Proposal for ‘Large Scale Assessment Piece’

Since my initial thoughts and discussions with Siân I have changed my mind completely.
The Brief: A large Scale Site Specific item.
Proposed Site: Budleigh Salterton Beach – various possible locations.
Item: ‘How can you make sound visible’? A pop-up installation.
Proposed Materials: Mixed Media: cassette tape, other synthetic materials and metal.
Size: At least 1 fathom long (a play on words).
My initial site visit was unfortunately on a somewhat dull morning.

Budleigh is a small town on the East Devon coast , it is South facing and is renowned for its amazing pebbles. It is a fishing village and is also home to a naturist beach!





There are also some beautifully coloured beach huts
   I spent quite a while taking photographs to get ideas and locate areas where a pop-up could go.



So my initial ideas are to make a textile piece that could be placed almost anywhere on the beach using ‘sound graffiti’ so the breeze would ‘take’ the words out to sea. Using my theme of graffiti I have been exploring the idea of taking sound out of context and placing it somewhere else. Like Tibetan prayer flags.
I then thought further and what better way to let the ‘words’ flow than on a seaside windmill, and echoing the images seen on the beach produce something that has many repetitions and has a long linear form.
I bought a windmill and went home
My plan is to take random recordings on cassette tape and use this tape to make windmills, each one with a different sound but all connected.




I  made some samples by taking tape and laying it out on a piece of Lutrador.






then laying garden fleece over and tissue under. the whole was the stitched together to create a ‘piece’. a wire structure the shape of a windmill template was then stitched over and a heat spatula used to cut it out and apply a few holes through the base where there was no tape.
The piece was then formed into a windmill. I am still at the stage of suggesting how to form them into a whole. the suggestion i have come up with at the moment is to make Perspex pebbles linked together to which the windmills will be attached. possibly using photographs of pebbles and or found items from the beach.


   Or to place them on a ‘beach blanket’ of seaweed like the sample (left). this was made from garden fleece and lutrador with repetitive words stitched through the layers and holes made with a heated spatula. spray paint was used to give a swirling stripe to the piece.





The finished piece would be placed in various locations throughout one day. Draped on the beach, bunting for a beach hut etc.

I have not worked out a cost for the piece yet as this will depend on my final materials.

Technorati Tags: Sound graffiti,cassette tape sound,Budleigh Salterton

As you can see someone got there before me!

Janice Myers

Janice Myers
I first encountered Janice Myers work at a ‘Stitching’ show in Exeter where the group ‘South West Textiles’ was showing. Her cushion, below right, was on show and I thought it was the most wonderful thing I had seen in a long time. I have since gone on to see a few more things by her; I love the way she uses materials such as plastics, metal and found objects to produce quirky mainly three dimensional items and installations; recycled materials are very dominant in her work.

She uses both hand stitching with fishing line, wire or strips of polythene as well as computerised machine work.

She says she likes to combine an element of the abstract along with the recognisable, so that a hint of the story behind the piece is there to see.

www.janicemyers.co.uk

Chapter 9 and 10!

For Chapter 9 i chose section C, drawing with wire for laminated layers. the idea was to set out a group of anything semi-transparent, firstly drawing them as above, trying to work with a continuous line. i chose initially a perfume bottle and some plastic packaging.

i also included some clear green bottles. here i worked with colour and reflections.

more of the same

then i included some packaging with text

these are all pages from my sketchbook. those of you who were at Summer School might have seen these so sorry for being too boring.

i then made wire shapes from my drawings and cut out tissue and organdie shapes. i used the wire to rub over to give the shapes. then i laminated both the negative and positive shapes, above, onto scrim with wallpaper paste, adding paint and appliqued wire and stitch.

the second one i worked with more colour and waxed the final piece. i didn't work into these any further.

CHAPTER 10

3 Resolved pieces using silk paper, soluble methods and handmade paper.

for these samples i went totally 3D.

for sample 1 here in #2 i continued with the theme from Chapter 9. i made a wire spiral with linking threads and then dipped it in paper pulp and then sprayed the whole black and varnished it.

the 'ears' which are the stopper on my perfume bottle were made using a wire form with tissue and water soluble fabric. both layers were stitched through and then water on a paint brush used to remove excess soluble fabric. the whole was then painted with ink. holes cut and stitched and then waxed to give it transparency.

