Thread & Nail Portraits: Life On A String

When someone masters the art they are continuously learning, I am always heavily impressed. It’s like watching someone put their entire being into their wok and the result is nothing less than extraordinary. This happens on a regular basis, and some of it gets sent our way to check out. There are of course hundreds and hundreds of websites out there that let people post and publish their creations so that they can spread the word about them, and also to let people have a peek at what they are doing. Some of these creations are just unearthly and to try and comprehend the scale of the planning and the skills required to create them seems futile most of the time.

Some of those things, without argument, are the Thread and Nail Portraits by the duo Pamela Campagna and husband Thomas Scheiderbauer of L-able. If you read the article about the Screw Art that I posted not too long ago, you know people tend to use some really interesting items in order to create their vision. Pamela and Thomas have their own approach to creating portraits, and it has nothing to do with a brush or pastel colors.

Their way of creating art is through nails and thread. They simply plan their portraits down to the last nail and then carefully thread it. The result is mind boggling. I use that description a lot, but that is the only way I can think of that adequately expresses the experience of watching their art. I keep telling myself there has to be a system to their work technique. Maybe there’s even an algorithm for how the thread is wired between the nails, but it seems impossible to derive it by just looking at the portraits themselves. These pieces of artwork are not only immensely impressive, but they also stand for so much more than just the creation itself. They stand for the skills and determination that artists of today are willing to put into their work in order to create the art of tomorrow.

Via: [Colossal]