I’m trying to keep up a sort of regular ‘feature’ on über embroiderers on The Smallest Forest: These are the big kids, the crème de la crème, the leet of needle and thread…that runts like me long to play with, but will never even exist in the same universe with. *stabs herself with a #24 chenille* Oh, crewel world!
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Where are all these really fantastic male embroiderers coming from? It’s as though there were some secret monastery in the hinterlands of, say, Romania, where men are being taught to master the sorts of things that women used to learn in convent schools a hundred years ago (but no more).
You know what? I don’t think I’ll say anything at all about Max Colby’s hand embroideries (and some fabric, mixed-media collages) on collagraph prints (on handmade paper). His work takes me out of this world, it’s just so…ah, heck, go have a look for yourself. I sit here trembling with excitement, joy, and wonder…but also (I’ll be honest) with a touch of unease and miserable yearning. This guy is good. Really good.
But enough. His website and his blog are choc full of printmaking prowess and embroidered tremendousness, and I am impatient to put this post up now, so that I can go and look at more of his art. I’ll probably run into a few of you there!
On his website, his biography reads:
Max Colby is a mixed-media artist currently working in Boston, MA. He is a self-taught tailor and fibers artist with a formal background in printmaking and papermaking. By utilizing extravagant embellishments and applications in conjunction with fragile and dwindling figures both ephemeral (print) and physical (sculptural), the stress of Max’s work is placed on external manifestations of identity construction as a highly performative act. In 2012, Max received a BFA with a concentration in printmaking and papermaking from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
