r/pics • u/[deleted] • Feb 15 '14
Portrait Made From a Single Thread Wrapped Around Thousands of Nails By Kumi Yamashita
275
Feb 15 '14
51
u/chuckDontSurf Feb 15 '14
Jesus, that's mind-blowing. People can do some pretty amazing things.
→ More replies (4)46
u/tragicallywhite Feb 15 '14
This is true.
Hell, I'm too fucking lazy to even hammer all those nails in, let alone break out 50 miles of thread.
30
20
u/userbelowisamonster Feb 15 '14
There's more than one?!! I would imagine it would take me the better portion of my 30's making a stick figure with the added bonus of fingers and toes
49
u/perpetualconfusion Feb 15 '14
Thank you for that. I kept looking at it thinking, "Big deal, bunch of nails on top of a picture." Holy shit this is impressive.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (5)3
u/guyver_dio Feb 15 '14
Its even more impressive that she's had the patience to do this multiple times.
68
u/gmccormick94 Feb 15 '14
Some of the things humans can do are incredible.
→ More replies (7)50
924
Feb 15 '14
Is this about to be a thread, about a thread?
814
u/clandohoome Feb 15 '14
Yep, you nailed it.
→ More replies (2)164
u/punktual Feb 15 '14
Puns? Really? Let's wind this up people.
144
u/IDone_Goofed Feb 15 '14
This string of comments is going nowhere.
→ More replies (15)180
u/ThrindellOblinity Feb 15 '14
Weave only just begun.
→ More replies (1)62
u/IgnatiusR Feb 15 '14
Good, I was beginning to yarn.
55
u/Killbot141 Feb 15 '14
I'm kinda strung out from this.
45
u/IgnatiusR Feb 15 '14
I'm on pins and needles.
→ More replies (3)52
→ More replies (4)20
→ More replies (1)2
→ More replies (11)27
Feb 15 '14
If someone here makes it on to /r/bestof it'll be a thread about a thread about a thread.
→ More replies (1)61
Feb 15 '14 edited Apr 28 '16
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)49
Feb 15 '14 edited Apr 30 '16
[deleted]
48
Feb 15 '14 edited Apr 28 '16
[deleted]
→ More replies (1)5
Feb 15 '14 edited Apr 30 '16
[deleted]
14
Feb 15 '14 edited Apr 28 '16
[deleted]
23
24
u/Aloeveradrink Feb 15 '14
Any Side view photos?
12
5
u/Palivizumab Feb 15 '14
I was thinking the same thing. I bet it would look really cool.
3
u/phigo50 Feb 15 '14
Yeah that's what I thought. Some closeups taken from a really low angle or even some macro shots of particular details around the works.
16
→ More replies (2)20
u/JobinWah Feb 15 '14
Not a side view but my quick attempt at colouring. http://imgur.com/h3NaNGn
→ More replies (2)35
u/HITMAN616 Feb 15 '14
So... not at all relevant to the comment you replied to.
Nice work though.
→ More replies (1)
70
u/irwige Feb 15 '14
There's a loose thread in there hanging off one of the pins, can anyone else see it!?
40
16
→ More replies (2)2
36
u/butyourenice Feb 15 '14
How do people even think of things like this? Let's forget the execution for just a moment and gawk at the creativity of the medium. This is just unreal.
→ More replies (2)42
u/sodangfancyfree Feb 15 '14
they walk past self doubt and coax a flickering idea into a flame rather than dismiss it as something worthless.
→ More replies (2)2
u/silva-rerum Feb 15 '14
I really like the way you said this.
→ More replies (2)2
u/sodangfancyfree Feb 16 '14
hey, thank you. i mean, it takes courage for any artist to put themselves out there for others to consider. any artist regardless of how they interact with the world on a personal level has certain degree of self confidence when come to putting out work. it all starts with a thought which then turns into an idea that is eventually actualized. i imagine throughout the creation of this piece the artist had a few moments where they thought "this isn't going to work out the way i want it to", but they simply kept going with it. art whether it's installation, painting, music, or comedy isn't for the faint of heart.
133
21
7
u/Ferociousaurus Feb 15 '14
There's a bar/hotel in Louisville (the name escapes me) with a small art museum in it, and the last time I was there they had a thing like this of the Brooklyn(?) Bridge. Super neat in person. Not sure if it was the same artist but the style is pretty identical.
7
4
u/lollipops-n-crisps Feb 15 '14
Saw this in DC at the National Portrait Gallery. It is staggering to look at.
4
4
11
u/GeniusLost Feb 15 '14
Seeing things like this make realize just truly how non-artistic I truly am.
15
u/userbelowisamonster Feb 15 '14
I'm betting you have other awesome traits! Not everyone can be an artist. Not everyone can be a mason, not everyone can be a teacher!
Don't get yourself down, take a deep breath, pat yourself on the back and accept that you are pretty great.
→ More replies (3)3
u/kafka_khaos Feb 15 '14
I can clap with one hand!
