Wounds

Thinking about the surface layer of this assignment piece has got me thinking about the meaning of the gashes, and reminded me of Roseanne Hawksley's sewn wounds. There was also a deceptively simple piece in an amateur show in Bristol last year which had some of the same imagery. And another piece at the PRISM show earlier this year.

Roseanne Hawksley's painful repairs

All these are making me wonder if I can't use some representation of skin as the surface layer, and have the slit or slits cutting into that, as a development of my train tunnel into belly photo.

Freckled skin might be interesting to print onto fabric.

One of my samplers from
the first part of
'Exploring Ideas' 

Underfabric with printed organza overlaid.

The edge of the printing, showing the texture it adds.

Sketchbook/ portfolio work

Masking tape
mimicking shapes
of light

Taking off the masking
tape

Brown/black gouache

Trying to capture the light patterns. 

The patterns of light are irregularly vertical, with some linkages, which make it look a bit like irregular ovals.
The black/brown colour needed a lot more black than I expected.
The masking tape was too tacky and took some of the paper away in places.
When it was painted, the folded masking tape gave an interesting leather-like texture.

The colours of the light were much trickier, so I tried matching them with yarns. It turned out to be interesting, with some of the 'light' colours working well in metal or very shiny yarn, and some of the dark ones in very soft wool. It is going to be important to keep the difference in reflectiveness in order not to lose the light effect. The black is more green than black in some places, and the yellows more like copper or pink beige. The colours in between are red/brown.

 

Below right is another colour exercise, adapting the colours I got from tie-leacing in an earlier experiemnt, which I am thinking of as 'ancestor' colours because of its ghostly quality. I made a collage of the yarns and papers to explore the pattern of the 'cleft' source using these colours.

This appeals as it retains the mysterious quality of the ghostly colours, and parallel pattern. It also appeals because of the hairy ends to the threads on either side, making it look like a caterpillar.

Once I had done these exercises I felt better able to finish the sample I started with masking tape. 

I used the golden light colour scheme, watercolour pencils, and gouache. 

Overall this turned out better than I feared, but has some problems with it.

First, the dark brown is not as dark as it should be to give adequate contrast to the 'light' coming through. Second, watercolour pencil doesn't really shine out enough and the colours are inaccurate enough for the mystery/ glow to be lost. Third, the stripy texture doesn't seem to be compatible with the glowing light idea, and the execution of the detail needs some work.

And doing this development hasn't made the shapes any more like what they should be! They are too fleshy-looking to be light, and not regular enough to be attractive to me.

So I moved on to another sketch trying out more detail for the 'cleft' pattern, but this time in a more formal regular oval arrangement.



Working on the 'cleft' detail

I used the ancestors colours again, in inks for the detailed pattern and watercolour pencil for the ovals. As I drew them the shapes reminded me of the bleach bubbles sketch I did last week and the way the light changed over the adjacent bubbles in a way which made them look three dimensional. I tried a bit of that with this sketch too and it did the same thing, leaving the pink and purple details looking like masonry around alcoves. Again the dark brown wasn't dark enough, and it doesn't look as if the 'cleft' patterns are behind them. I'm thinking that I may have to actually 'slit' the front to show through the cleft.

I tried putting the 'cleft' pattern into the inside of a broken fruit (below left). This hidden surprising complexity is something that I keep coming back to, and is certainly some of what the cleft is about for me.

Below right is a drawing I made at this point, of a piece I made by pulling threads in a similar shape in a translucent black fabric.




Since the feeling I want is mysterious glowing, perhaps the way to do it is through allowing light to come through from behind like this. I wondered if folding fabric would give the not quite parallel lines and variations in colour intensity that I was looking for. I was intending to try this next, but a melon caught my eye instead.

This sketch combines my identity-containing sphere with a surface texture similar to the one I am aiming for. There are yellow shapes, separated by tape-like strips of cream, which have directional lines on them. Drawing it drew my attention to the fact that on this surface the detail is in the direction of the tapes rather than perpendicular to them, as I have been drawing them in previous sketches.

