Module 2 - Black & White ( or the therapy post!?!)

I have started in earnest with module twos first assignment which asks us to explore pictures in black and White and to create a collage which in turn will have graffiti style words again in black and white on top.

The first set of photographs I have chosen to use are a selection that my Uncle Jeff has archived from his childhood, he was my Dads brother. Very sadly both my Dad and my Auntie Linda together with my Nanny and Grandad have all died and so these photographs have a very special significance in our family. They show Martin, Jeffrey and Linda as children, and as teenagers and young adults. There are lots of the three of them together and several with one or both parents present. There are photographs of my Nanny as a very beautiful young lady in the fashions of the day and several of my Nanny and Grandad together on a beach in Suffolk and in front of their house in Holly Drive, Chingford.

There are a couple of pictures of my Dad and me and one of my sister and I when we were very young outside the house where my parents had their honeymoon on the Isles of Scilly. I have often wanted to do something with all these photographs, I have quite a collection from my mothers side of the family too which need to be organised. But something along the lines of a wall hanging, or as my cousin suggested a cushion would be in order. I have decided to use this assignment as their first outing in the medium of textiles!







The pictures are interspersed with crosswords and photos of black and White fabrics aswell as collages made up of newsprint on fabric saying
"You are my Sunshine" and " Apple of my eye" both of which were expressions my Dad used. My Dad was also never further than a few feet away from a Telegraph crossword so I put some of those in too ( although mine are the Guardian but I think he would approve of the irony!)


I am always shocked at how much time is taken up by the actual mechanics of putting the work together - the photography, printing, editing, printing again!, the layout, design , collating other materials, the planning of where it all goes and finally putting it down with glue. I seem to have this idea in my head that once I've visualised it there then I've seen it as finished and the actual process of getting it down on paper shouldn't take as long as it does - and I am a fairly efficient and effective worker.

I must get over this problem I seem to have in my head that it isn't ok to actually enjoy doing it, that it should feel like work and it doesn't, it feels like heaven! I think it's that typical age old mothers guilt and I can appreciate why I feel that way but also I find I have creative bursts and you have to go with them and make everyone fall in to line. Luckily most if my family are old enough to appreciate it and actually for Anna, she doesn't know any different and so when Mummy is drawing Anna now sits and draws too! There are are times, such as now at 11O' clock at night when everyone is in bed I can create without anyone wanting me and without interruption or feeling guilty. I usually find that is when I write my blog and commit it all to the Internet!







You are my sunshine. Could there be a nicer saying? On liberty fabric in newsprint and on a blackboard in newsprint.





Nanny and Grandad in front of their house in Holly Drive, Chingford. Near Epping Forest where my father & uncle would swim in the ponds with their Dad and he would invariably lose his glasses!


Nanny and Grandad on the beach


Nanny and her classmates I think at Lady Eleanor Hollis school for Girls.


Nanny in a glamour pose, I wonder who got her to do this as I wouldn't have thought it would be in her natural nature!


My Nanny and Joyce her younger sister.


Nanny. Florence Ethel Nicholson. Or Nicky to her friends. Inexplicably my father called her "Elaine"


My Nanny, one of my favourite people ever in my life and a truly inspirational character.


My Dad and his Grandmother, she had fostered 13 children!


My Dad on his beloved scooter


My mum and dad when they were courting!


Linda, Dad and Jeffrey on a log in Epping Forest.


Three in a boat, Dad with the oars!


In Epping Forest with Grandad.


Dad, Jeffrey and Linda as a baby with Their parents.



These two girls on either end were family friends. Look what happened years later when they were asked to recreate the photo!


Don't they look jolly!?!


This is one of my favourites. Suzie, my sister and I can see all our children in these three here.


Jeffrey and Lynne, my Uncle and Aunt who have been together since about age 15!





Lynne ( on the right) was Lindas friend at school. The first time she came round Jeffrey hid in the shed!!! You can see he was happy to come out eventually!!


Finally my Nanny and Grandads wedding. They courted for nine years before she finally said "I do!"

