny Godfrey.
Check out another fashion database we have for a month's trial until the end of May. It is called The Vogue Archive and comprises all the pages of all the American Vogue US edition from 1892-present as a fully searchable database. Let Catherine or myself know what you think of it. Here is the link. Again this will only work for logged in staff and students of Cardiff Met.
The sandcasting video, is from Process Arts, managed by Chris Follows at University of the Arts London (UAL) c.follows@arts.ac.uk
Process Artsfocuses on "making" in art and design . This site shows insights into the acts of making and encourages users to share knowledge and experience online. You can go there to explore traditional and contemporary creative technical processes , and see work and the processes involved in its making online through video, text, image and sound .
Interesting courses including bibliographies, online texts and images etc are available from the MIT site where the Anthropology course linked above was taken from. Courses include many other subject areas of interest such as media studies, history, literature, music and theatre arts, women's and gender studies. MIT is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose mission is "to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century".
In order to reach out to the design community, ASM, a US-based Materials Information Society, has set up /MTRL. Chris Lefteri Design was commissioned to provide a range of materials from the ASM collection, complete with extensive information and images, as a free on-line material database . So far, the database consists of 250 materials presented in a way that specifically targets designers and their needs.
I've seen many image databases in my time and this one is a real find and especially useful as all our courses at Cardiff become increasingly concerned with the physical experiences of Materials and Making.
Mtrl is great fun and at the same time hugely informative. It is crammed with well organised images and facts about materials and their properties. Here you can choose to search for images and information about materials by their 'form' (eg firm, powder, resin) 'personality' (eg dynamic , extreme, honest ), different types of ceramic, glass, plastic etc etc etc. It includes a section listing an unbelievable amount of 'additives and ingredients' (Floam anyone?).
Lightben transparent honeycomb core panel
It is a lot more entrancing and unusual than you might expect of a materials database and is at the same time of immense practical use. The database offers links from each type of material in the database to suppliers and also gives its eco standing (biodegradable/recyclable/renewable?)), its key features, all physical features, its price range, major applications for use and engineering properties. A veritable alchemists shopping list..........
The Kyoto Costume Institute has created a database of the items in its Collection called the KCI Digital Archives and this link presents a taste of the content with image and text for approx. 200 objects from their collection, arranged in chronological order. The design of the timeline of costume from the 18th century to the present and the quality of the images are both superb. I've seen a lot of websites and a lot of image databases-this one is small but perfectly formed.
And if you can get to Kyoto and the Costume Institute there you would be able to view the complete digital archives in the KCI Study Room under a fee-paying, reservation-only basis. Providing support for the work of designers and researchers, text and visuals are available for all 12,000 items (costume, underwear, accessories, etc.) in the collection.
The website also provides access to interesting full text journal articles written by curators at the Kyoto Costume Institute
Anish Kapoor’s Leviathan, a commission for the Monumenta series at the Paris Grand Palais
Here's a great newletter to keep you up with a wide range of items on what's new and good in the media and the arts . Here you will find theatre and film reviews, features on matters of interest such as 'Is Classical music relevant?'or a list of this year's Festivals , and CD, DVD and book reviews and interviews with people from the arts and a comprehensive listing of whats on in cinemas, theatres, galleries and concert halls. Sign up and get a weekly round up of all this in your inbox. As well as seeing the very latest in the arts you can also view the archives of the newsletter. To subscribe look for the box on the right hand side of this page halfway down
French-born, London-based artist Francoise Dupre makes work that celebrates women's creativity, re-contextualising knitting and stitching activities traditionally associated with domestic space. A new exhibition at the Womens Library in London brings together a series of her installations that use many craft forms to create ephemeral, playful, extraordinary sculptural patterns and objects.
Two free resources offering insight into future trends in textiles
Cosmoworlds COSMOWORLDS provides access to information for the international trade community. Contains trade data, international fashion week and trade show dates as well as information on global trends and lifestyle events
