by Anastasia on July 27, 2009
By Anastasia Smith
WHEN TSP RECEIVED AN EMAIL from Shelley Kommers with the subject line “Sister Artwork,” we were startled: Had Shelley, known in the Etsy world as Oiseaux (meaning bird in French), seen us lurking in her shops and sites somehow? Magic! Shelley had attached two mixed-media pieces about sisters, Strawberry Park (above) and Sí, Alguna Vez Fue Un Ave (“Yes, She Once Was a Bird” in Spanish), the former, she explained, created as a representation of herself with her own sister, Carrie (and look whose little arm is around whose bigger waist). No wonder Shelley defines “sister” as “someone you’re stuck with in the best way.” Those original images were just a glimpse into a portfolio, and a world, rich with sisterhood imagery, one we are excited to share here. [click to continue…]
by margaret on July 18, 2009
Black lemurs
I KNEW RIGHT AWAY I’D FEEL A KINSHIP with Jennifer Rae Atkins when I found her blog, The Daily Mammal, and saw in the faces of the animals she draws that she feels a kinship with all of nature, a siblinghood that crosses species boundaries. In that “takes one to know one” way (to use an expression that biological sisters or “best” friends might have spit at each other growing up), Jennifer seemed familiar, because each of her animals was depicted with its soul shining through (not just its nose and eyes and fur). I knew she took time to learn about them—not just copying old drawings but channeling the animals, through her own hand, and heart. And so (in this wonderful era) I just said a digital hello. Come get to know this very special sister better. [click to continue…]
by Anastasia on May 5, 2009
By Paige Smith Orloff
"The Chorus and Creating"
ONE OF THE GREATEST JOYS in discovering a new artist is stepping out of your world and into another. We loved crossing that threshold into the land of Portland, Oregon-based artist Julianna Bright. In her folkloric, fairy-tale realm, images of sisterhood and kinship abound—though the ethereal women she paints are as likely to be paired up with a giant bird or a princely frog as with another human. “The pictures I make have became for me a way to circle back to that wonder I felt as a child,” says Julianna, “that time before I was even able to read when I could fashion a whole universe in my mind around an illustration.” [click to continue…]
by Anastasia on April 28, 2009
By Anastasia Smith
'The Queen and I'
LINDSEY CARR, THE IMAGINATION AND HEART behind the fanciful Etsy Shop, Little Robot, readily admits that her sibling-hood of six has come with responsibilities and heartache. “I think really that the misfortunes are the things which bind you,” she says, but then also offers this punchline, about the delight of her sister-and-brother relationships: “A story is nothing without someone to share it with.” [click to continue…]
by paige on February 5, 2009
Poppy (left) and Daisy de Villeneuve were raised in England.
THE TSP SISTERS PRACTICALLY DID cartwheels after connecting the dots between the work of Daisy and Poppy de Villeneuve. Despite an ocean between them, the sisters share buzz in both art and commerce, high ambitions, and double “it-girl” status (they always were snappy dressers, as their 1983 portrait reveals). And when they are reunited and just driving around these days (traveling together as they love to), they also share a fondness for singing their very own mashups, of George Michael and Alanis Morissette, perhaps. Don’t all sisters? [click to continue…]
by margaretroach on January 14, 2009
'Sometimes it is enough to want to listen. I will give you that much credit.'
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SHE RUNS SILENT BUT DEEP, exploring in texts both written and visual a personal mythology that drew The Sister Project’s sisters in and hasn’t let us go. The idea that deeply contemplative Bonnie McLaughlin, just 25, exerts that kind of magnetic effect would not surprise her younger brother, Seth, who early on named his sister G.G.D., or Genius Girl of Destiny, which sounds to us like a female superhero if there ever was one. [click to continue…]
by paige on January 7, 2009
'See You Next Wednesday,' by Camilla Engman
YOU CAN FEEL the craving in Camilla Engman’s work, but also the sense that something is just about to come true. And perhaps that is also the sister story of Engman: A sister to two brothers but not to another girl child, Camilla finds her sisters along the path–in the connection with her audience, in the sisterhood of other artists, and in close sister-friends. “I think we are always looking for our sisters,” says the prolific Swedish artist and illustrator. “Someone who loves you even when you are ugly inside/outside. And someone who wants to follow you on your adventures.” [click to continue…]
by paige on November 22, 2008
'Charlotte and Her Imaginary Friend'
AMANDA BLAKE is a Portland, Oregon-based painter whose otherworldly visions of children and adults are at once full of wonder and inherently grounded. You feel like you might be able to walk into the worlds she paints, you might know the people—but what would you find when you arrived? Her work mixes mysterious and normal in a way that felt very special to the sisters of TSP. [click to continue…]
by paige on November 21, 2008
'Growing Woman'
C UBAN-BORN ARTIST Elsa Mora creates intricate, often profound, sometimes whimsical papercuts, paintings, drawings and sculptures. When we first saw Elsita’s art, we were stunned by the way it spoke to the deep feelings we have for our sisters, our mothers and our children, and the way we each relate to the natural world.
We had to know where she finds her inspiration, but it wasn’t until we reached out to Elsita that we learned that it was her older sister, Ileana, we sensed in certain images, a sibling still living but lost to Elsita a decade ago in the complex tangle of schizophrenia. “She was my mentor,” says Elsita, but as Ileana’s illness progressed, there was always this acute awareness, too: “We had to deal with the possibility of her going away forever all the time.” Love, with impending loss. A story of two sisters.
[click to continue…]
WHEN TSP RECEIVED AN EMAIL from Shelley Kommers with the subject line “Sister Artwork,” we were startled: Had Shelley, known in the Etsy world as Oiseaux (meaning bird in French), seen us lurking in her shops and sites somehow? Magic! Shelley had attached two mixed-media pieces about sisters, Strawberry Park (above) and Sí, Alguna Vez Fue Un Ave (“Yes, She Once Was a Bird” in Spanish), the former, she explained, created as a representation of herself with her own sister, Carrie (and look whose little arm is around whose bigger waist). No wonder Shelley defines “sister” as “someone you’re stuck with in the best way.” Those original images were just a glimpse into a portfolio, and a world, rich with sisterhood imagery, one we are excited to share here. [click to continue…]
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