Black and Yellow

So, this is the jacket that I did for my final weaving project last semester. While I like what this is, it isn't exactly what I set out to do. This project began with one of the other weavers doing pleats. I thought it would be neat to have a jacket with pleats down the back that got consecutively larger.

I wanted the pleats to be made out of something see through, so that you got a layered effect. (I have been thinking about trying the pleats again and scratching the visibility idea, just because I still have this image stuck in my head of what I wanted it to look like in terms of form... which is this but isn't this.)

I tried a number of different things. The one that ended up working the best was the fishing line. Though my original idea was to use plastic, as I did with the garment in the previous post. However, even if the plastic was cut in very narrow strips, the visibility was lost when it got bunched up in the weave.

I'm currently planning on doing a set up that includes both this piece and the plastic/trashion piece as interacting with each other. Similar in some respects to what I tried to do with this scene. In this scene I plan on working with the silhouette as I did in weighted. The difference being that in this current scene, I would like to attempt to try and make the silhouette look as if it is wearing the garment hanging out in front of it.

I'm going to try a set up that includes on the heads, hands and feet of the silhouette and not the entire thing. The problem that I can see right now, is the fact that different people will be viewing it from varying heights, as we are all different shapes and sizes. This will mean that if I line up the garments and the outlines for my height, it will be off for everyone else.

Though I suppose some wiggle room could be added in there... there is some work that needs to be done, and things that need to be played around with. I'm hoping to get some time in the study this weekend to see what I can do.  I thought about going in today but... I can't carry everything I need with me and that's the only option at this point.

Anyway, I need to figure out how I want to model for the silhouettes for me. Doing myself is hard and easy at the same time. There is something in that thought, of doing to silhouettes of myself. Hmmm... has a different meaning though.

Alright, that's it for now. Outwards and onwards. Poofs.

What?

I've been trying to figure out the last few days, why certain images appeal to me. Why do I find one more evocative then the other? What is the element that hooks me and draws me in? I'm not sure what it is, but usually it's because I read an emotional content into it. An emotional content that feels truly expressed in some way. Though, in truth I'm not rightly sure how to show that or to put it into words in other ways.

The reason for attempting to do this, is linked to another problem. I have not posted images of this work, but I've been working in hanging garment forms in my textiles work of late. In creating narratives between these disembodies garments that become representation of people, stories and lives. So in trying to figure out what appeals to me in an image, I'm hoping to try and better express that feeling or thought in the scenes that I create with these garment forms.

I'm also working with pairing specific garments with silhouettes on the walls. Where in this gets a little harder because you have less and more to work with. The trick now is figuring out what the relationship between the silhouette and the garment is. Does it change based on objects and arrangement? Does it always contain some of the same inherent properties? What is the story, image, or emotion that I wish to convey?

To give you some examples, here are a few images of some of the pieces that I worked on last semester. Though the locations are not exactly ideal for displaying these garments without background interference, it is what it is. :)

For some reason I'm having a hard time figuring this out. I was hoping that writing this might help but I still have no answers. Hahhaa. Alright enough wasting time on the computer. Cheers. vanishes

I Agree...

"I'm really increasingly disheartened by people pretending that digital technology creates real emotions. I'm tired of people saying, 'I have facebook friends.' I have friends." -- Alexie Sherman

Digital tech. has it's uses and its good things. But it becomes nothing more then a crutch. It creates emotions but really they don't last. I've been part of this digital world for over ten years now. I've thought I had good friends and maybe I did at the time. However, there isn't a single person I talk to regularly online any longer that I knew even a year ago, now.

There are two people that I keep in touch with off and one, but it's casual it doesn't really mean a great deal. Where as the people that I've kept in real life that I've become friends with in person, face to face. Some of them I've known for over ten years. They end up being the people that come and go, those that matter return. Now, perhaps this isn't always the case but it does seem to be a trend.

