Frosty Installation

It has been SO COLD here we have had a lot of ground frost. So here is the sculpture with ice on !



In the sketch book been working on more images of Louise's work. Planning a small sketch book on her which will be filled with images and notes round them. All the books I have read say that Louise adds notes to what ever she has to hand, thus they appear on the back of art, in the margins of books etc etc ...so I will be adding comments from the artist and my own feelings about the piece of work in the image.... AND there will be a spider , well you have to have a spider !

Installation Update

The pieces have not changed shape. The silk element seems to be getting dirty ! The colour of the word Cotton seems to be loosing its colour ??

I have added a picture of the whole area. You can see how small these are.

Louise Bourgeois

Joined my friend L on Friday afternoon at Tate Modern to see the Louise Bourgeois exhibition.

Mamman was waiting outside.
No camera were allowed in the exhibition but I spent some of the time drawing the oganic shapes in someof her work.
Buildings and how they relate to the family as been a whole area of her work. These tall building based sculptures were created when she lived in New York.
More recently she has move to fabric as a lighter medium than the wood and steel she used to use. Born in 1911, she now needs the lighter materials. This is a tall tower of stuffed tapestry blocks.
Within many of the installations there were pink pin cushions which grew in size between each piece of work. One of the last times the cushion is seen it is the hieght of a human. Needles and threads appear in much of her work as her parents had a business restoring tapestries.
Spiders feature quite a bit. This is a close sketch ofhow she forms the legs and the joints.

Using the leg joint sketch to create a wholespider.

Finally, notes from the day. Louise is reported to write notes and diaries on any available paper. Many of the her drawings have notes in the margins or round the edge.

DISTURBING .... this was the word which L and I agree upon at the end. Louise work needs a broad mind as she deals with organic forms mostly body parts. As Louise willmostlikely become a focus artist for this module, I see these notes being printed on fabric then mounted on an end board for a consatina book. More work on spider legs I think !!

Well there has been a change outside with the sculpture.... Its falling over !!

No I don't mean its been blown over, the points are slowly falling to one side as if the rain has beaten them down. BUT when you touch it, it is still firm ??

Looks worse in this shot but you can see how the silk & cotton are almost laying on their side !

Copper stitching and an Installation

The cotton sample has now totally dried. Here it is sitting on my DH's PC.

Now you can also have a closer look. Unlike the silk, now it is dried you can not tell that this fabric has a hardener on !!!

Anyway I spent some time working on the copper weave to add some embroidery. Being copper you can not use a hoop and you have to be very careful not to bend the copper as you stitch !!

Here is a close up of the copper stitching =)
It took a little time to mould the copper into a simular shape to that made by the drying cotton !

AND FINALLY - the three pieces were install outside. I really think they look like three pieces of fabric have been dropped bit have not quite settled. I have added a few rocks to the edge of the copper sheet to ensure if does not blow away ! This was Saturday morning.... since then we have had LOTS of rain and the last time I popped out to check everything was still in place and looking very much as you see above although wetter !!! =)

Another photo next week and each week as the pieces live in that spot !!
Truely "public art"...well if the public came round my back garden .

Copper and Cotton

Time to get messy again. Started to look at working with cotton. First perpared the fabric square with a little stitching.
Then added a LONG thread to one corner to allow the fabric to beheld up while the fabric was drying.
Next pulled out the Pacerpol, plastic and a bowl.
Poured a little of the guck into the bowl.
Fabric is pushed and squashed into the paverpol. Making sure everything is soaked but not soaking. They say you can use gloves but you can not get the feel of when the fabric is ready that way. Finally, pulled the fabric out and set up to harden. This is where the fabric in the corner comes in as this can be tied to a pole. Hint: Crabtree & Everlyn garden scrub is great for getting paverpol of your hands.

Also started to investigate if the copper fabric can be stitched ?? And YES it can. You have to watch for the odd threads on the edge catching your thread or your hands. Plus you cannot use a hoop...

The fabric is VERY sheeras you can see where I have made french notes but the linkingthreads can be seen, although this could be an useful effect to use !!
Gathering the fabric works too...Above pulled tight and below not so tight. The fabric creates interesting shapes as the light falls on it !!
Now to wait the Paverpol to dry !!!

Fabric Folds

Been a slow two weeks, what with being ill last weekend and lots of work to get done. I have been doing some stitching , have a look at my main Blog.

