For Sian and others

Firstly a general update from two exhibitions.

'Wasted' now well over a year ago!

i have decided and looking back at most of my recent work that I am a 'constructor' i like working mainly in 3D and sometimes need to learn new techniques, although this one is an old (to me) twinning technique using found lolly sticks and utensils.

i was also lucky enough to be part of the 50 Bees exhibition organised by Lydia Needle.

this was based on the large sharp tailed bee,a parasitic bee. the bottom end of the bee reminded me of a pen nib. the yellow was achieved using ragwort and the whole constructed with metal and paper.

now to current work which is emerging from my 'Clutching at straws' piece in the last post for Prism.

one of the 'Rumpelstiltskin' stories had the supernatural helper giving the girl a pair of gloves to spin the straw into gold. i was busily working on the piece when lockdown happened and i thought that gloves have a whole new meaning now. this led me to thinking about glove wearing in life from babies through to mourning gloves and what goes in the glove.

last year i had started working on some pointilist drawings, an extension of 'Stitched Textile Artists' residential at Ammerdown. these were based on a pair of 18th century babies mittens. i started looking at the thumb patterns on these and other gloves. thinking i had been giving the 'thumbs up' sign to people quite a bit recently.

i started making books using the actual pattern shape, i love the process of stitching the 'pages' together on a book frame. and the book structure links in with the original story.

during lockdown and still now our local walk is through a cemetery which has been absolutely beautiful during the spring with amazing flowers and now long grasses. i noticed how many of the gravestones were constructed with metal letters, some of which had dissapeared leaving holes where the metal prongs would have been, this reminded me of my pointilist drawings and i have started a smaller sketchbook of dots and circles.

i have been playing with the idea of birth, work and death. still using thumb patterns from gloves. the above is another small book structure made from a cyanotype of a skeleton hand we just happen to have in the house.

i intend to progress through the 3 areas of life with more books but where from there?!

3D - i think i need help!

after i got the 'go ahead' for my 3D lights, i have been going at full steam. i wanted, or at least 'he who cooks' wanted my paper pulp out of the fridge by Christmas. so this is how i made the light bodies. white plastic bags cut up into continuous thin strips, then knitted with large needles.
i did various samples to work out size for the finished piece to go around my spray can forms.
once knitted they were pinned onto baking parchment and ironed through baking parchment to set.
image 4 shows all 5 layers together before the paper pulp was added. i thought they had potential for future work!
once they were set the wet paper pulp was applied. when dry i felt i had been very heavy handed with the pulp, so i rinsed it all off and re-did it with much thinner pulp. once dry i re-wet slightly and sprayed a black line onto each piece so when the cans were placed together they looked like one continuous wavy line but with each can having its own continuous line. the re-wetting helped to form the pieces around the cans.
image 6 shows one after it was dry and released from its can form. still not happy!!!!!!
so i went back to the plastic. i am becoming an authority on plastic bags! my husband is beginning to get worried because i keep feeling plastic bags in shops! any way i decided i wanted a more transparent effect and much less pulp. the bags i finally chose are a sandwich bag with dark blue lettering which when knitted and melted give an interesting pattern. i am really pleased with them. image 7 shows all 5.
so to the lids and i think this is where my problem is or not! in the end i made the lids as i had suggested but the clear layers of plastic i was going to use seemed too 'clean'. i heat set my layers together instead and the result i am really pleased with, i like the ragged edges and the 'material' i have formed. image 8 shows one lid. eventually after a few trials with different types of eyes and mouths i decided to machine stitch them onto the plastic and cut the eyes out. each one is an individual and has been altered slightly and because each section is formed as a separate piece they are not uniform.
now here is where my problem lies, or does it? i think originally i was intending to have lids that fitted tightly over the bases but these do not because they are not completely dome shaped. they sit on top. the problem is i like them as they are but do they look ok? should the bases be all the same height? or vary? i did try making some 2d 'lids' but came back to these.
they also work by themselves (i think) as smaller forms.
as to the lighting i have thought of many different types such as 'tea lights', glow sticks and eventually LED lights. my intention is to have a different colour in each 'can' using the graffiti colours there instead of the pristine whiteness of the forms. like a blank piece of paper/wall.
the lights are in the lids which work well as it lights the head and still lights the base to give the effect i wanted to achieve.if the heads are separated then more lights can be suspended in the bases which gives more of a lacy light effect. i hope i have made myself clear! the remains of the pulp is still in the fridge but i hope i don't need it again!! in the course of this project i have come across two amazing artists who work with paper, Annie Vought and Susan Warner Keene, check them out.

3d monster lights (samples)

i have not been idle with my 3D samples and at last i feel i am getting somewhere,or at least I am happy, i will see what Sian says! anyway to recap, the proposal is to make a series of small/life size 'cans' that can hold LED tea lights. i have been thinking along the lines of 3 or 5, no reason for the numbers although i think 5 would make a good line up.
initially i started by getting the lid shape i wanted; the ears will slot in along the top seam.
it took quite a long time to get the shape i was happy with, firstly working out with paper and then using a foam shape for stability.
the actual lid/head will i hope be made from various layers of plastic stitched together with a metallic thread to indicate lines taken by graffiti artists. the seam was sewn with a clear nylon thread, over sewn and then the seam flattened out. the ends will have 'tags' attached to them. above on the left side the ends have been dipped in silver sealing wax.
on the other side above i have dipped the ends in paper pulp.
for the mouth and eyes i have done some samples of free machining on soluble fabric. the mouth is about 3cm wide.
for the main body my plan was to impregnate cotton organdie with a paper pulp. the pulp was made using recycled paper. my initial samples were on white organdie which i wasn't happy with. so i decided to stencil the organdie first.
first sample above i was not happy with as the pulp was too thick.
next sample i was a bit happier with as the pulp was nearer to how i wanted it. however i was still not 100% happy and the pulp had a tendency to peel off the organdie.
i then started out on a tangent! which i am really pleased with. one of the reasons i like graffiti is the lace like quality of various tags so i started experimenting with knitted and melted plastic bags.
this has given me a perfect substrate for my paper pulp and although the holes are quite structured they are random enough.
my plan is to start with a complete substrate on the first light and gradually i will remove areas based on a stencilled tag. when i dipped the plastic in the pulp and turned it over i had placed it on a plastic surface which when i pulled it off the pulp pulled upwards from the knitting. this was originally the reverse but i love the way this gives a raised surface to the pulp. i tried colouring an area but felt that i liked the white surface which will have glitter in the pulp, like a wall surface ready for spraying.
finally going back to an earlier sample of a paint streak i have applied a similar 'streak' to the sample. it curves beautifully around a can. i intend to add the paint streak to each 'can' so when they stand together it appears as one streak! i am hoping i can go ahead and make them up, my husband would like the paper pulp out of the fridge by Christmas?!