I miss my father, Nanny and Auntie Linda more than words can say every day but I am so fortunate to have such a close immediate and extended family who all keep in touch on a daily basis! My sister & I together with our cousins and all our extended families have a weeks holiday together every year, which is something we did as children and is something which is fairly unique now, I think!


And we are so lucky to have Uncle Jeffrey who has archived all these wonderful photos and more, which I hope to reproduce into something fabulous and eye catching in the world of textile art.

I am aware that this post has become rather personal than artistic but that is the meaning behind this piece and it felt important to me to introduce them to you and to give them character. As the piece develops the people will be slightly hidden by the words I am going to add on top, but I'm sure these wonderful pictures will surface amongst my work again and again.

Royal Academy Sculpture Show

Today we went to the Royal Academy. I have recently joined as a friend of the RA and I am keen to make this a regular place to visit and hopefully with all of the family. After the success of today's visit I think it will be a popular place to go for a day out!

We were here for the sculpture exhibition which is


Showing exhibits from artists such as Anthony Caro with his" bright red, industrial, Early one Morning, " as described by Henry aged 13. Tony Cragg with his cube of recycled " rubbish, but look how exact and square it is!" as described by Hayden aged 15.

The boys were really enthralled and inspired, right from a small square piece by Ben Nicholson which caused a great discussion about colour and form - I was enjoying the exhibition so much through their eyes I almost forgot to look at anything myself!

Unfortunately Elliott was feeling unwell the whole way round and Anna had been whisked off to Pret a manger by Matt so I was looking after Elliott and listening to the boys. They loved the Barbara Hepworth piece that dominated a room titled Single Piece and were fascinated by Damien Hirsts Abandoned Barbeque - that man makes art purely for the fascination of teenage boys - they were obsessed with looking at the dead flies and rotting corpses of cows and a chicken. They were wondering how on earth the installation would ever be disbanded and what would happen to all of the flies!

Every exhibit brought fresh ideas and new comments and different angles,this was one of the most interesting couple of hours I have spent in the company of teenagers for a while and it was so interesting to hear them articulate about the pieces. They loved the half pear/ half apple suspended from the ceiling by a thread and we discussed whether the shadows that fell from it were an important part of the visual impact and make up of the piece.

Another favourite was the basketball in water by Jeff Koons which I thought was ridiculous but the boys thought was really cool.

All in all and with a quite unwell Elliott in tow the exhibition was a great success and there was a lot of inspirational food for thought as well as some things which were quite frankly ridiculous such a a line of White chalk boulders and a neat retangular and symmetrical arrangement of 120 bricks entitled Equivalent V111. The bricks are low lying and adjoining but not attached. These, the boys observed were not dissimilar to the bricks we had seen stacked at a builders merchants just the other week and even the book guide suggestion that there was a correlation between this and the cenotaph was absurd! This exhibit prompted the boys to pause dramatically at very piece of road works on the way back to the car and ask the question " road works or sculpture?" and sometimes it is hard to tell!

Helena Rigsby and Jessica Harrison

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad











This is Helena Rigsby. The latest Bygone Vera. She can be found on the Bygone Veras facebook page. She is going to live with my Sister Suzie.

I have today received my second module. It's all in black and White and I have started collecting images already. This evening we watched a great programme about modern sculpture and I downloaded some pictures and sculptures by a fantastic artist who was featured she is called Jessica Harrison. I am going to research her further and may use her as an artist to study in a further assignment. For now though this is some of her work aptly in black and White













Very inspiring. I can't wait to find out more!

Assignment 6. Create a fabric

I have been thinking very hard about this assignment and have had various ideas such as:

Collecting milk bottle tops and sewing them together, and then attaching them to a background of either squares from plastic milk bottles (!) or a paper collage of labels taken from tins.

Collecting Indian restaurant take away menus and making a collage with them amalgamated with the tin foil tins that the take sways come in perhaps also mixed up on laid on to some sari silks ( which I have a few sample squares of.)

Threading together tin cans to make a platform which could be used as a table or storage ( with open tin side up!) - I would really like to try this project out and am going to tray and save tin cans of the same shape. I am not sure how they would fix together yet but am keen to investigate this idea further.

