Just a little catch-up

I'm still plugging away with more projects at home, but seeing as I've left my camera at the studio, this post will just be a catch-up on the three pieces Astrid and I did for the "Production" project in Projects II.

It was a really good exercise in working together. One idea sprung another and another--the creativity it fostered was great. But I feel like conceptually, it was hard to keep it focused and together. Next time, I really think more time should be spent sketching and solidifying a unified concept and work-plan.



Dress no.1: Earth--muslin, gauze, cardboard, varnish.
Astrid made the beautiful cardboard top for this--I adore the way it looks, unfortunately, it ended up being more fragile than anticipated. My portion for this one fell through a bit. The knitted skirt I posted about last time was meant to go with it, and I spent a ton of time working on it, but in the end, it really didn't work together. The skirt you see on it now was a hail-mary 2-AM-the-night-before bit of work (not procrastinating on that, just I'd been trying to get the crystal done, it was due the day before)



Dress no.2: Sea--wool, garland, thread, fabric medium, silk, cotton knit
The most sucessful of the three, I think. The integration on the (very!) different parts and textures went way better then I would have imagined. I love the texture Astrid created with the felted wool on the skirt, and I'm really happy with the wool-and-fabric medium over the shiny square christmas garland I used for the top. It obscured it just enough--made it look like rough ice.



Dress no.3: Sky--silk crepe, coiled cotton gauze, cotton fabric, bleach.
Stretching the limits of dying (or at least, past my limits of dying.) Astrid dyed that beautiful gradation of grays, and I'm proud to say the black silk crepe was my dye-job--I've failed so many, many times to get accurate blacks that "failure black" is a color I've become very familiar with. And I know we both swore to never coil again, but there it is up on the bodice. Looks very pretty, don't know how well it'd hold.

All three dresses came out very beautiful, but I think the shifting focus and the fact that they aren't a sturdy as I like my finished garments to be means I'm sort of ambivalent about them. However, I do love a lot of the techniques that came out of the process, and I really hope that we can collaborate more~


This post has also shown me that I take awful, awful pictures of my work. I'm really sorry about that, I can't blame it all on my point-and-shoot piece of crap. So my belated christmas resolution is to take more care with photos of my work.

New Year, New (and belated) Update

First of all, a big thanks to the folks at Crafster for putting me on their Top of 2008 List for my jellyfish skirt It's not one of my favorite pieces, but it's probably one of my most (and I hesitate to use this word) "pretty" works. But hey, I'm proud of it. So thanks!

Anyway! I've been hard at work in my mini-studio at home. And I've (finally) gotten back in the studio (to find it a wreck and covered in sawdust from construction) so I have pictures of my work from the end of the semester.

Homework:


This one's mostly a secret, because it's for my Fibes Secret Santa. But I've never actually tried bargello before, thought I'd give it a whirl.



I've been playing around with the idea of starting to scale down my work--it's a lot easier to make a small mannequin with features than a full size one. So I did a test run, and made this little doll. It's a little creepy, I admit, I haven't sculpted anything in a long time. But it's a good starting point.


I'm sort of regretting my genius idea to work as small as the fabric would allow on this quilt. It's probably about 2' by 3' at the moment, I want it to be at least 4X this size at the end. Each square is about the size of a nickel. And it's all made of recycled t-shirts.


Skirt idea I'm messing around with.

I've also been working on some tiny portraits, but I forgot to get photos. Next time!


From school:




I didn't actually end up using this as part of a finished piece, but I'm quite proud of it. This is the result 60 hours of work, about $100 worth of wool, and two pairs of jerry-rigged circular needles made of dowels and monofiliment. I'm a bit pissed that the dye took different on the different wools, but otherwise I'm really pleased with this piece. The gradation worked out really well, even as I got to the heavier yarns--I was using 4 strands of comically thick, rope like wool at the end there.




My lamp, which is now sadly, covered in sawdust from the walls they put up in the studio. I was unable to hang it from the ceiling or wall as I had planned (turns out the crit-spaces wall and ceilings are made of dryway and steel girders) so I made a base, which is kind of nice, because now I can set it up where ever.

