My Mother's Work - Unfinished
How the concept fits the object: The skills required to make something are usually unrecognised until the object is complete. As the knitting on display is incomplete, it plays on the idea that "a woman's work is never done" and that the skills required are unrecognised. The pieces on display require advanced knitting skills and a lot of time, due to the complexity of the patterns and the fine gauge of the the wool.
Skills developed: Knit skills already developed. Thinking skills developed by reflecting on how the concept of my Mother's work being unfinished could be demonstrated by using skills that are more commonly held by women.
Difficulties overcome: Very fine yarn is difficult to rip out as the thread will break. Patterns had to be read very carefully and knitted right first time.
Key Artist Influences: Marisa Merz, 1969 Untitled knitting, Tate Gallery
My Mother's Work - Unseen
How the concept fits the object: The jam covers are all that remain once one year's worth of jam making produce has been consumed. The jam produced by my Mother's labour has been consumed and is now unseen. Jam and marmalade making involves a lot of manual layout and the imagery stitched on the jam covers portrays a section of kitchen equipment that is manually handled.
How the work evolved: This piece started with experimentation with displays of jam jars (full and empty); jam labels, drawings of jam. Then it evolved to work about jam; the invisibility of the product once it has been eaten and the labour involved.
Skills developed: Machine embroidery skills already developed. Thinking skills developed by exploring how to move on from creating artwork from an object, to artwork about an object.
Difficulties overcome: Fabric curls up when exposed to heat. The original idea was to pin individual covers to the wall in a grid, but the fabric curls in the atmosphere of the studio. They are also quite fragile as they are cut on the bias, so cannot be handled a lot. Decided to stack them vice Edmund de Waal, so the pieces are "in conversation with each other".
Key Artist Influences:
Edmund de Waal - display of work, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 2013.
Alice Kettle - free machine embroidery in straight lines to build the density of effect
My Mother's Work - Unending
How the concept fits the object: The roller towels develop my Yokes piece from the previous semester. The roller towels get progressively longer, demonstrating how my Mother's work was unending. The writing on the stripe emulates the script on an old-fashioned glass cloth, but alternates My Mother's Work and a verb that describes a working action of cooking, on an object that constantly rotates.
How the work evolved: The original idea was to repeat hand drawn objects on a long roller towel. This was too easily read. Words are important to me, so the imagery was replaced by words. I sought out words used in the used in the kitchen, and various forms of kitchen towels and the two came together well in the use of words on a glass cloth. My Mother's most unending work was cooking, so working words from the cook's vocabulary were appropriate.
Skills developed: Preparation of plain fabric to be suitable for digital print. Development of photoshop skills to manage memory requirements and basic colour and script abilities.
Difficulties overcome: To ensure the work read as a roller towel, I had to ensure the fabric was the right width and feel. I could not just cut a piece of fabric and turn the edge. I had to source a 40m roller towel to get the right fabric with a selvedge edge, and then experiment with coating it with fixative chemicals for the digital printer. I soaked the fabric in soda ash solution, dried it carefully, to avoid creases and tidemarks, and rolled it ready for printing. We were then told we could not drill into the walls, so I could not use traditional wooden mounts. I had to create an innovative solution to display the roller towels via acrylic rods and magnets and fishing line.
Key Artist Influences:
Philippa Lawrence, The Fabric of Making 2013. The use of verbs, in a straight line
Joetta Maue, Breaks My Heart 2009. The use of materials and place in which the work resides. The domain of the home and the female
My Mother's Work - Cyclical
How the concept fits the object: This piece evolved from the roller towels. Work that is unending, is often cyclical. There are many circles in the kitchen - hob rings, colanders, plug holes, drainage holes, crockery. So the cyclical work of washing up, is demonstrated by having a circular tea towel.
How the work evolved: Tea towels were originally printed with a hand drawn kitchen object in the centre. This looked pedestrian and did not explain the circular shape. Then I embroidered the cyclical routine of cooking around the edge and the concept was more clearly embedded into the work.
Skills developed: Photoshop skills with use of different shapes and circular stripes. Accurate use of hand embroidery.
