Welcome to the Cutting (& Stitching) Edge, where we showcase people whose embroidered creativity is fresh and new!

Tamar Stone makes books. Of course a sentence that simple does her a great injustice, because these are not just any old books. Tamar creates books using corsets.

Since 2000, Tamar has created sixteen of these embroidered masterpieces. She explains: “Inspired by my own experiences, my books capture moments in women’s lives when issues of appearance, self esteem and assimilation become paramount due to physical restrictions placed on the body, either by fashion or by medical necessity.”

The pictures in this post focus on “Health, Strength, Grace and Symmetry Vol. 1”, a book that explores the history of women, exercise and corsets. However Tamar’s work explores a range of different aspects of health, social and gender issues.

She uses the corset as the backbone (pun intended) for the work and then adds content featuring embroidered text, book pages and images from old photographs. It’s beautiful work.

These works are real masterpieces, each has a strong narrative that explores social attitudes of the past, presenting a case that allows you to form your own view. The books are not explicitly judgmental, but it’s clear that the historical attitudes presented don’t always hold up to current modes of thought.

A single post like this does little to express the breadth and skill of Tamar’s body of work. From a technical perspective, the construction of books from corsets is remarkable and the content contained within is clearly the work of a proficient artist. The mixing of media is delivered with deft skill and provokes thought.

Tamar’s work is fantastic. The corset books are a magnificent series of textile artworks, and only a part of her whole body of work. Please take the time to visit her site and examine her works, including the Corset, Bed and Paper books. You won’t regret it.