Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Button Wednesday : Halina, The Button Sculptor



It is Wednesday again, so it's BUTTON DAY on my blog !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



This Button Wednesday is about the button sculptures from Halina. Halina's father was a tailor and pattern maker, and the family came directly after the war to the USA when she was eight years old. Due to language barriers and finances, the family made most of its own basic clothing. Self-dependence and recycling are Halina's main drives in life. She loves buttons because they were her first real possessions and they came from her dad. They came in all shapes, sizes, and colors and she says she loves the sound of them when piled high or when falling from of her hands like a waterfall. She started with flat images, sewn onto clothes and bags, but it developed quickly in a wish to make it 3D. She experimented with a lot of materials to form the body of her sculptures; different battings, recycled plastic containers, glues, fabrics, scissors, tapes, and threads until she figured out what works best for her projects. And the result is stunning !! It's fantastic to see that she is using the same technique as I do with my own button art; she sews the buttons together like I do. A clear evidence that two people who live miles and miles apart and don't know of each other, will develop the same technique by using and studying the same material. The expression though is our own, and Halina's sculptures are one of a kind ! You can read a lovely interview with Halina by Halina's man Robert here. (All pictures are from Mel Mashman on Flickr.)



Have you seen a lovely, beautiful, stunning, crazy button or button-related thingy, or did you make something with a button / buttons, or did you even make buttons yourself, blog about it on your blog on Wednesday, and give the link here in the comments so that everybody can enjoy it !!

5 comments:

  1. The monkey is just awesome ! Looks so real !
    Here's my entry for today :
    http://zsazsazsujuwelen.blogspot.com/2011/05/button-wednesday.html

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  2. FAB

    I used to always like to put my hand deep in button jars ... and feel and hear them ...and later found Amelie Poulain did the same thing with beans ... :)

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  3. That owl is so cute! :)
    Thank you Petronella for your comment about the material ;-)
    http://lucietales.blogspot.com/2011/05/button-wednesday.html

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  4. Hello Petronella: Your work is lovely. Nice to see buttons used so creatively and stylish. Thank you for showing my work too. Keep up your great work. From: Halina Tepper from Tucson, Arizona U.S.A. P.S. "Button Bob" says: "hi" too.

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