Difficulties overcome: The first samples looked wrong in proportion to ordinary rectangular tea towels. I measured the area of a standard rectangular tea towel, and discovered that for a circular tea towel to have the same proportions, it needed to have a diameter of 61cm. Now the proportions look right. The embroidery needed to be really accurate, and cross stitch on paper was not easy to stitch or wash out. Soluble canvas (punched gelatine sheet) was a convenient solution.
Key Artist Influences: Timorous Beasties, 2012 commission for National Galleries of Scotland, National Portrait Gallery. Use of circles, use of bright colour, use of imagery and sections of objects.
My Mother's Work - Supportive
How the concept fits the object: The settee has simple removable cushions. Women's work in general supports, softens, cushions and enhances the experience of life at home. Therefore the equipment used by my Mother in the kitchen is depicted on upholstery that supports someone resting, and also makes a comment that fits the object portrayed and how a person might feel after using said object.
How the work evolved: Original thoughts were to fit the imagery to a chair and stool, but this required more advanced upholstery skills. Settee selected because of simple shape of cushions, while fitting the concept of comfort and support. Words were originally to be embroidered on the cushions, but were applied to care labels in order to be less obvious. The original drawings were redrawn with pieces of collage background, to introduce the colours of raspberry (pink), marmalade (orange), and aluminium (grey) to fit with the jam making theme.
Difficulties overcome: Stripping the settee frame, as the varnish was badly chipped, was overcome by simple hard work. It was hard to get the right shade of grey (the first sample turned out beige!) but by using the colour picker in photoshop, on a piece of collage, an appropriate grey was identified.
Skills developed: Selecting colours in photoshop, layering colours behind hand drawn imagery.
Key Artist Influences:
Giorgio Morandi - cross hatching drawing style
Stephen Cohen - A Seat for the Rich on the Lap of the Poor 1987
My Mother's Work - Overlooked
How the concept fits the object: The curtains have hand drawn imagery at various sizes. Most kitchen utensils are at actual size, but the wooden spoon has been enlarged to 2m high. This will not be noticeable until the viewer stands back and looks at the curtains at a distance. Therefore the wooden spoon is easily overlooked, in a similar manner to a lot of the daily work done by my Mother.
How the work evolved: incomplete
Difficulties overcome: incomplete
Skills developed: incomplete
Key Artist Influences: Giorgio Morandi - cross hatching drawing style
Sunday, 30 March 2014
Wednesday, 26 March 2014
Mrs Angry and Mrs Calm
I have had a couple of difficult days. I had a dreadful day fighting photoshop to get my roller towels printed. Talk about Mrs Angry! I nearly jacked the course in, with sheer frustration. I just do not have sufficient understanding to do things quickly and efficiently, right first time, and do not seem able to predict the intensity of colour when printed. However after 2 days work, I have put my roller towels in the print queue. I have failed to resolve any of the critique that I received, but given my skill level, it will just have to be good enough.
Additionally, the same day I was told our exhibition room has changed, and nothing can be attached to the wall. No drilling in, no sellotape, no blutack. Given I need a float shelf, and want to wall mount my knitted samples, roller towels and curtain, I was dismayed. The relayed instructions were to "identify innovative solutions"! I was seriously hacked off.
But after a swim, I worked out most pieces could be suspended from the ceiling with magnet fixings and fishing wire. I have become Mrs Calm.
So now I am drafting more artist statements
My Mother's Work - Unfinished
This knitted collection reflects on how work typically carried out by women, often requires high levels of skill, but while incomplete, these skills are frequently unrecognised. This piece aims to celebrate the unsung and unrecognised skills of people like my Mother.
My Mother's Work - Unseen
This collection of 64 jam covers refers to the number of pounds of jam made by my Mother each year for 42 years of marriage. Each cover is embroidered with a section of a utensil that is handled make jam. Every year the jam would be consumed, and the labour involved disappear. This piece celebrates the unseen labour of one year's jam making.
