Sewnnews, Embroidered New York Times Photos by Lauren DiCioccio

Sewnnews embroidered New York Times by Lauren DiCioccio

For her “Sewnnews” series, San Francisco Bay Area artist Lauren DiCioccio hand embroiders photos she finds in The New York Times, presenting the embroidery on a muslin wrapped edition of the source newspaper. The original image and surrounding newspaper text are faintly visible through the muslin, adding a ghostly effect to the embroidery. DiCioccio created the series in 2006 and 2007.

As news-gathering departs from paper form and is conveyed instead through the television and internet, the newspaper becomes a nostaligic and old-fashioned object. I describe the beauty of the ritual experience of newspaper-reading by describing the paper as a tactile and fragile object in the language of craft. The pieces in this series are entire issues of The New York Times encased in hand-embroidered cotton muslin. I select a photograph from the paper; usually a strong image suggestive of power, leadership or communication; and embroider the image onto the fabric, applying colors in a painterly way and layering line and thread. Portions of the image remain as outline and threads tangle and unravel from the fabric.

Sewnnews embroidered New York Times by Lauren DiCioccio

Sewnnews embroidered New York Times by Lauren DiCioccio

Sewnnews embroidered New York Times by Lauren DiCioccio

Sewnnews embroidered New York Times by Lauren DiCioccio

Sewnnews embroidered New York Times by Lauren DiCioccio

via Pulmonaire & My Modern Metropolis

E.D.W. Lynch
E.D.W. Lynch

Writer and humor generalist on the Internet and on Facebook.