This made me think about how I found PVA on masking tape made an interesting leather-like folding texture (see top of this blog entry) and I wanted to try this with fabric. Perhaps translucent fabric in that pattern would also bring variations in colour intensity.

For the purposes of my sketchbook I used tissue paper for this in a dark maroon colour which gives one of the purples of the colour scheme and allows a brown/black possiblity where it is highly folded. The shapes are reminiscent of the original source photo of light through the window in the dark (above left).

I wanted the 'cleft' pattern to reflect the parallel lines from the cork bark drawing, but with the metallic quality I enjoyed from collecting yarns in the 'golden light' colour scheme.

This is how it turned out when I used gel pens for this. During the sketching, it seemed right to use a variety of different colours of gel pen, and vary them to cast a slight shadow on the 'clefts'.

Doing this one got me excited about how it could best be translated into textiles - by weaving, thread pulling on layers of different fabrics, or by sewing with different kinds of thread on dissolvable fabric. I'm thinking that now may be the time to move on to textiles samples.







Through this project so far I have been aware of a tension between the instructions to work on paper, and my urge to work almost exclusively in a materials-led way for this project. Before I started doing these OCA courses that was the way I went about designing everything, and at times it has seemed a frustrating delay. In this case I did start with bleaching textile experiments, which in fact have added little to my progress.

I can see now that I would almost certainly not have got to this particular point if I had not turned to my sketchbook. And that doing these paper sketches first has opened up multiple other possibilities of how and what I could make.  And it has clarified some things that I don't think would have been natural to sort out in textiles. Eg I can see from this sketchbook work that the 'cleft' texture needs to be fine rather than rough. And that the 'golden light' colour scheme will most likely work better for the glow.

From these sketches, I think the ones I want to take forward are the maroon folded one, and the cleft made of horizonal yarns in ancestor colours. I have several things to decide from my sample-making. The ones that spring to mind are:

• Single/ multiple clefts
• Slit or integrated
• Flat or 3D
• which colour scheme keeps the glowing quality best?
• Meaning?

Choosing one artist out of ten

For Stage Two I have to choose one of the ten artists. I've been finding this rather difficult. I was hoping and expecting that as I went through them there would be one who stayed with me, and the choice would be easy. But it is not - they all have something unique and powerful about them.

Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh - pretty surface patterns and reliefs, and I could certainly relate to the celtic imagery and attractive variety of materials.

Impressive that she influenced Klimt.

Reading about her work led me to drawing these in my sketchbook - a lady and the beginning of a design for a blind.

I want to see her work in person. However, I didn't feel it related to me very closely. And I wonder if I would end up studying how women artists have been ignored rather than her work.

My imagination going overtime on Bakst

Leon Bakst - I loved the creativity, the colours,  and the sensuality of his costumes and sketches. I could enjoy doing something with this.

I hadn't heard of him before, even though I trained at the Ballet Rambert school and we revered Diaghilev and Nijinski. I wanted to find out more about what came before so that I could judge what a difference he made. It was an exciting time of change in Europe.

He clearly had a huge influence on 20th century fashion and decor, and I would like to have more depth of knowledge about that.



Ethel Mairet - I don't know what to think about her.
I couldn't find many photos of her actual weaving on the internet, and the ones I saw were brown and appeared simple and not very beautiful or interesting to me. She was a pioneer of hand weaving and vegetable dye crafts, both of which I find interesting and wonderful, but perhaps not the extent that I want to do a lot of it myself. Studying her would give me more insight into crafts in this country.


Anni Albers - Bauhaus is one of those names that people speak with respect, and obviously continues to influence many designers and architects. The political influences on it would be good to go into more, and the work of Joseph Albers on colour. Again I ended up getting wound up in the feminist angle - she was excluded from fine art training because she was female. And where did appreciation for her work go?