My Mother's Work - Unending
The roller towels demonstrate how the unending nature of women's work slowly dawns on the individual. The words on the roller towels are the verbs used in recipes to make a cake, a shepherds pie, and a lemon merangue - favourite dishes cooked by my Mother. The shortest roller towel alludes to the simple pleasures of making a cake; the second towel shows food preparation is a long term process; and the longest one gives the realisation that my Mother's work with food was never ending.
My Mother's Work - Cyclical
Many domestic tasks are repetitive and are carried out regularly. There are many circles in the kitchen - pots and pans; plates; cups; mixing bowls; colanders; drainage holes; and plug holes. Won'The cyclical nature of my Mother's work is alluded to by the circular shape of the tea towels.
Additionally, the same day I was told our exhibition room has changed, and nothing can be attached to the wall. No drilling in, no sellotape, no blutack. Given I need a float shelf, and want to wall mount my knitted samples, roller towels and curtain, I was dismayed. The relayed instructions were to "identify innovative solutions"! I was seriously hacked off.
But after a swim, I worked out most pieces could be suspended from the ceiling with magnet fixings and fishing wire. I have become Mrs Calm.
So now I am drafting more artist statements
My Mother's Work - Unfinished
This knitted collection reflects on how work typically carried out by women, often requires high levels of skill, but while incomplete, these skills are frequently unrecognised. This piece aims to celebrate the unsung and unrecognised skills of people like my Mother.
My Mother's Work - Unseen
This collection of 64 jam covers refers to the number of pounds of jam made by my Mother each year for 42 years of marriage. Each cover is embroidered with a section of a utensil that is handled make jam. Every year the jam would be consumed, and the labour involved disappear. This piece celebrates the unseen labour of one year's jam making.
My Mother's Work - Unending
The roller towels demonstrate how the unending nature of women's work slowly dawns on the individual. The words on the roller towels are the verbs used in recipes to make a cake, a shepherds pie, and a lemon merangue - favourite dishes cooked by my Mother. The shortest roller towel alludes to the simple pleasures of making a cake; the second towel shows food preparation is a long term process; and the longest one gives the realisation that my Mother's work with food was never ending.
My Mother's Work - Cyclical
Many domestic tasks are repetitive and are carried out regularly. There are many circles in the kitchen - pots and pans; plates; cups; mixing bowls; colanders; drainage holes; and plug holes. Won'The cyclical nature of my Mother's work is alluded to by the circular shape of the tea towels.
Monday, 24 March 2014
Unwell and exhausted but still working
Felt absolutely terrible most of the weekend, aching all over. But kept working, by staying indoors, and doing stuff that required little energy.
This took 3 evenings' work to make up a sample that is 3" long and is about 50 rows of knitting. Once again I have picked another difficult pattern. I now know about 5 ways of making bobbles! None of the samples have the same method!
I am still messing around with how to use the collage section. I like the introduction of collage, but find it difficult to envisage how it will look on fabric. Firstly the collage changes its appearance once scanned, as not all of the paler tones come out. This gives quite an interesting effect. Also I like to put a pale coloured ground on the rest of the background fabric, which makes the tonal variation less stark. Also once in working in Photoshop, you can crop out some of the collage if it appears too great an area, and also reduce the intensity of colour. I still feel I am an amateur playing with photoshop and my inadequate digital skills are going to impact on the quality of output. But all I can do is try my best. Keep pushing at it!
So for someone who felt really ill, it was quite a productive weekend.
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| 5th knitted sample |
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| Lemon Squeezer on collage |
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| And again |
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| Colander on collage |
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| Mixer on collage |
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| Mincer on collage |
So for someone who felt really ill, it was quite a productive weekend.
Friday, 21 March 2014
A good few days then frustration
I had some positive feedback at art class. The maslin pan on a grey ground got a rave review. The tea towels were legitimately criticised ( but I am going to ignore most it as I cannot deal with the level of detail required to rectify it!).
Red needs to be adjusted - agreed.
Try making it white. No, I hate white.
Don't use a binding around the edge, leave it raw. No, I hate raw edges, tea towels never have raw edges, circular raw edges would go ragged very quickly and look shoddy.