While networking and such online might be a great thing and have it's benefits. Reaching a diverse group of people,  more people around the world and such. However, much of it is changing, fleeting and unstable. It is just as easy to unfriend someone on facebook as it is to friend. After all what in the end does a friendcount mean when you don't even know anything about most of them, you just add them so it looks like you have lots of friends. It's an illusion, like people putting well known books on their book shelves in public rooms in their houses so that visitors think they've read them.

So much is a facade, perhaps even more so online then it is face to face. While, I use facebook and I find it fun at times and no offense to those of you that I enjoy talking with online and there are a couple of you. But I would rather have friends. This is a dichotomy that I become in creasing aware of the older I get. I used to think my online friends would be there forever. However, there comes a time when things change when those friends you thought would always be on the inside of your screen disappear. People do it in real life to, don't get me wrong. But what I have found is that people in real life come back and those who vanish from the ether rarely return and when they do... it's never the same.

Cherish those friends around you, make they last. Talk to people online be friends. But remember it's the people you can see, you can year and you can touch that really matter. The internet is but a crutch that allows us some measure of safety. It allows us not to be forced into the vulnerable situation of social interaction that can tie our stomach in knots and make us want to throw up. Living is tying yourself up in knots, it is throwing up a little, it is getting hurt and it is reaping the rewards for your nerves. vanishes

Remember, 2010

So, the semester is mostly over now. The Textiles department in tandem with the sculpture department is doing a joint show at the end of the week. Well, this weekend I finally got down to work on the piece that I'm going to show there.

Over the course of the semester the school has been switching over to digital art images and discarded all of their slides. The Slide Show Project, us utilizing all of these discarded slides, and creating art objects that use them in some way.

I went through a fair number of project ideas, in trying to approach this project. Finally I settled with the idea of memory and the way that we remember things. The way that I remember things vs. the way that someone else will remember it and how that can change over time. The idea went with the image of a child reading a book at night under the covers.

Thus this project is made out of old bedsheets that have been sewn together to create a miss-matched window pattern across the surface. The second step is to sew a number of slides onto it. I'm going to go with the smaller sets of four and not the full pages of slides. This last stage is the one that I'm currently working on.

Dreams and Forgotten Ideas

Paleontology Bumper Sticker by =vanilla-vanilla on deviantART

This conversation took place in response to the linked image above. This work is not mine by belongs to my friend Vanilla-Vanilla.

J. I do so love dreams most of the time. *chuckles*

V. Dreams are great fun! Well, mostly.

J. lol mostly dreams are great even those that are scary can be interesting in their own right. What scares you other then the obvious? I had a friend who dreamed about a raccoon chasing her around with a gun and one of the worst dreams I ever had was about giant flesh eating grasshoppers...

V. When I have nightmares, which isn't often, they seem to involve just general spookiness, and sometimes werewolves. (I hate werewolves, and horror films in general anyway.) The other scary thing is sensations of inability to move, being "tied down" and/or squished.

J. I had a waking dream one time where I was asleep and I couldn't move but I was in my room and I could hear people outside. That really freaked me out.
Mostly it's the unknown, something in the dark. Something I term a 'monster' but I don't usually see it. I simply know what it is that it's there.


V. Yeah, the "can't move" sensation is a weird one. The Japanese call it "kanashibari". I actually have the feeling of being squished and paralyzed sometimes, often associated with bad dreams, and wake up making weird noises. Hmm. Not a good topic before bed-time!

J. Wow, that's really fascinating [link] and there are stories from all around the world as well. There is something in that. I shall sit on that and put it in my ideas folder for now.

V. Ah, good. In the ideas folder, where it will lurk, ready to pounce at a later date.

J. Or be forgotten. I have some random things in there. I have gone back through it on occasion.

V. Ah, right, the folder of forgotten fantasies..

J. Brilliant title, for something. But yeah something like that. Though It end to have the Note book of Forgotten Fantasies, which just doesn't have the same ring.... how about FlipBook of Forgotten Fantasies?

V. Mm, the flipbook of forgotten fantasies. OK. Sounds interesting.

J. Could be a fun visual as opposed to something you're actually meant to read. With the flipbook being often a momentary diversion to look at for a short time set aside and usually forget about.