I did start to use the quiet times in my working day to to quick sketches of fabric folds. Sitting behide someone gives you a good chance to sketch their clothing. Thus all these sketches are on lined paper as that is what my work note book contains !!!

Fabric Sculpture

Been looking at fabric and folds. Started with looking at sketching folded fabric.

For these I held the fabric up on a string.

Where next with the fabric ??
Creating a sculpture. I have had my first play with the Paverpol. Messy or what !!! The jar contains a thick white gloopy liquid. You place the fabric into the gloop and work it into the fabric. Then leave it tpharden off... for THREE DAYS !!! Not used to waiting =)

This is my first piece held in place with string until it sets. Then I wondered bout mixing fabric and metal. I have plans to using the copper cloth I bought at Ally Pally... but then remembered a sheet of 0.1mm copper I had had for ages. Thus started to form the copper into the shape of a piece of fabric.
I also cut a few smaller pieces of the copper cloth. Found that like the copper sheet the copper cloth can also be molded into shapes, although
it does not have the same strength. Will have to try paverpol on it !!

Louise Bourgeois

No, I have not attended the exhibition yet, but been looking over the Tate Modern web site to check the details.

They now have images showing some of the piece on display. I am surprised to see how much fabric she uses in her work. OK , so I tend to think of her metal spiders and do not know much more about her work beyond those !

The website details the contents of the 10 rooms.
Room 9 :http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/louisebourgeois/rooms/room09.shtm
Shows a fabric tower made of blocks. Below is a direct link to it !

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/louisebourgeois/images/works/106a.jpg


Reply to L's comment in the last post ....
The copper fabric came from CrazyWire Company. http://www.crazywireco.co.uk/
They do the copper , bronze and steel cloth as well as knitted metals too.

Exploring the Line

Moved on to the next assignment looking at line. Started this by investigating all the different pen, crayons, pencils, paints etc etc in the art box. This is the bio page.Although some of the others covered more than one page due to the thickness of the line. The paint was great fun as even more ideas could be tried out. Liked this one of dropping thread into paint then dropping the thread onto the page to create the shapes. Having paint out had to create line with my fingers ... =)
Next will be moving on to look at making line drawings on architechural forms.

Last week at the Knit and Stitch Show picked up some Paverpol. It is a textile hardener which they were selling for create garden statues....Errrmmm can see this needs to be played with. Watch out for updates here.
I have been to look for art made using Paverpol .... Try one or two of these links.
http://home.planet.nl/~emiel.smulders/h-kunstwerk2.htm
http://www.crazywireco.co.uk/13.html This is the company I bought my pot from.
http://www.paverpolaustralia.com/instruct.html
http://www.mouseandmoon.com/Fabstatuegallery.htm - whole gallery
I also bought a fat quarter of copper cloth..yup woven copper. Hubby and I had a long chat about if metal creates a cloth or not...Is this a textile ?? Well YES, we loked up textile and its definded as a woven material.... =)

"Textile Perspectives in Mixed-media Scultpure " by Jac Scott has arrived so started to read that.... WOW!!!

Drawing on Fabric

Started to look at creating the work from the paper and stitched samples on to fabric. I started in the same way I had done with the paper, glue down paper text samples and then paint dye over. Using the dye would give me the same colours as the paper.

What I found was that as the fabric took the water more the colours merged to give different shapes to the edges. Also I was able to stitch much more heavy into the fabric so the black stitching is more dense than the paper versions.
With each sample I tried slightly different ways to add the dye looking at how much water had tobe applied before the colours started to weaken.
With all of them adding the black stitching really brought the shapeout and changed the colour of the dye.
These could look great as the side of a bag where the dyes are used to colour the rest of the fabric.

Next - handstitching along the same lines...This time I wanted to try using layers of chiffon to create the colours.. plus the useof a varigated thread and running stitch created textures direction and holds the chiffon down. Under the chiffon are more paper text samples.The close upbelow you can see the effect better.

This is the sample finished.
Tate Modern will open a Louise Bourgeois exhibtion next week. One of her Maman spiders has been errected outside the Tate building.... Through work I have tickets for myself and my friend L to visit. Work have a corperate membership so we get to borrow the cards for an evening.

I have also had a chance to take some photos of the sculpture at Guildford University. Its called Knife Birds by Bridget McCrum. Follow the link and look at her portfolio the Knife Birds are currently the first image shown. The slide show below are my photos.