Don't put end of binding at top - too easily seen
Sew binding more accurately. Maybe. I doubt most people would see slight wobbles in the stitching, particularly when hung.
Then I went to uni and had a most frustrating day. The studio was packed with a print class, using the fan heaters, screen dryer, baker, steamer, so it was really hot. I was told to roll my 40m roller towel onto a pole ready for printing. I chose a short clean plastic pole, and carefully ironed and rolled it so the left edge was absolutely aligned to unwind perfectly on the printer. And was then told I should have used a cardboard pole as only these ones fitted on the digital printer.
Then I tried to adjust the colour on my roller towel to get a less orange red. Lisa could not remember how to set the printer to pick a standard colour, and suggested I create a selection of reds, do a test print, steam, wash and choose from that. This is just too much bother. It would take at least a week, and would stress me out too much. All I want to do is pick from the sample chart, and use it.
I then tried to prepare the print document for the roller towel, to the stage where all that has to be adjusted is the colour, and the document was slow saving, then ran out of space on the disk.
Finally, the traffic on the way home was appalling and it took 2 hours to drive home.
Red needs to be adjusted - agreed.
Try making it white. No, I hate white.
Don't use a binding around the edge, leave it raw. No, I hate raw edges, tea towels never have raw edges, circular raw edges would go ragged very quickly and look shoddy.
Don't put end of binding at top - too easily seen
Sew binding more accurately. Maybe. I doubt most people would see slight wobbles in the stitching, particularly when hung.
Then I went to uni and had a most frustrating day. The studio was packed with a print class, using the fan heaters, screen dryer, baker, steamer, so it was really hot. I was told to roll my 40m roller towel onto a pole ready for printing. I chose a short clean plastic pole, and carefully ironed and rolled it so the left edge was absolutely aligned to unwind perfectly on the printer. And was then told I should have used a cardboard pole as only these ones fitted on the digital printer.
Then I tried to adjust the colour on my roller towel to get a less orange red. Lisa could not remember how to set the printer to pick a standard colour, and suggested I create a selection of reds, do a test print, steam, wash and choose from that. This is just too much bother. It would take at least a week, and would stress me out too much. All I want to do is pick from the sample chart, and use it.
I then tried to prepare the print document for the roller towel, to the stage where all that has to be adjusted is the colour, and the document was slow saving, then ran out of space on the disk.
Finally, the traffic on the way home was appalling and it took 2 hours to drive home.
Tuesday, 18 March 2014
Final Review
On Monday I had my final review with Antje and the class. It went surprisingly well.
Feedback was:
Tea Towels
- General title to be My Mother's Work as it is more personal, rather than Women's Work
- The gelatin grid for cross stitch words works well. Very accurate.
- Work the words all the way round the tea towels, and put less space between the phrases.
- Writing size good for size of tea towel.
- Consider whether to place image in centre, with words all way round, or image to one side with words from edge to edg of imagery.
- Red too Christmassy/tomatoey. More blueish red would be better. (Lisa asked me to steam the colour swatch digital test fabric and will show me how to pick the right standard colour tomorrow)
- Show one tea towel hanging, and the rest flat.
- Work out how to do hanging loop well
- Proportions not right yet. Work out area of standard tea towel, then get same area for round tea towel by calculating pie R squared. (great idea!)
- Put the two white lines with writing in between right round the tea towel, as on roller towel. Links pieces well. This would mean the design has to be centred.
Roller Towels
- Samples of commercial roller towel fabric that I had soaked in soda ash, and Lisa had done the trial digital print were very successful. Thank you Lisa.
- Class liked the words and fonts (emulating the Glass Cloth scripts). Women's Work to be changed to My Mother's Work.
- Debate about how to display. Wooden rollers, or commercial machine? Commercial machine(s) would be expensive. Narrow width of commercial roller towel fabric means I need to get wooden rollers specially made. Investigate.
- Class prefer wooden ones, as it relates better to work.
Stools
-Antje and class prefer use of second hand stool rather than new custom made.
- Must be a kitchen stool.
- What about my Mum's old step stool?
