One of the greatest things about craft is that it lets you explore freely without fear of failure. You can follow your whims just to see where they go, and they just might take you somewhere magical.

Now, while there isn’t an inherent activist bent to Behar’s work (that I know of?), it has us do a doubletake, rethink what we thought was one thing but what is really another and fall in love with craft all over again.

Photo via Daily Art Muse and text via Bioephermera.

I defy you to look at Linda Behar’s embroidered marshlands and not be fooled into thinking they’re photographs. To achieve this unusual level of textile realism, she prints photos taken on-site onto cloth, then improvises over them with embroidery.

Want more? Go check out more of Behar’s embroideries on Flickr and on her website.

Also, you might like:
*A USER’S GUIDE TO (DEMANDING) THE IMPOSSIBLE
*Wee Wonderful’s Kitchen Gnomes embroidery patterns
*Dermatologica Brings Kivas Microloans into the Retail World
*As Egypt Shuts Off the Net: Seven Theses on Dictator’s Dilemma
*The first 3-D molecular model made out of wool and knitting needles!!!