Lucienne Day - I can see that she has influenced everything that came after her. But these prints leave me a bit cold. I could work on this, and on the Festival of Britain, but I don't think I could get into it very easily.

Magdalena Abakanowicz - This artist's work was the first on the list to really resonate with me. I can feel what she is expressing, and when I looked into the neo-expressionist movement she appears to be part of, the other names were often artists who I had admired already - Gerard Richter, Frank Auerbach. The tactile visceral nature of what she makes, and the repetitive references to humanity en masse appeals directly to my sensations.

Sketchbook work in my 'roots' theme book, using
sisal and burlap

I didn't do anything directly in my daily sketchbook while looking at her work, and thought that she had not really inspired me, until I realised that I had in fact created a whole new 'theme book' exploring the use of rough natural materials to express a strong feeling of belonging!

Zandra Rhodes - I did not find her prints or clothes very inspiring. Not sure why, because they are exciting, colourful, and original, and clearly very successful commercially. When I looked closer I could see that she pays great attention to detail, and that she appears to have a great deal of fun. Which isn't me at all! I like a bit more meaningfulness. And the detail stuff doesn't come naturally to me. I was not sure what movement she was part of, and then thought it must be about the sixties and the changes they brought. But then there were other people who were earlier in that change weren't there - Mary Quant?

Judy Chicago - This is a drawing I made BEFORE I researched her work. And another afterwards.

Feminist themes are part of what makes me me
This one came from exploring Fortuny and
Paul Poiret shapes, leading to a further elaboration of
an idea I have about our attitude to excess fat.

Sketchbook work after reading
about Judy Chicago
Bright artificial colour
and less attempt at realism

Judy Chicago's most famous work of art 'The Dinner Party', is a monument to the awesomeness of women through the ages. Not the 'contribution' or 'strengths' or whatever, but genuinely overwhelming with the sheer number of amazing woman in history who have changed our world.

While I was reading about her and her work, I was thinking that I could really enjoy exploring my angry woman side by choosing Judy Chicago. The politics of this movement and the protest movement are areas I would like to go into more deeply because they have formed me, but I never have. My fundamental theme of the masks we make to hide our inner selves has a lot to do with the bits of me that are surprising or not welcome because I am a woman.

I like the way bright tapestries make the work imposing and important. Like a poster but less ephemeral.

I'm not so sure about getting other people to do the craft of it. And the aesthetics of her work are much less what generally appeals to me. I prefer more texture and 3 dimensions. Her work looks very flat and unnatural.


Issay Miyake - All about innovative use of materials, 'one piece of cloth' exciting, interesting, not just pleats but all sorts of new things to do with one piece of cloth, and collaboration with industry, very much in the mode of Thomas Heatherington. Lots to discover. I loved the manipulating fabric section of the last OCA Textiles course I did, and wanted more time to do more. Perhaps I should. But the industrial and commercial aspects put me off a bit. But I don't have to go that way.


Tracey Emin - I have done some exploring before about Tracey Emin (not as part of the course), and her work appeals to me a lot because of the quality of realness about what she's expressing. And the wonderful looseness of her drawing.

Tracey Emin Exorcism of tte Last Painting I Ever Made (detail) 1996

Sketchbook work after reading about
Tracey Emin

She's in the papers at the moment because of Saatchi putting the unmade bed up for sale.

I was interested to read about how she locked herself in a studio for 24 hours with hundreds of canvasses to discover her personal painting style. Perhaps I should give that a go. I've been thinking a little about which course I would do after this. I had been thinking printing, because I have a lot to learn about that, but in fact, painting appeals more. Seems freer and more expressive to me. More direct on the paper.










Who I chose:
I wrote that title without actually having chosen yet!

What I'm thinking is that I want the surface shimmer of Mackintosh, the physicality and colours of Bakst, the texture and visceralness (viscerality?) of Abakanowicz, the feminism of Chicago and the freeness of line and honesty of Emin. OK?!