Seva

Seva is a word meaning service in Sanskrit.
Seva may also refer to:

• Volunteer work; selfless service; work offered to God (in Indian Religions)
• Seva, in Indian cuisine, a snack food made by deep-frying strands of chick pea flour dough flavored with chili powder, salt, and sometimes coriander
• The Seva Foundation, a non-profit foundation that fights blindness and poverty
• Seva, Barcelona, a municipality in the comarca of Osona, Catalonia, Spain
• Abbreviation of rare east-slavic name Vsevolod
• Seva (Puerto Rico) is a fictional town described in the novel Seva by Puerto Rican author Luis López Nieves.
• Seva (short story): by Puerto Rican author Luis López Nieves.
• Seva in Tirumala: Arjita Sevas at Tirumala Venkateswara Temple.

SEVA may refer to:

• Stand-up EVA, an extra-vehicular activity in which an astronaut partially emerges into space

Link: Information copy and pasted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Because Time Flies...

And there never seems to be enough of it to do everything. I did a quick mock up for this because I wanted to try and remember what I was thinking. Since I don't think I'm going to get around to doing this.

We'll see what happens. *laughs* I would like to do something that succeeds with lights.

Okay, no time for major word vomit, other things to do.

And another more serious mock up to do before class later today. Not to mention many other things.

 *disappears*

Polishing the Egg

The distinguishing feature between a dream and a nightmare is what one is scary while presumably the other is not. At least when you ask people what sets them apart that is the most given answer, "Well, duh a nightmare is well scary." However, I feel that with dreams what often scares us is the odd, the strange, the out of place or the unknown elements. Which is often what makes up a dream. Thus a dream can be a dream or a nightmare or both all at the same time.

So, I put forth that a dreams are rather like eggs. You see an egg, you think, "Chicken!", or perhaps, "Yum, breakfast."

Dreams are like eggs, we know what is on the outside of them and we believe that we know what is on the inside. Yet, in truth we can nether see nor determine what is actually inside the egg. Is it a chicken egg, a goose egg or did the fair folk sneak in during the night and put a dragon egg in there? Or something much more mundane is it a good egg, an egg with a double yoke or perhaps did it sit in the nest too long and begin to produce a little living thing in there.

Once the egg or the dream is broken we can not put it back together again, we are left with the pieces. The good or the bad.

Alright that's enough foolish word vomit from me for tonight. Image from here. *disappears*

Idea For the Future....

So I signed up for a DeviantArt account years ago and I never ever used it. Recently I decided to start using it while I work on setting up a webpage and all that (something I kept meaning to do and never got around to doing). Anyway to keep this short, as I have a tendency to ramble on with ease... I've recently been talking to a few people on there about a few things. I've been using the journal feature on DA, to post observations about art/society/things of interest and the like not as an actual journal in the hopes of illiciting interesting conversations out of people. Mostly it hasn't worked unfortunately, people don't want to talk about odd observations (silly people don't they know what's good for them?)

Well recently I found someone who will actually comment somewhat on my little bits and pieces of things. It has been a lot of fun. The reason I put this in here is, I did a post after the Found event on how I found the audience more interesting to watch in this case. The audience became part of the art work which was an interesting thing to observe. I speculated on how you could work the audience into the art work make them part of the art work.

So that the art project is not so much about what is on display but on the reactions that illicit' from the audience. So perhaps you simply display a number of odd and random objects, or perhaps the objects are more considered then that. One of the suggestions that Vanilla-Vanilla, suggested was use of photographs of people holding random objects and then the work is photographs of people reacting to photographs. I also had the idea of perhaps using the digital cloth printer in the textiles studio--assuming it ever gets up and working--because I like the idea of taking one medium and turning it into another or working it in with another.

Anyway, future food for thought now back to the current project at hand. *disappears*

Edit: For future referance the entirety of the post/conversation can be found here.

Brief Update

As always running out of time, not enough time in which to get things done! Anyway, so just a quick update for now.