- But it was not designed to have a cushioned top?
Curtains
- Hand drawn, but incomplete objects on collage pieces, put into half drop repeat on coloured stripe background. Objects maybe 12" high?
- Seam in to curtains 6' high wooden spoon as a stripe. To be "overlooked".
- Testing of colouration - needs to be right.
This review went better than any other. Probably because I am on a high at present, and now I am just getting on and doing, and handling quite a lot of fabric, I feel quite a lot better. Thank goodness!
Feedback was:
Tea Towels
- General title to be My Mother's Work as it is more personal, rather than Women's Work
- The gelatin grid for cross stitch words works well. Very accurate.
- Work the words all the way round the tea towels, and put less space between the phrases.
- Writing size good for size of tea towel.
- Consider whether to place image in centre, with words all way round, or image to one side with words from edge to edg of imagery.
- Red too Christmassy/tomatoey. More blueish red would be better. (Lisa asked me to steam the colour swatch digital test fabric and will show me how to pick the right standard colour tomorrow)
- Show one tea towel hanging, and the rest flat.
- Work out how to do hanging loop well
- Proportions not right yet. Work out area of standard tea towel, then get same area for round tea towel by calculating pie R squared. (great idea!)
- Put the two white lines with writing in between right round the tea towel, as on roller towel. Links pieces well. This would mean the design has to be centred.
Roller Towels
- Samples of commercial roller towel fabric that I had soaked in soda ash, and Lisa had done the trial digital print were very successful. Thank you Lisa.
- Class liked the words and fonts (emulating the Glass Cloth scripts). Women's Work to be changed to My Mother's Work.
- Debate about how to display. Wooden rollers, or commercial machine? Commercial machine(s) would be expensive. Narrow width of commercial roller towel fabric means I need to get wooden rollers specially made. Investigate.
- Class prefer wooden ones, as it relates better to work.
Stools
-Antje and class prefer use of second hand stool rather than new custom made.
- Must be a kitchen stool.
- What about my Mum's old step stool?
- But it was not designed to have a cushioned top?
Curtains
- Hand drawn, but incomplete objects on collage pieces, put into half drop repeat on coloured stripe background. Objects maybe 12" high?
- Seam in to curtains 6' high wooden spoon as a stripe. To be "overlooked".
- Testing of colouration - needs to be right.
This review went better than any other. Probably because I am on a high at present, and now I am just getting on and doing, and handling quite a lot of fabric, I feel quite a lot better. Thank goodness!
Sunday, 16 March 2014
Procrastination and Progress
Yesterday I promised myself I would get my act together and do some preparatory drawings, in order to get on with photoshop pattern making next week. Famous last words!
Instead I took the bus to Colchester, and bought a foam circle, thread, stitch holders, bias binding, and a gelatin cross stitch grid. I then spent the afternoon applying bias binding to my round tea towels, and successfully stitched accurate words around the edge. I am not sure the words are right yet, but as a prototype it is pretty good.
I spent the evening very carefully pressing my knitted samples, and having been very disappointed with them, am now very pleased with the 3 completed so far. Two more to be done, and tonight I cast on the 4th sample.
So that accounts for my procrastination! And today, Sunday morning, I got up, fed the blackbirds, watered my new plants and started drawing. I have completed another version of my mincer on a collage background. All in all, good progress this weekend.
Instead I took the bus to Colchester, and bought a foam circle, thread, stitch holders, bias binding, and a gelatin cross stitch grid. I then spent the afternoon applying bias binding to my round tea towels, and successfully stitched accurate words around the edge. I am not sure the words are right yet, but as a prototype it is pretty good.
I spent the evening very carefully pressing my knitted samples, and having been very disappointed with them, am now very pleased with the 3 completed so far. Two more to be done, and tonight I cast on the 4th sample.
So that accounts for my procrastination! And today, Sunday morning, I got up, fed the blackbirds, watered my new plants and started drawing. I have completed another version of my mincer on a collage background. All in all, good progress this weekend.