Lit and on it's pedestal

I've also finally gotten pictures of the three garments I did with Astrid (over at
Snakes and Leeches) but they have so many detail shots that I'll save them for next post. I'll leave you with my new studio set-up


I like my red flowery wall thanks.

Pokemon and President Buffington watching over me.

And on the other wall, my 'Just Pomerianians' calender.

Sleep, Sleep, and more Sleep

It's over and done with. Sadly, in my sleep-deprived, near-comatose state at the end there, I neglected to get any decent pictures of anything. Which is a shame, because I'm really quite proud of both pieces.

However, not all is lost! I do have my photo-project from Experiment Costuming--which means much nicer pictures than my normal snap-shots. Big thanks to Diana and Betty and Ryan for helping me out with these.


Experimental Costume and Performance, 2008


T-Shirt Remix


Thrift Remix


Lost in Translation



Scale/Accessory: Body Extension








Action/Movement Garment

Exciting news and Final Projects

So...uh...next Wednesday I'm trying out for a Fashion-based Reality show. No, really! I have no idea what it entails other than that. They're holding the casting call at one of my school's buildings, so I was like, "What the heck, I'll email them" My email was a little bizarre (I think I referred to MTV as 'banal' at some point...but hey! I like banal, tacky stuff) so I was really surprised when they called me this morning.

Wish me luck? I guess!

On a more important front, hahah, let's see what I've been up to currently! I've been busy catching up, and that seems to have made me behind again.

Advanced Fibers--"Membrane"

I'm stretching the assignment a little to include 'light' as something to fill a membran, if only because I've had this idea of 'stained glass crystal-cluster lamps' for a while. It's a little hard to explain, the pictures will probably help out.

So I started by making some paper crystal models out of bristol. There's about 6-7 different structures, but most have been disassembled to trace them onto the plexiglass, some of which you can see here. As a tip: don't use plexiglass if you can help it. I had to buy a dang jigsaw to cut it, and it smells awful because it melts a bit as you're cutting. Big props to the hardware store on 20th between Pine and Spruce for taking pity and giving me $10 off. Thanks dude!

Then i drew out some stained glass designs for each face. They're all blow-ups of details of real windows I've found online.

Then I dyed a bunch of china silk in really nice, jewel-tones for the glass. China silk is quite translucent, and takes color really well. Except for the red! I had to over dye it three times to get that deep color (first bath, Acid Red, second, Golden Yellow, third, MX Scarlet treated as an acid dye)

Cutting out the designs. I originally wanted to use silk crepe and reverse-applique it, I must have been insane. Even in the best situation, that would have taken me forever. And it was far from the best situation, the silks kept slipping around. So I went a bought this odd coated cotton (? Maybe? it's from Jomar, so who knows?) It cuts super cleanly, so I'm just gluing it all in. As long as it looks clean I don't think it'll raise any issues.

One of the plexiglass crystals assembled. I'm shooting for each lamp to be a group of 3-4, and for there to be 3 lamps. Don't know if this is possible~!

Partially covered lamp. These will probably be illuminated by LED christmas lights wrapped up in some sort of fabric to diffuse the light.



And Projects "Production"

Me and my mate Astrid really want to collaborate over the summer to create a whole collection of clothing, so this is our test-run. If it goes well, our adviser, Mi Kyoung, is going to help us write a proposal to get studio space over the summer. We're making three garments right now, each loosely based on Space, Ice and Earth, respectively.

Ice:



Working on the bodice right now, it's some sort of odd Christmas garland I'm covering with wool and fabric medium to tone it down a bit. The netting is just sewing thread, it's going to get a good deal denser, then will probably also get treated with medium. Astrid is working on the bottom, which I believe will be shredded cotton gauze, treated and stiffened at the end to resemble icicles.

Space:


Pieces of the skirt. The fabric took the black dye rather oddly, and now I'm going back with bleach to create an almost shibori like effect. The coloration really reminds me of hubble space photos.

These don't look like much now, but they'll be coiled together to form the top, forming spiral shapes reminiscent of galaxies.

Ughhhh, so much left to do! I haven't left the studio before 2 o'clock at all this week I think. Just have to pull through for 2 more weeks!

Sometime next week I want to make a post about all the talented ladies I work with up here, you folks should know about them too!