I'm saying I don't want to exclude some of them by choosing one. But I can go back to the others later if I want.

The inner me is giving me lots of feminist images this week, and awareness of how negative my personal feelings are about being a woman, so I'm going to choose Judy Chicago and associated politics for stage 2.

Sketchbook work inspired by Judy Chicago and Tracey Emin

Stage 2: Knitting and weaving with holes

I started by knitting a piece with different sized knitting needles. The smallest were standard size 11, the largest were my daughter's drum sticks. This is what I made. 

I was rather disappointed by the subtlety of the differences, especially given that it had been quite difficult to knit. I wasn't sure if that was a result of using thick wool, so I changed yarn a couple of times and the result was more obvious with the thinner less compressable yarn. 

Then I tried weaving. I decided to use stripes of fishing line (microfilament) which has a pale green tint on the reel and using a flash, but is quite transparent in normal daylight, alternating with more standard warp yarn. This gave me a variety of options of combinations, so I only had to do one sampler to work out several different effects.

This gives an idea of how it is easily possible to introduce gaps in the weaving.

I have always liked the way the texture of the tapestry is apparent through the shadows, as in the grey area of this one.

This photo below shows two translucent areas - the ribbon, with a striped texture of its own and little in the way of shadowing.

And the tapestry-weave part with wet-looking highlights and shadow-texture. It allows much more of the background to be visible.

The ends of the microfilament won't conform by tucking in, and so make an intrinsic part of the outcome of using this yarn.

Anniken (see earlier blog) and Parniczky (Craft & Design magazine March/April 2014) both weave with this very skillfully and effectively.

As this section also seems to be about light, and reflection as well as refraction, I included some silver foil in the weaving to try it out.

This was an interesting idea but doesn't work well here. Perhaps using silky or plastic yarns would  be more effective.

I saw that the weaving sample was interesting, but rather colourless on its own.This was me trying to mask the weaving with translucent coloured poly organza.

This adds some depth and colour to it, and makes the microfilament less visible, so that the blocks of weaving and cotton yarn look as if suspended. This had some potential for developing it further. 

The photo on the left is the same combination but lit from in front, showing how much reflection pattern there is from the organza.

On the right is the combination of the weaving with a more tightly woven organza (with holes for curtain rails), showing that it disguises the microfilaments even more, and making me think that its not always a case of 'the filmier the better'.

Stage 2: Using soluble fabric

I have tried dissovable fabric once before, in an earlier module of this course, and found it rather difficult and the results disappointing. I had some ideas about why this might be, and was glad of the opportunity to try again, this time with some instructions.

First I did some sketchbook work to make a design that would be lacy, but with the elements linked as recommended in the course work.

I decided from this sketch that the curved dark lines were better with the spirals

I started by machine stitching little zigzags in the spiral pattern.

Then I added curved strips of semi-translucent fabrics and lace,
fixing them on with another layer of stitching in the spirals.
You need at least two layers of stitching because otherwise
it unravells when you dissolve the fabric.

After dissolving, the shapes were floppier, and looked more organic.
This is the finished sample seen superimposed on the grey circles from the
last blog entry. There is a hole in the middle where the design elements were not thoroughly linked.

What I have learned from this:
It doesn't take much practice to get a better result from this soluble fabric.
Walking foot on the machine helps a lot.
It doesn't need very hot water, or much rubbing either, so it's ok to use quite flimsy fabrics and yarns.
It would be difficult to get a very precise result. At least until I'm getting better at it!
The fine plastic netting I used (wrapping net from our christmas tree) gives a lovely shiny messy result and looks wet, like seaweed.

What to try next:
Try it over other images, textures and patterns, with the light in front and behind.
Try it with different colours and intensities of the design elements.

Stage 2: Working with translucent fabrics

The most obvious thing to do with translucent fabric is to make patterns using different numbers of layers of it.