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| Background collage sheet |
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| Close up of one section, showing resist, pattern, colour layers |
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| Getting better as a basis, now it is cut up |
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| And the rest of the sheet. |
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| And a mincer drawn incompletely over one of the collage sections. |
This was a productive morning, so I felt quite content to entertain Maurice for Sunday lunch, before sitting down to start the fourth knitted sample in front of the tv, listening to James Bond!
Wednesday, 12 March 2014
Dog tired tonight
It has been a busy few days. Jim and I have been entertaining an old friend from Australia, who used to belong to the same swimming club.
I have been working diligently on photoshop and my mood has consequently been fast cycling between despair at my lack of skills and euphoria because I think my ideas are quite good. Today I collected a couple of trial circular tea towels, steamed, dried and ironed them, ready for edging, stitching and working out how they might be staged. I also spent hours preparing non standard fabrics for the digital printer. I created a soda ash solution, soaked 2m roller towel fabric and dried it. I also queued a couple of pieces of footstool fabric for digital print. These should be ready for next Monday. Tomorrow we entertain our Aussie friend, then Jim drives her to Scotland, which means I don't have access to the car until Monday. Therefore I needed fabric to work on until then. I will also have a trip to Colchester to see about upholstery materials at Franklins.
No wonder I am dog tired. Photos of work to follow.
I have been working diligently on photoshop and my mood has consequently been fast cycling between despair at my lack of skills and euphoria because I think my ideas are quite good. Today I collected a couple of trial circular tea towels, steamed, dried and ironed them, ready for edging, stitching and working out how they might be staged. I also spent hours preparing non standard fabrics for the digital printer. I created a soda ash solution, soaked 2m roller towel fabric and dried it. I also queued a couple of pieces of footstool fabric for digital print. These should be ready for next Monday. Tomorrow we entertain our Aussie friend, then Jim drives her to Scotland, which means I don't have access to the car until Monday. Therefore I needed fabric to work on until then. I will also have a trip to Colchester to see about upholstery materials at Franklins.
No wonder I am dog tired. Photos of work to follow.
Wednesday, 5 March 2014
Other students having a hard time/what to say at my review
The rest of my class had their dissertation results a couple of days ago. Although everyone passed, there were quite a lot of people who were disappointed with their results. Then we had a seminar where one student had some harsh feedback that contradicted feedback received earlier in the day at a different tutorial. It was a hard day, although I was not on the receiving end of it.
Then I had my final review brought forward to next week! So, what will I have to say?:
My interest lies in the concept (women's work) and the link with the object on which is is portrayed. There is a lot of symbolism that integrates the concept and object. (It is not about the materials. It is not about the making. I am a thinker and observer, rather than maker). My work fits the domestic setting so all my objects are domestic, mundane objects.
Jam covers (Unseen). Finished, except for staging. The fabrics won't stand handling, so will be arranged on a plinth or float shelf, stacked (cotton fabrics) and overlapped (sheers), so they are having a conversation with each other. Virtually complete.
Women's Work ( Unfinished). These are the knitted samples on stitch holders. They are very complicated border designs that allude to the lack of recognition given to work that is unfinished, despite it demonstrating high skill levels. The positioning of the design alludes to how the skills of marginalised people are unnoticed although they are critical to the effect of a final piece of work. Women's work is often un recognised because it is never finished. Currently working on the third, five to be completed.
Women' Work (Unending). This is the roller towel series. These have been pared back to just a line of script, emulating a glass cloth. Words are very important to me, so this piece will be plain digital print which has just repeated Women's Work, interspersed with verbs about making a cake on the short one; making a shepherds pie on the second and lemon merangue on the long one. It makes the point that women's work is unending. Design done. Roller Towel supplied. Need to test soda ash printing on digital printer. (timings dependent on Lisa). Prepare my fabric (down to me). Print on roller towel (dependent on Lisa)
Women's Work (Cyclical). This will be a series of 3 tea towels that are circular. There are lots of circles in cooking - saucepans, bowls, tins, hob rings, colanders, drainage holes, plug holes, so circles are important to me as a shape. Maybe a coloured tea towel with a hand drawn object and a cross stitched number associated with how many times my Mum used the object. Intention is to demonstrate how kitchen tasks are repeated in a loop - cook, serve, eat, wash up. Maybe these words should be cross stitched around the edge. Drawings are done, just need to sort out designs on photoshop. Feeling anxious about these. Dependent on my photoshop skills.