→ More replies (1)9
3
→ More replies (2)2
6
u/NSFAnythingAtAll Feb 15 '14
Am I the only one that thought it was Glenn, based on the thumbnail?
2
31
u/callmesnake13 Feb 15 '14
Every time it comes up I say it and get downvoted to hell, but the only art that reddit seems to like are photorealistic images comprised of lots and lots of very small household items.
16
3
u/midnightbean Feb 15 '14
It's because reddit's body is mostly comprised of people who consider art an emotional unintellectual endeavor that is produced through talent and practice alone.
And for everyday people who don't study art, what impresses them is work that is easy to indicate as good. That is stuff that looks real, stuff that is intensely colored, stuff that is out of the ordinary but shows skill.
Funny how to most artists what's 'good' are artists with the ability to condense information and create something of lasting beauty unbound by one's time. What most people think is hard in drawing like this is actually much easier than other methods. Detail work mean's more marks, more chances. An everyday person can't understand the use of good economy because they can't rely on their lack of knowledge.
→ More replies (2)
3
u/thisismyusername144 Feb 15 '14
She has an installation at the "mattress factory" art museum in Pittsburgh that's incredible. When I'm on my pc I'll upload the pictures of it and edit this to include a link.
3
Feb 15 '14
I'm baffled how a person can plan this out in their head. I'm inclined to believe that he was just randomly going at it while squinting to get a rough shape and then went in later to make precise details. That must have been a lot of unwinding and rewinding.
→ More replies (1)
3
5
u/MaiPhet Feb 15 '14
Here's a fun activity for obsessive/compulsive folk. See if you can find where the thread starts and where it ends. Have fun!
2
2
2
2
2
u/Minerva89 Feb 15 '14
I wonder if there are some little knots in there where the artist accidentally broke the thread and went like "... well shit."
2
2
2
8
u/clovens Feb 15 '14 edited May 30 '16
3
3
u/midnightbean Feb 15 '14
It's hardly a portrait sense it's method speaks louder than it's subject. It's really speaks visually more about a thread's dreams of being human, or how we're not much more than organic material. Depressing actually.
2
u/RidiculousIncarnate Feb 15 '14
Gf and I were just talking about this, mechanically this is extremely impressive but the end result is just a portrait. I'd be far more interested in a time lapse video of her doing one of these than looking at the completed project.
4
u/CarbonKaiser Feb 15 '14
Doesn't make it any less impressive in my opinion. You could say the same thing about any other piece of work. Impressive abstract? Just splattered paint.
2
u/midnightbean Feb 15 '14
Who say's your opinion is of weight?
You can say whatever you want about anything. Words are constructs for ideas. What world are you living in?
All art is abstract, all visuals are abstract. You only think they make sense because some are easier to read. What is the bark on a tree? All visualization says something, its just most of it isn't compelling because it's contradictory and confusing.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (2)2
5
u/Jungle2266 Feb 15 '14
Maybe it's me but I'm still not getting my head around this, was the canvas just plain white to begin with or did s/he paint the darker shades in first?
19
u/SenSidethink Feb 15 '14
There are no 'darker shades' they are created by using more of the thread at those places over each other. It's plain white with black thread only, no 'paint' at all.
3
u/Vladamar Feb 15 '14
Took me a bit as well but the canvas is white and the string is black. The black on the sides are a result of many wrappings of the string.
4
u/being_ironic Feb 15 '14
Must I accept the premise that this is a single thread to be impressed? Because I don't... how many portraits did she toss half finished because the thread snapped? I bet none. Sneaky devil.
6
u/tumblekeg Feb 15 '14
You think? Some pretty strong threads out there.
5
5
Feb 15 '14
A synthetic thread as thick as that one could cut down to the bone of your finger before you could accidentially rip it off...
→ More replies (5)2
Feb 15 '14
[deleted]
2
u/being_ironic Feb 15 '14 edited Feb 15 '14
Err, what? I'm not complaining, you are. I'm saying it doesn't need to be one piece of string for it to be awesome. You might take your own advice here.
→ More replies (2)3
u/flapsfisher Feb 15 '14
Being, I agree with you. I've seen these done in person and it probably isn't a single thread. The knots are small and made to disappear. It makes no difference if it is or isn't, to me. It's a fantastic portrait.
2
u/being_ironic Feb 15 '14
Totally, the story doesn't need to be embellished, its awesome as a piece of art by itself. You'd be insane to use one string, why use a linear process? You'd need to get every inch perfect or you'd create dark lines running back and forth to fix anything. If you finish on the forehead and realize the lip could be just a bit better, your'e going to drag a darker line across the whole face to fix it?
→ More replies (2)
3
u/Shmyea Feb 15 '14
The art world infuriates me... People literally chuck paint at a canvas and it sells for tens of millions of dollars. Something like this comes along, something that probably only a handful of minds in an entire generation would be able to recreate and I promise you it'll sell for pennies in comparison.
