I think I may have written earlier that although I am attracted to abstract art, my own work always has strong roots in reality. But after the assignments I’ve done so far and reading through the chapters of this one I kept thinking about shapes and moving space.
In particular with regards to this sample I did for the fabric dying exercises.
I was wondering about how the squares in the middle could be 3 dimensional cubes. Then circles came to mind and before I knew it I spent the next 2 weeks working with shapes.
Now I must tell you that my favorite answer to “what are you making?” is “oh….nothing”. And I’ll stick to that answer until I am finished.
However now……for the first time ever I can stick to that answer….after 2 weeks of trying, sampling and working I made absolutely nothing……
I know the execution could be better. If I would make this again the ball would be constructed differently. But I was very much working out how to construct whilst going along.
All the fabric has been tied and then bleached, the whole thing started out as black fabric. I made the outer frame from wood and covered this in felt and then I hand sewed the fabric around it, trying to keep the edges sharp.
The ball is suspended in mid-air by a framework of threads.
And the cubes were first sewn and then stuffed with little cardboard boxes for rigidity.
I know this “thing” doesn’t fit the brief of any of the exercises, that doesn’t matter.
I am happy with it and just wanted to show what effect this course has had on my way of “seeing things” already.
1 March 2011
For this project I didn’t have to think twice where my inspiration would come from. Throughout these assignments I have been fascinated by these two pictures, of a collar by Penny Fisher, in the course book:
I must start by saying that I love black pearls. And although the pearls in these pictures are not black, the anthracite fabric with it’s gentle sheen has the look and feel of black pearls.
I also love the way the way the fabric “embraces” the pearl, very much like the pearl inside a shell.
So for the subject of this assignment I was thinking shells, pearls and marine life in general.
As for the material…
I’ve always been fascinated by 3dimensional structures in fabric and for me the “holy grail” in 3D fabric structures would be to create a transparent structure in silk voile.
Of course this sounds like impossibility without some kind of support structure, but the support would spoil the transparency. I’ve tried various ways of stiffening the fabric over the past few years, but as most (all?) stiffeners are glue based, they will leave the fabric looking and feeling like plastic.
So at the moment the way I try to create structure and shape is by pleating folding and sewing. Which I know works for smaller shapes.
When I start thinking about how to create a certain shape, I often look at paper craft.
After all people who are working with paper are also trying to create shapes from something that started life as a flat sheet and as they benefit from the stiffness of the paper, I benefit from the pliability of fabric.
For this piece I needed to look at shells and luckily for me I discovered there is a lot of variety in oysters, mussels, scallops and even snails that can create pearls.
So this gave me some freedom in the shape of the shell I was going to create.
Here is an example of a scallop shell. Which has got quite a wavy “design”, I figured that I could sew narrow pleats to create the wavy feel, which at the same time would create structure.
I thought for a while about adding colour, but decided to pleat the bands going across the shell instead of colouring them.
The only colour in this piece was going to come from the “black pearls”.
The pearls are made from fabric that was free motion embroidered with a metallic thread.
And to finish of the “necklace” I created some seaweed from the same silk voile that was give structure and rigidity by stitching.
I was going to get a cardboard mount cut for my newspaper/crowd piece, clean easy and cheap. But I didn’t have time to go to the shop, so I spent heaps more time making a frame. I know that doesn’t make sense…. But once the idea of an old slightly battered gilded frame against the very modern looking embroidery/applique piece got hold in my mind, there was no way back.
I started by “googling” antique frames I was looking at the raised patterns, colour of the frame and tried to work out in my mind how to make this from fabric.
I cut a background for my frame from poster board and layered this with three layers thin batting. Each layer I cut a little narrower than the previous one, to create a dome shape.
For the fabric cover I used some cotton, one of my less successful dyeing experiments, and I cut fleur de lis type shapes from felt. The felt shapes where attached to the fabric border and then I stretched the whole thing over my cardboard frame.
Next up some golden medium to give me a good base for painting. I spray painted the whole piece with antique gold paint. This actually left me with a very shiny, brand new looking frame. So more aging was needed….for this I used oil pastels they were rubbed in with some turps.
I know this combination isn’t going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I like contradictions…
Faceless crowds, suddenly got a whole different meaning…
You might remember that I did this piece for the first assignment.
At the time I also did a little sample in fabric, that I said I would like to make as well. So for stage 3 I thought perfect, I’ll do that!
I cut my fabrics “wonder-undered" them and was just about ready to start stitching. But I wasn’t happy suddenly it didn’t speak to me anymore.
Over the past month we’ve been seeing the power of crowds in the world. Governments being overthrown and possibly a whole new war started. All by the power of people coming together to demonstrate. So I felt the need to update my crowd a little. So my little blue crowd went out of the window. I made the front page of a newspaper by digitizing all the text. I then used the embroidery module of my machine to stitch this out. I printed some pictures of demonstrators on fabric threated with digital ground. And appliqued these, together with some coloured bars, onto the newspaper. Now I must admit that I was pretty happy with this result. But then came the scary part…..
I stitched my crowd in monochrome colours this time, it had to be, it was a newspaper after all. And added another picture to the backside of my newspaper. Now for the scary bit…I cut up the newspaper to make it look like it was torn. Then the crow was positioned behind the newspaper. Now all that was needed was to open up the window a little more, by folding back the edges. And voila….another stage 3/4 conundrum was made.
For my next sample I started with a picture of a woman. With the help of my trusted little laptop I turned the picture into an applique pattern. Then I added some batting and stitched the outlines in black thread. The whole picture was quite dramatic, not just because of this lady’s striking features, but also because of the very strong colour palet I used.
So instead of doing her headscarf in applique I decided to drape the fabric for the scarf. I “bound” the whole piece with a silk border, which was decorated with some trinkets I picked up a couple of years ago in Istanbul.
Now I must admit that I am not a quilter, so I’ve got a thing or two to learn about adding borders.
I really must look into that some time.
Will you believe that this piece made me jump out of my skin, when I came downstairs in the middle of the night one evening? For a few seconds it looked like someone was staring at me from the other side of the room…..it’s the eyes they appear to follow you wherever you go!
I had some black tyvek that I hadn’t used before so I thought it was time to give it a trial run.
For added drama I decided to pair it with a piece of (impossible to work with) silver fabric. I stitched a geometric design onto the tyvek/silver sandwich and zapped it with a heat gun. I quickly found out that my stitching was a little to detailed and the stitching itself a little too fine to create a real nice effect. So I was a little disappointed with this sample.
Until I turned it over…the backside was far more interesting! The melting (contraction) of the tyvek had created a rather interesting raised texture.
Is this a sample for stage 3 of this assignment or stage 4?
This has got texture, the surface is raised. But it was worked as a flat piece. I find it very hard to distinguish between the two.
A little conundrum that would hunt me through the rest of the pieces I’ve made for this assignment. Most of the pieces I have done have a “flat” element and a textured element.
So at the risk of infuriating my assessors I have, for the moment decided to label them as “Stage 3/4”.
I think I may have written earlier that although I am attracted to abstract art, my own work always has strong roots in reality. 