Two extra ideas I would love to do but not sure whether I have time/skills
Women's Work (Overlooked). Repeat pattern curtains. Hand drawn utensils in a repeat pattern, with a large variation in scale. Memory problems if I want an 8' pattern repeat. I would like to have a 7' high potato peeler included, to make the point that you need to stand back and look at the bigger picture. If digitally printed, the peeler could be pieced into the curtains. Reluctantly I think this is too ambitious, but it is a great idea. I would love to do curtains for their sheer domesticity, and for their size.
Women's Work (Supportive). Upholstered stool tops or settee cushions. I did an interesting exercise with Vanda using circular designs, which I loved. The base drawings are done. I just need to do the colour work and photograph them, before digitally printing them. I would like to cross stitch around the sides Mixed Up for the mixer, Ground Down for the mincer, Drained for the Colander and Resting for the pastry bowl.
Wom
Women's
Then I had my final review brought forward to next week! So, what will I have to say?:
My interest lies in the concept (women's work) and the link with the object on which is is portrayed. There is a lot of symbolism that integrates the concept and object. (It is not about the materials. It is not about the making. I am a thinker and observer, rather than maker). My work fits the domestic setting so all my objects are domestic, mundane objects.
Jam covers (Unseen). Finished, except for staging. The fabrics won't stand handling, so will be arranged on a plinth or float shelf, stacked (cotton fabrics) and overlapped (sheers), so they are having a conversation with each other. Virtually complete.
Women's Work ( Unfinished). These are the knitted samples on stitch holders. They are very complicated border designs that allude to the lack of recognition given to work that is unfinished, despite it demonstrating high skill levels. The positioning of the design alludes to how the skills of marginalised people are unnoticed although they are critical to the effect of a final piece of work. Women's work is often un recognised because it is never finished. Currently working on the third, five to be completed.
Women' Work (Unending). This is the roller towel series. These have been pared back to just a line of script, emulating a glass cloth. Words are very important to me, so this piece will be plain digital print which has just repeated Women's Work, interspersed with verbs about making a cake on the short one; making a shepherds pie on the second and lemon merangue on the long one. It makes the point that women's work is unending. Design done. Roller Towel supplied. Need to test soda ash printing on digital printer. (timings dependent on Lisa). Prepare my fabric (down to me). Print on roller towel (dependent on Lisa)
Women's Work (Cyclical). This will be a series of 3 tea towels that are circular. There are lots of circles in cooking - saucepans, bowls, tins, hob rings, colanders, drainage holes, plug holes, so circles are important to me as a shape. Maybe a coloured tea towel with a hand drawn object and a cross stitched number associated with how many times my Mum used the object. Intention is to demonstrate how kitchen tasks are repeated in a loop - cook, serve, eat, wash up. Maybe these words should be cross stitched around the edge. Drawings are done, just need to sort out designs on photoshop. Feeling anxious about these. Dependent on my photoshop skills.
Two extra ideas I would love to do but not sure whether I have time/skills
Women's Work (Overlooked). Repeat pattern curtains. Hand drawn utensils in a repeat pattern, with a large variation in scale. Memory problems if I want an 8' pattern repeat. I would like to have a 7' high potato peeler included, to make the point that you need to stand back and look at the bigger picture. If digitally printed, the peeler could be pieced into the curtains. Reluctantly I think this is too ambitious, but it is a great idea. I would love to do curtains for their sheer domesticity, and for their size.
Women's Work (Supportive). Upholstered stool tops or settee cushions. I did an interesting exercise with Vanda using circular designs, which I loved. The base drawings are done. I just need to do the colour work and photograph them, before digitally printing them. I would like to cross stitch around the sides Mixed Up for the mixer, Ground Down for the mincer, Drained for the Colander and Resting for the pastry bowl.
Wom
Women's
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