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The term “spoke” has traditionally referred to a piece of split log, like those used as supports in a wagon wheel. Traditional basket-making techniques draw on that same concept by weaving flexible material through a stronger framework. For French artistic duo Daniel Dewar and Grégory Gicquel, notions of interlaced strands, patterns, ecosystems, and vessels shape their solo exhibition, The Weaver and the Spoke, at Antenna Space in Shanghai. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article

Have you ever sent a knit sweater through a dryer cycle and returned to find it a fraction of the size it once was? Well, think even smaller. Althea Crome’s incredibly detailed miniature sweaters didn’t shrink in a dryer but were instead created stitch by stitch with scrupulous dexterity over hundreds of hours. The Indiana-based fiber artist began knitting in college and refined her skills by frequenting knitting shops. Crome was eager to learn new methods, and like many who are part of knitting communities, the artist was happily welcomed with advice, knowledge, and guidance. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month

From pudgy pugs to a precisely groomed poodle to a deliriously happy Shiba Inu, Misato Sano’s waggish pups emerge from single blocks of wood. The artist (previously) chisels expectant eyes and goofy grins, revealing individual personalities that showcase each breed’s distinctive look and attitude. Misato views our canine companions as mirrors of our own personalities, and she began making these sculptures as reflections of her own thoughts and emotions, from excitement to worry to longing. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article

When a friend asked for a small drawing on a Post-It note to add to his growing collection of artworks on the iconic yellow square, Aron Wiesenfeld obliged. The North Carolina-based artist rendered one of his introspective scenes and enjoyed the process enough to create an entire series on the 3 x 3-inch canvas. Wiesenfeld has since created dozens of drawings in black ink, translating the mystery and ennui of his paintings onto the scaled-down surface. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article

Rather than build the letter “A” or “R” through digital layers, Rüdiger Schlömer constructs the alphabet, numbers, and basic symbols stitch by stitch. The Zurich-based designer devised Typeknitting, a project that interlocks two distinctive creative forms into a methodically constructed, tactile hybrid. “Typographic knitting to me is a process of translation between two very different fields, hand knitting structures and type design. This is what makes it so interesting to me,” he shares. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article

 A new video released by the European Space Agency (ESA) reveals the riotous activity of the sun’s atmosphere in unprecedented detail. Taken by the Solar Orbiter in September, the footage captures a lush blanket of “coronal moss” met by bright arches, or the magnetic field lines that shoot from the interior. Researchers say the brightest regions reach a whopping one million degrees Celsius—the cooler spots appear darker because they absorb radiation—and the “fluffy” hair-like structures are made of charged plasma. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support i

More than 100 years after it was first exhibited, art historians still debate whether Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountain,” submitted to the 1917 Armory Show in New York, was a wry joke or sly commentary on modern art—or both. That’s because the sculpture, a urinal the artist signed “R. Mutt,” was just a standard piece of plumbing. But Duchamp is also known to have coined the term “readymade,” in which he displayed objects like bicycle wheels or snow shovels as artworks unto themselves, posing the fundamental question that still thrills theorists: “But is it art?” If Duchamp were around today to know what an emoji was, he’d probably love comic artist ND Stevenson

Fidencio Fifield-Perez’s Dacaments series began as a response to the bureaucracy of the U.S. immigration system. The Oaxaca-born artist immigrated with his family as a child, making him eligible for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). To qualify and retain his status, he needed to collect official documents, the envelopes from which became the substrate for his paintings. When the Trump administration terminated the policy in 2017, people like Fifield-Perez were thrown into limbo before the Supreme Court reinstated it in 2020. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a

When visiting his hometown of Runik, Kosovo, back in 2010, Petrit Halilaj realized that his elementary school was being demolished. He went to the site—which had miraculously survived the Yugoslav wars that spurred his family to flee to an Albanian refugee camp in 1998—and found a pile of desks, many with doodles and notes scratched into their surfaces. These etchings have now found their way to New York, where they’re perched atop The Met’s rooftop garden for Abetare, which translates to primer, as in the early education books used for learning basic literacy. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member

Every month, Colossal shares a selection of opportunities for artists and designers, including open calls, grants, fellowships, and residencies. If you’d like to list an opportunity here, please get in touch at [email protected]. You can also join our monthly Opportunities Newsletter.   $3,500 Artist Grants | The Hopper PrizeFeatured The Hopper Prize is accepting entries for Spring 2024 artist grants. The program offers two awards of $3,500 and four of $1,000. More Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The arti