Piece #2 here above was made totally with 'soluble' fabric. again i made a long ribbon of white Lutrador covered with black garden fleece. this was machine stitched to wire along the edges. the words 'perfume bottle stopper' were machine stitched along the length. it was then spiralled and the fabric between the letters removed with a wood burning tool.

the ears were worked similarly and coloured afterwards.

different angle

for the third piece i went back to the image i had used at summer school

a 3D 'u'

i made a sheet of silk paper and stitched over it with transparent threads to echo the white wash lines. i used tissue for the pattern tearing it off after but leaving some on to add texture. the 'u' is glassine paper. i applied a coating of resin to the piece before cutting out and holes within.

i attached a wire ribbon made from Lutrador and garden fleece which had been melted between stitch lines, over sewing with nylon thread, then repeating with side 2.

i like the view through the sides

Long time no post but not idle!

i have been to Summer School at Urchfont Manor with other Distant Stitchers. Unfortunately it is the last year that Urchfont will be functioning as Wiltshire Council are closing it down however we still had a great time, hard work, good food and great tutors. its more like a retreat than anything else! i was in Dawn Thorne's workshop, working with layers, landscapes and different materials. my starting point was this lovely window. 

firstly we looked at our images and did drawings

then we did monoprints and screen prints onto paper, calico and perspex (mine still isn't dry after almost a week)!!!! instead of leaving all my papers gathering dust i cut them all up and made a new sketchbook! it must have been Sandra Meech's influence.

we then looked at making some of our designs into 3D models. the idea was to eventually build up layers.

one of the best bits was working with the perspex. Dawn gave us all a small practice piece to scratch and drill into.

the final layering but still not finished as i started tampering with it when i got home!! so there is a layer of perspex at the back, then a mono printed, painted and stitched calico layer, then an acetate layer with stitch, then a 3D layer and finally a top layer of printed and worked perspex all linked with wires.

detail of the top and 3D pod layer

Chapter 8 Wrapped frames and paper pulp

this chapter required a series of wrapped frames which would then be dipped in paper pulp and then stitched.i decided to go off at a tangent and make shaped frames from wire, then wrapped inside with wire, old lace, large buttonhole stitch and letters of course.

for the 'E' i crocheted some fine nylon thread randomly and trapped some gun caps

i tend to shy away from the general square shapes and decided to make some small random shapes but join them together. here we have wire with trapped plastic, stitch, knitted strip with trapped plastic letters, bound torn strip and scrim.

so here is my lobster after adding paper pulp and stitch.

'L' with added buttonhole stitch and spiders web, 'O' looping and linking threads with added paint on the paper and between the lace threads, 'B' i wanted to keep quite plain so added thread and paint on paper.

'S' more random buttonhole stitch, 'T' i left, 'E' added stitch to the gun caps after sprayed black, 'R' i updated the insertions found on Gros point lace.

Finally with this one i just added some more pieces of sweet wrapper stitched in place like a repair. Good old Haribo!

We Won !!!!!!

The Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery has won the Art Fund Prize 2012! Well done everyone!

Lets go back to Chapter 5!

it has taken quite a while for me to do this chapter, time to devote to it, waiting for devoré paste then fabric, then i decided to buy a proper screen for screen printing as i knew i would use it again and ........ So here goes and by the way Art Van Go don't stock 'Fibre Etch' anymore as they say it was too harsh! so firstly in #1 i used the devoré paste freehand in the top one and with a 'Thermofax' screen on the lower one. both on cotton organdie to create actual holes.

# 2 for some reason i had a whole collection of Whaleys devoré fabric samples so i tested my screen on these and it was quite interesting to see the different results. so top left is cotton/poly jersey, poly/rayon and linen,silk/viscose satin, then next row down from left silk/viscose Georgette, wool/viscose/nylon, poly/viscose and finally poly/cotton. i decided to buy some of the poly/viscose as this had given a really striking effect.

#3 shows my screen in use with a paper template as a mask between the screen and the fabric, the paste has made the fabric transparent and the brightly coloured squares is the plastic table protector. i decided whilst waiting for various deliveries that i would prepare templates and cut outs ready, so i worked with images i had used before for previous chapters.all the pieces are about A4 in size.

#4 once the paste is dry (and it can take quite a while) it is ironed on a gentle setting till it turns brown. sometimes the really brown areas were more difficult to remove than the less brown. i found the best way to remove it was to immediately put it in water and gently remove the burnt fibres which smelt like crumpets! these procedures were carried out in well ventilated areas.

#5 and voila a devoréd image. this one i use torn strips of paper and my cloud images from before (looks a bit Matissey)

#6 i used a paper cut mask of the image below, using both the positive and negative pieces of paper. i think i got slightly carried away with this method and i am certainly smitten with the effect.

my husband said to me 'what on earth do you want to take a picture of that for?'

#8 i used letter cut outs and paper offcuts for this one. it is also the same as image #4 where i had stitched a zig-zag in the top right creating a wonderful texture, might have to try some more of this

#9 i then added colour to a couple of pieces, the above i had used stitch, paper masks and thread masks to create the images. i wanted to colour in isolated areas so i used Koh i nor dyes and painted them on (not sure how fast they are! but it achieved the effect i wanted.

#10 just adding a bit of colour. i am keen to continue with these perhaps dyeing them and over printing but at the moment i feel i have done enough?!