I had kept some filmy grey fabric that had been used as a luxurious wrapping for a bunch of flowers for mother's day. I don't know what it's made of but it has an unusually crisp texture for something almost transparent.

I cut circles in it and overlaid them, holding them up to the light.

 At this first stage, i was using tape to keep the circles attached, which adds it's own shadow to the image.

The illusion of texture is interesting, like wood or water, from the reflective qualities of the fabric.

The darker line down the left hand side is the edge of the building outside the window.

The deepest shadow is where the fabric circle folded on itself.

The lightest arcs are where the holes overlap. Against the light like this you can't tell which are holes and which are fabric other than by the lack of texture in the holes.

Not sure how I can use this.

I used silver grey fabric this time. I wondered how it would work with very white lacy fabric.

This is what it looked like against white.
 Some hint of texture and lines, but not much interest or contrast.

And here against the window onto my garden. The detail's clear. the colour is slightly less white but there's enough light  coming through.

I then tried distorting it with heat.

Difficult to get the distortion without breaking the fabric altogether (hence the holes.

The swirliness of the distortions is appealing.
Not very controllable - would take a lot of practice.
Interesting the way three dimensions show in the variations of shadow.


This takes away the clean flatness, but replaces it with hills and valleys.




Putting it against white background again, the whole thing looks darker, and the hills and valleys are less pretty and more dark and menacing.













Trying variations:

I fixed two layers together by ironing a strip of hem fix along the middle. This gives a slight dardening of the shadow, and an interesting texture.

The photo looks out of focus (or more out of focus than it actually is) because of the irregular reflectiveness of the fabric, and the staggered holes.

This was made the same way, but using circles of less translucent fabric to contrast with the grey.
Light shining from the front.

Light shining from behind, with a background of decking. The light coming from behind reveals the lacyness of the bottom circle, which is not visible at all when lit from in front (above). And the overlaps of the lower circles also. But the upper circles don't really show so sharply at all at this intensity of light.

You can see how much diffusion of light there is from the fabric itself by the waves at  the top right hand corner.

It would be good to be able to capture that in some way.

Also there is a question in my mind about whether you could make use of the difference of appearance in different light intensitites. Good for a window dressing or lampshade perhaps?




Using shadows and translucent fabrics:
I have used silk painting in the past, and wondered whether the gutta you use to contain the silk paint would increase the amount of light going through the silk. And whether you could get a stained glass effect by shining light through painted silk.

I had also been looking at the way the twilight sky glows behind trees along the road, and wondered if I could somehow capture that contrast between the dark dark trees, and the glowing colours.

As you can see I wasn't at all successful in that!

But when I shone a light through it,
the shadow image was sharp and clear,
and alsmot completely colourless!

Finally, I came round to working with bondaweb. I wasn't sure what image to pick, so I went to my reflection photos, and cropped off one pane of a window reflection which looked promising.

 The aspects of this image I like, and was hoping to capture, are the subtle colours, including the odd colour of the background; the double images that I assume come from light reflecting off both the front and the back of the glass; and the loopy lines.

This photo doesn't really do justice to the glowingness of the light in real life, and I was hoping to increase that too - not asking much!

This is what it looked like when I had laid out a collage of fabric pieces, and yarns on the pale pink base fabric.

You can see some unspun wool and some cut outs of green organza to give the subtle colour changes to the background.

I wanted the whole thing to be translucent, like the window, so used fabrics which did not block the light completely.

I tested out all the colours against the top yellow layer to ensure that the combined colours would end up more subtle and bright.

This is what it looks like with yellow organza ironed onto the front of it.

The bondaweb for this one was in a whole sheet the size of the sample, so that the whole thing has a similar texture to it.

I'm pleased (and surprised) with how well it turned out, and produced most of the effects I wanted from it. It could be a bit more 'mysterious' in the background, rather than bright, and there were some technical difficulties getting the yarn to lie parallel to itself (but these could be overcome). It has more of a sweeping looping look to it than the pattern on the window, and I like that.