Arty Instagram accounts to follow

July 7, 2017 9:57 PM

I want to use Instagram to follow people who post artsy things, but not fine art, necessarily. Who should I follow?

I'm repurposing some of my social media accounts, getting away from just following my friends, and I want to use instagram to follow interesting and inspiring artsy-craftsy people.

A lot of the accounts I'm interested in right now are fibre artists (embroiderers, quilters who go beyond the block of the month) and paper artists (quilling, paper cutting, papercraft, etc). I also like photographers who create interesting landscapes / scenes and then photograph them like Magdalena Bors or people who create dioramas. I'm also interested in historical fashion illustrations, photographs and recreations. I also follow Kirby Jenner because I think he's hilarious and definitely engaging in art.

These aren't limits on what I'm interested in, but I hope they give you a flavour of what I like. A straight up nature photographer or portrait painter probably wouldn't interest me.

Basically, people who lie somewhere on the very artsy end of crafty or somewhat on the crafty end of arty. People who are doing original work, rather than making things from patterns. Not stuff people would pin on Pinterest as project ideas for themselves to make (I have Pinterest for that already). I'm much less interested in process photos than in finished items, though people who post the occasional process shot among the final products are fine.

posted by jacquilynne to Computers & Internet (18 answers total)

Twiggyabi
Josie Lewis Art
Art by Amaryllis
Adam Hillman
posted by ellieBOA at 12:36 AM on July 8, 2017

Find weavers (this is my wife whose account also follows other weavers) and farmer florists (Floret is a good one to start with).
posted by dbrunton at 5:15 AM on July 8, 2017

Oooh! My friend makes miniatures (many of them work as intended, like drawers) out of cardboard. SO COOL.
posted by cooker girl at 7:52 AM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

Some artists I follow and really like:

visothkakvei
gabrielschama
niniquilts
memorialstitches
kimikahara
alexkeha

I like Josie Lewis and Adam Hillman, linked above. Josie Lewis periodically links to other artists she likes, so I've started following a few people that way.
posted by bile and syntax at 8:07 AM on July 8, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oooh, I like this question.

tanaka_tatsuya (also posts at lavie_city) miniature worlds
wiley_pamela beautiful quilting.
eugenia_zoloto paper cutting
woodlucker paper and mechanical art.
taekyeom 3D printed ceramics
le_triptyque pretty/moody photography(though I don't think this is original content)
haarkon_ greenhouses and other green spaces (maybe not your thing, but I find it sooo relaxing.)

I also follow a lot of ceramicists; not sure if you care about pictures of mugs and such?
posted by gennessee at 9:03 AM on July 8, 2017

Response by poster: Probably not so much repeatable mugs and other more basic ceramic things, but if there are ceramicists doing more one-off art pieces, fantastic bowls or vases or whatever, then I might like them.

Pamela Wiley's quilting is amazing -- I love quilts that are about the quilting rather than the piecing so very, very much.
posted by jacquilynne at 9:14 AM on July 8, 2017

Are you interested in collage art at all? I follow a lot of people doing collage, and also do it myself. I'll link if you're interested.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:45 AM on July 8, 2017

Response by poster: I'm not really familiar with collage art other than the scrapbooking-adjacent "crap I paid too much for at Michaels" version of it, but I just did a quick google image search of collage art and there are some really cool things that turn up in the results, so, maybe?
posted by jacquilynne at 12:01 PM on July 8, 2017

Crochet + leaves + extremely detailed = indescribable: susanna_bauer (Previously)
posted by Room 641-A at 12:17 PM on July 8, 2017

Okay, here we go - some of these are collage, some are more embroidery and fiber links that I somehow didn't post last time. Full disclosure: some of the people doing collage art are friends of mine, and I'm going to include a link to my instagram as well because I do some art stuff in addition to many, many photos of my cats.

me
visual fodder
art of shala
Dani's collages
little wing folk art
the media luna
clan of xanax
the fiber studio
liz l payne
happyredfish
llllllllillllllll
adipocere
posted by bile and syntax at 12:19 PM on July 8, 2017

Jason Briggs (Not your average ceramic artist)

Delicate icing baskets and decoration on cookies: illustratedcookies
posted by PussKillian at 2:07 PM on July 8, 2017

Ceramics I love:

instagram.com/ratbagstudios
instagram.com/gdrosamel
instagram.com/kozyceramics
instagram.com/john.ellefson
instagram.com/lindahsiao
instagram.com/maryamriazi
instagram.com/yeom_seonghui
instagram.com/h.a.ceramics
instagram.com/mwardstudio
instagram.com/ramikim

(I tried making these clickable but it's not working for some reason. Apologies.)

Forgive me if this is against the rules, but I also make pottery and I'm @glittermountain.
posted by kitty teeth at 2:17 PM on July 8, 2017 [1 favorite]

I recommend following The Jealous Curator for ideas, and checking who she follows for more ideas. She also has a blog and a podcast.

What's worked best for me is looking at people whose work I really resonate with, and seeing who they follow, or looking for hashtags that multiple people I follow use, and checking those out.
posted by booksherpa at 7:28 PM on July 8, 2017

Response by poster: So, follow-up question re: following people that other people follow:

Is it possible to basically see someone else's feed? Obviously without private posts I don't have access to, but basically a stream of what they are following? Because the giant list of accounts that you get when you click on "X people following" gets really tedious when you have to click on each individual account to see if they're following the person because they are a fellow cool artist or because it's their mom. Whereas if I could see what amounts to a their feed, I could click on the interesting art and ignore the mom-selfies.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:34 PM on July 8, 2017

Having just done this for the past 15 minutes (thanks for this question! :) I think that there's not a way to follow the feed, but if you check their follower lists in the browser on a laptop instead of through the app on your phone/tablet, it's much easier. I did an initial cull of accounts, and only chose the ones that sounded like or were explicitly artists, then just right-clicked on those and chose "Open in New Tab". I did a second quick cull by looking at just the first page of stuff. Just followed 9 new people.
posted by booksherpa at 7:45 PM on July 8, 2017

If you're browsing on your phone, click the search icon at the bottom and you'll see a feed of photos that are from accounts you don't follow but the algorithm thinks you'll like, based on (I assume) pictures you've liked or hashtags you've used. I've found some good accounts to follow that way.
posted by kitty teeth at 9:00 PM on July 8, 2017

I guess it's kinda late to be weighing in on this ask, but avocadostonefaces is SO unique and SO interesting.
posted by DSime at 10:09 PM on August 8, 2017

Response by poster: Never too late! In fact, the main reason I wanted to populate my Insta was to have pretty things to look at while I commute to my new job, which just started on Monday.

One I just found that I really like: rivuletpaper.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:27 AM on August 9, 2017