Especially love the elaborate symmetry of the Paisleys - you did a fine job of photographing them as two dimensional designs. I owned some Paisley shirts back in the day (50 years ago?), but I never really stopped to look at them in the kind of detailed way I am now looking at your photo. Very complex designs & beautiful color combinations...

Exquisite workmanship lovely scarves nice shot!!

I absolutely adore these; something about the intricacy of paisley caught me from a very early age, and I've always been drawn to them over any other sort of design. I have a lot of scarves too, which are mostly never worn, and are hanging from various and assorted hooks and knobs all around the house. If I collected them all and put them in a box it would end up being a lot bigger than anyone might expect, I'm sure!

Oh, and I have one that I made when I lived in Minneapolis in 1983, it's at least seven feet long and made of some sort of paisley rayon, sewn into a long tube meant to be wrapped (and wrapped, and wrapped) around neck and face and head with enough left to drape down the front and back under the coat. You know what I'm talking about, I know...

Oh, paisleys run amok in these fabulous art pieces, Mark! Where did you get the inspiration, and time, for this? Amazing. The second one, with its epic and highly concentrated kaleidoscopic design, resembles some vast esoteric stretch of Persian carpet or rug. Gorgeous work, which should be hung in the Louvre. It's late, and I'm running out of superlatives because of sleep deprivation.

Your vignetting makes that top one look like some exotic egg from heaven knows what species of bird! The Paisleys are sumptuous. I once made a summer dress in a cotton printed in one very like the middle version. If we get a wet day soon I'll do some scarf pics, promise!

Beautiful series !! Just the series is important because symbolize a sense of collection !!

Wawww! , What a great idea to photograph your scarves; the result is truly amazing.

Okay, now this really speaks to me, because I am a scarf fiend. I mean I really LOVE scarves and have a huge collection. I can't live without them and have been collecting them forever. I have an entire wall inside my closet covered with these posts that hold my scarves. It is like some exotic world of color and texture and fabric that just keeps growing. And though I don't believe any bears are living in there, I'm pretty sure there are other unknown creatures dwelling in all those shadows and folds, and marvelous patterns and colors. Heck, sometimes I wish I could live in there. How grand that you are also a scarf wearer and lover. The patterns in your images are gorgeous. And I like that your scarves have a history. I really enjoy seeing men wearing scarves, which makes the wearer very distinctive. I've got paisleys, too, and animal prints, and florals, and abstracts,and fuzzy ones and silky ones, the assortment is mind blowing and always growing, like a wild untamed garden. And yet I intimately know every scarf. If I lose one, I am heartbroken. I rarely go out without a scarf wrapped around me in some way, around my neck, or waist, or in my hair. Recently I was able to put my art on chiffon scarves to sell, and of course some will become a part of my collection. So from my scarf collection to yours, Mark, that's a wrap. :o)

I have many Scarves too, but they are not sophisticated. It is gifts over time and sometimes I bought one I couldnt live without, but they are in a dresser and not worth showing,. I´ll let Andrea show hers. :-) But these are really lovely and I thought the same as Andrea did. A faberge egg :-)

oh, lucky you, these are beautiful! I have way too many scarves; I make my own out of yarn, but now I think I need some silk ones... :)

I recall as a teenager mens shirts had paisley designs. I had 2-3 but they did not stay around long

thank you for telling us about LBJ2. these are wonderful images

I really need to get out and get some scarves: I have one: it's totally utilitarian and nothing like the glories you've posted here. I love the way that each of these seems so distinct, and I do love paisley. When I was a child, I thought that paisley patterns were inspired by protozoa. I was rather disappointed when I learned that the pattern has been around longer than the microscope, and so the patterns cannot possibly be literally inspired by little Euglenas and Parameciums doing all of those frantic, endlessly watchable protozoa things in pond water. (I'm thinking of buying a "digital microcope" and raising little squirmy things, as watching watching them is far more entertaining than watching television, though I have to admit that I'm also in the habit of sitting in front of my bookshelf, "watching" it.) Okay, so now that I've finished with my parenthetical tangent, I can get back to this comment. Despite my love of scarves, I'm surprised that I have only one...a purely utilitarian thing. Judging by these photos, I can see what I'm missing,and I agree with Andrea, that top scarf (with the almost-Lomo vignette) does resemble the egg of some fabulous bird: something mythic, or maybe a Garuda egg, though Garuda was a god and not a species (unless you've read Perdido Street Station.) But still, if Garuda was a species, garuda eggs would probably be as gorgeous. The third scarf strikes me as an amazingly inspired piece of work. I love the pattern, the shape, the way it actually looks like something I'd enlarge and drape on a wall. It has a tapestry-like quality, or maybe the quality of tent-fabric used by those sorts of tea-drinking customs and knives as ornately carved as the patterns on their tents, and of course each pattern would tell its own story: probably involving dragons, djinn, and a race of people with the heads of ostriches or something--in short, the kind of stuff I like, and would probably dream up if I stared at these three panels long enough. It's funny, because this also makes me think of a movie. There's an odd flick called "The Cell." It stars, of all people, Jennifer Lopez as a psychologist who can enter the minds of her patients. It's a thriller kind of sci-fi something-or-other, featuring some amazing costumes (By Eiko Ishigawa) and bizarre sets. Anyway, one of the primary special effects in the movie was nothing more than the camera zooming in on a piece of Indian fabric; it's odd how "digital" it looked, especially since it wasn't digital at all. I thought of that I as I saw these, because each pattern, each scarf, each set of colors has a wonderfully complex quality that plays with perception when taken out of everyday, mundane context. Ah, but that's what art is supposed to do: it's a nice whack against the side of the head, intended to shake (not stir) things up, just so. These are brilliant!

Fantastic creations and compositions my friend... Wonderfully done once again !!!

magnificent

Oh, sigh, and I'm just going to sit down and LOVE those paisleys. I'm totally INTO paisleys these days, flashback from my hippie chick, 60's days,I supposed. Paisley is just so fun, so many kinds of colors, designs, fabrics, so many ways to use it. Heck, I'd paint the outside of my house paisley if I could! And a paisley scarf, swoon and nearly faint. Do you realize I LOVE this and love that you wear scarves. Marcos wears them a lot as well, and I think they are COOLER than cool. Beautiful shot, an instant fave!!

Also I love scarves, so wonderful to combine with your style of clothing, and the colors. Your photos are really cool, it may be fractals in a sense, the patterns intense. And for your lens, the structures have no ends ;-) btw Mark, I had a great giggle by reading your story about the possibilities of the long scarves that have huuuuge holes.

Original and beautiful shots !!