I hung up the sheet walls I made yesterday, took a few notes and a few pictures. Some of these I will post later. I needed three to four more sheets, I got those last night though I have not had time to put them together yet. I will probably try and get a couple of extra ones just in case.

1. I still need to get fabric from JoAnn's and test the samples they gave me yesterday to see if they will stain properly.
2. Image, do I want a framed picture or to paint a picture onto the sheets?
3. Two doors or one?
4. Must finish doing the sound file and try and do a test run this weekend to see how the sounds interact with the ambient sound from outside and the fabric surroundings, etc. (Hopefully get done this weekend anyway, see how Lotus fest goes. It will all be fine, it will all be fine, it will all be just fine!)

Just a few questions to think about:

1. I have permission to use the coffee table and the rocking chair (now I just have to figure out the desk.)
2. I found a friend who has a floor rug that I can use to help delineate the space.

Okay I think that's it. Now time to run and do work, gah sometimes I wonder if it's worth trying to do the work and the school thing at the same time. Oh well, I can't have one without the other I suppose, I will flesh this out as soon as I get a chance and post some of the pictures I took yesterday. Poofs out.

Pearing Down

Alright, so I feel like I can breath again now. Lotus fest isn't up but a great deal of the work I had my fingers in is at least done. Now, I must admit I feel slightly more optimistic about life and about this project in general. I wish my brain could deal with more things but there's just only so many things I can force it to focus on at once. I also spent an hour or so today talking with Rowland today, which helped me sort out a few things.

Pear it down into something more manageable was his suggestion and he's right. I simply have not been able to figure out how to do that. However, I think I have some idea now.

Implied presents, things that are implied through the use of other objects. Aka, coffee table implies a couch, tv remote implies at TV, etc.

List of things I need:
1. A large'ish rug of some sort.
2. A portable desk, (I can possibly use one from home.)
3. Coffee table, (Again I can probably use the one from home.)
4. Sheer fabric, (check and see what Joann's has--hopefully tomorrow.)

I got a number of old sheets tonight and sewed those together. I'm going to see if that will work as a surrounding/insulating backdrop tomorrow. And then we will go from there. Now I need to go pass out, I'm tired of being tired. disappears.

How to...

My biggest issue with this project is not the what of it so much is the how of it. How do you take a living room and re create it in another space, easily? There in lies the problem. There is no easy about it, not truly. Not without help in moving furniture--where to get the furniture from--into a space and out of a space.

I had an epiphany on the fact a couple of nights ago. I had been toying with the idea of doing a recreation with doll furniture, but I did not truly like that idea. I love the idea of having a space that people walk through that surrounds you, that is not entirely comfortable. Or perhaps it is comfortable, I have realized during my brief explorations into this idea that it could also be seen in a positive light and not simply a negative light. As I can see both aspects of this fact, I suppose this is not a bad thing and often works presented simply in one manor are much less interesting. You can put something forward with any intention and no matter what the intention the audience will always walk away with a different reading.

Alright since I am once again running out of time to get anything written in here, I will hurry the process along:

Idea - Make the room a back drop, use fabric/old sheets and paint the living room upon there. Then minimal furniture cure would be needed for this set up and the technology which is another problem. If done right this would still give the illusion of a space. (The problem is I really want to do it the other way I just don't see how to get everything into a space that could be used for critiquing purposes in terms of the class.)

Anyway, I'm out of time now. Off to see how much Mister smooth talking teacher who can't answer a simple question with anything but bull is going to annoy me today. *disappears*

Edit - Though I suppose if I could somehow create the shape of objects within a typical living room without actually having them there that might work. But that doesn't necessarily convey what I want. As the idea is to have such objects there but to have them disconnected from the rest of the setting.

Audience + Art Work

How doe the audience affect the audio presents of the piece. When people gather together they are going to talk, it is going to be part of the art work in some way, so take that into account. The audience is directing and indirectly involved--always.

Do you want the audio to be private or shared and mingled with the audience? How do you want things to be heard and how much do you want it to be heard?

This applies to any art work but more specifically to works that include sound. Because the people are going to change the sound, what you here and how everything works together as a cohesive whole. *disappears*