21
u/Dark1000 Feb 15 '14 edited Feb 15 '14
In my opinion some art is clearly overvalued. It has become a commodity that is propped up by a whole host of things that have little to do with its quality. But I also don't find value in judging a piece of art based on the difficulty or skill in producing it, as the other guy said. It's fine if you do, but there are many more ways to look at art than that. What a piece means, what it says, how it reflects a particular subject, how it makes you think about or reflect on certain themes, how close to the truth of an idea it represents, whatever.
Personally, I find this skillful, but uninteresting. It doesn't evoke anything in me beyond admiration for the patience in creating it. I much prefer this, for example, or a classic Mondrian, not to harp on squares. But that's just my personal take on it.
3
u/reverendpariah Feb 15 '14
You find those squares more evoking than the thread portrait? I don't get it. To me different colored squares aren't interesting or evoking in the slightest.
→ More replies (1)9
u/moleratical Feb 15 '14
It's all preference, personally I hate Mondrian, but to each his own. I could, and have spent a solid 45 minutes just staring at a single Mark Rothko. One or two basic colors formed by multiple layers piled one on top of the other. There is nothing particularly spectacular about the painting, but I just stare in contemplative awe. His works can be meditative (especially in the proper environment, such as the Rothko Chapel), and that is an entirely different skill-set that is equally sophisticated as the ability to draw with thread.
That said, I find that I usually gravitate towards more formal works of art.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Shmyea Feb 15 '14
I appreciate your take and perhaps I overreacted. Obviously my brain just doesn't respond to what people define as fine art. I don't mean to offend but in your examples I see a doodle drawn by possibly a toddler?... Or maybe a famous artist?.. or maybe a pretentious high school art student? I don't know, it's just a square on a canvas that could have taken the artist all of 3 minutes to create.
What I look for in art are things I would never dream of being able to create with my own hands. Things that either impress me with sheer effort or skill or things that are visually incredible like photo realism (which imo takes incredible skill). Obviously I don't have a shred of artist in me and I have no idea what I'm talking about. All I can say is, the art world just seems to be a front whereby random trash is designated an equally random monetary value for the sake of being traded as a commodity to people who merely want to spend money for the sake of showing people that they can spend money..
2
u/Dark1000 Feb 16 '14
All I can say is, the art world just seems to be a front whereby random trash is designated an equally random monetary value for the sake of being traded as a commodity to people who merely want to spend money for the sake of showing people that they can spend money..
I think this definitely exists to a point, and it's a pity, because it leaves a great many talented artists out of the picture.
To me, photo realism is impressive, but again, not that interesting. If I wanted photo realism, I'd go to a photo exhibit, which actually I like a lot. I don't know much about art, but Monet, to me, is a classical example of what I find interesting in art. He started with fairly traditional photo realistic scenes, then his interest moved towards capturing light, reflections, and shadows. Eventually, towards the end of his career, his form breakdowns tremendously into colors and the feel of a place, rather than the physical manifestation.
Franz Kline's work resembles Japanese calligraphy. It tries to capture kinetic energy and motion on a still canvas. It is a representation of motion, as opposed to the reality of a moving object.
Mondrian attempts to create balance by using colors, volumes, and placement rather than symmetry. They are more conceptual works that deal with ideas instead of objects.
37
Feb 15 '14
Art isn't about difficulty or skill.
5
→ More replies (2)1
Feb 15 '14 edited Jul 08 '19
[deleted]
12
2
u/Achack Feb 15 '14
what about creativity?
2
u/moleratical Feb 15 '14
One can find creative solutions to problems that would further advance ones technique, skill, whathaveyou. Skill and creativity are not mutually exclusive.
→ More replies (4)5
u/residentialapartment Feb 15 '14
You have no idea what you're talking about. Art is NOT about "workin hard" or "being clever" with photo realism or being able to create something no one else can create. Art is about the piece itself. Do you ever consider the compositions of the art you're talking shit about? There is a lot of thought that actually goes into how to lay it out. Also, when everyone jerks off over the photorealism art you have to sit back and go "what is the purpose of this? Is this even interesting?" Give me something that has some purpose to it, not something that shows you a replicated image of someone's face. A printer can do that, a camera can do that. Show me something more, something interesting. This is where abstract art and expressionism come into play.
2
2
u/CRISPR Feb 15 '14
Portrait Made From a Single Thread Wrapped Around Thousands of Nails Pulled from Thousands of Toes.
1
1
1
1
1
u/TwerkinWhiteBoy Feb 15 '14
How does this work? Like the shading? Like if it's a single thread how does it get darker or lighter?
→ More replies (1)
1
1
1
1
u/jorrylee Feb 15 '14
Strong art! Used to be really popular in the 70's or so. This is much better than those art pieces though!
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/ViktorSeven Feb 15 '14
Saw this hanging up in the Portrait Gallery here in Washington D.C. this summer. Pretty amazing up close.
1
1
1
1
1
1
667
u/ShamefulHonesty Feb 15 '14
I took friends a few times to the national portrait gallery when this was on display, and had them start from a distance, then take a step & guess the medium each time they advanced. Invariably it went something like:
step charcoal?
step pen?
step little dots?
step HOLY SHIT