So the first one, is the one hanging slightly farther up--the spider web one. This project started out from the idea of doing cocoon's and cocoon rattles is where it went. That particular rattle is made out of Mawata (Silk Hankies), that are made from silk worm cocoons. They were stretched across the branch and then with liberal use of spray starch and a bit of glue they stayed on. However, beneath them are two key components that give it more structure: string was wound around the branch first in various direction to give some added mesh another layer for the hankies to stick to, strung from the strings were a number of silk rods.
I'm not sure that you can see the silk rods on the inside (they are a golden color next to the white of the silk), inside of the rods I sewed bells. Thus when you pick it up and shake it the whole thing jingles. The over all affect was nice but rather quieter then I wanted it too be.
The second one was made out of the silk worm cocoon's themselves, I purchased all that Shadeyside Farms had. The nice thing about these were, I did not get the good ones. I purchased all of their discolored or deformed cocoon's. They were very nice people if you ever need anything I would suggest getting it from them. I was not disappointed, prompt email responses, etc.
As you can tell from the image many of these were dipped in red dye to give them a little more contrast--a decision I'm not overly fond of not as it just looks like blood--against the white wall in the gallery space. All of these were threaded on a red string and wound around the branch that they were attached to.
Which brings me to where the idea for this piece started for me and that was with silk worm cocoon's themselves. I had purchased a couple off of cocoon's and rods from Larkspurfunnyfarm, out of curiosity to see what they looked like. The one thing that really intrigued me was the fact that--with the dead bug inside of them--they rattled. (I actually have ideas and plans to make a dress that has these all over it so that it rattles when you move but we'll see how that goes.) I was so intrigued by this phenomenon that I wanted to do more with them and so it went from there.
Now, we get to the good part. So I was paired up with a Ceramists by the name of Chris White. Chris did a lot of the wood gathering, and helped build/mount the piece that goes on the wall as well. On this last one he also created ceramic tiles that look like little bits of bark.
The under bits of this cocoon are actually made from stitched piece of wool. I was going to make it from undyed silk rods; however, it was not large enough to contain the tiles or the weight at that point. I dyed the wool roughly the same color as the cocoon's and then cut it into similar sized pieces and stitched it with red thread. After it was put together it was stuffed--with raw wool roving--and bound onto the stick. The ceramic tiles were then loosely stitched onto the wool base, so that they over lapped with each other.
Thus when this piece is shaken it is the collection of ceramic tiles hitting one upon the other, that makes the noise.
Over all the project was a lot of fun, though the end result was rather quiet. Unfortunately give the viewing space, it did not have as much effect as I would have liked but--they do not usually have a radio blasting in the corner either. So it was what it is. I hope that, that answers any questions people might have about the production and the collaboration of this project/ exhibit. If you have more feel free to ask. Cheers! J