Yoghurt pots either melted down and then glued together. If they are not melted they are probably capable of being punctured and then sewn together but if they are melted down they become very dense and quite slippery - like a stone tablet and so would be difficult to join. However I think the structure would be able to float and this is something that interests me a lot.

I have decided to develop ideas using the following materials.

A smashed up bottle


A broken and smashed up cup





Corks






Odd socks - these are a big feature in family life - especially with four children including two teenagers whose drawers I have raided to find these lonesome or hole filled socks.


I was aided in the sock collection by my daughter............. A creator in the making!!


A pair of old school trousers with a broken clasp and holes in!

A red plastic bag

A piece of wood

Newspaper

Tin foli

The socks and trousers are going to be made in to a patchwork fabric which will have a stretchy quality I hope! Although the addition of the trousers will limit this.

The smashed up bits of glass and bottle are going to be grouted onto the wood and this may incorporate material scraps too.

The corks are going to be paper mached together to the plastic bag to create a floating object (I hope!)


It is now some time since I last wrote on my blog about this assignment as I have been battling with the materials to re create fabrics. They have not been recreated in quite the same way as suggested above. I will go through each individual reconstruction to explain the procedure.


THE CUP/ BOTTLE

The cup and bottle were smashed by dropping them repeatedly on the patio while they were wrapped in two plastic bags.

I then took a yellow cardboard box and covered some areas with the outside of a tomato soup can with the iconic ' heinz' picture and logo. This would provide an interesting background to the glass pieces instead of White cardboard. The blue cup pieces would be predominant as I love the colour and they have broken into the most useful sized pieces. They would be ok onto the White card.







I then placed the mosaic pieces all over the bottom of the box.



I mixed up flour and water and made a paper mâché paste. I decided to paper mâché between the gaps for two reasons.

1) This would stick more rigidly to the brief as using grout would not be using found materials and I could just about get away with flour and water!

2) The paper between the pieces would be more interesting if newsprint rather than plain White grout. Also I hoped it would make the whole ' fabric' slightly more malleable and flexible.

The whole thing was then left to dry and the final result is actually very hard but interesting. It would be an interesting 'fabric' to use for modelling, more with regards to using the paper mâché and the mosaic pieces than the cardboard base.

This would not be able to use outside I don't think as it would go soggy when the flour and water got mixed up with rain.

As I have said in earlier assignments I was interested in using the forms of mosaics and I have enjoyed this experimental attempt. I would like to pursue it further with grout and I will definitely be using paper mâché again and again!!


THE CORK AND PLASTIC BAG

The corks were cut in half. They were then laid in a 4x4 formation on a section of red plastic bag. The bag is then cut to be folded into a neat parcel over the corks which had been attached by hot glue gun to the bag.





This makes a neat, waterproof square in a lovely bright colour. You can see the lovely circles of the corks through the red and the shadows between each cork are interesting shapes too. I think this is potentially a really good idea for all manner of things that require floats. Child swim float suits at present are very bulky and I wonder if it would be possible to make a float suit out of this sort of material that floats and is a lovely shiny red colour. You could also add or take away squares as and when you need them.

This was my favourite piece to draw and despite, or possibly because of it's simple corroboration of squares and circles I found it the most inspirational. I have done several different drawings of this piece in various guises.



This is my favourite interpretation of the corks and bag. I have made a repeat pattern of a photograph of my sister and I when we were very young outside the cottage on the Isles of Scilly ( St Marys ) where my parents had their honeymoon.

The picture was printed on to paper and then circles cut from these sheets. They were stuck next to each other on the A3 sheet and then I painted using yellow acrylic around the outside ( to represent the plastic bag)and between the gaps of the shapes. I then used a yellow acrylic wash to go over the pictures and then enhanced the 'shadows' with a grey.

I am sending the original to my tutor. It hasn't translated as well as the photographs usually do in the blog as it really is very striking.

THE SOCKS


The socks were sewn together in a patchwork form. I finally chose to just use the orange and black socks. This was for two reasons.

1) Practical - the White socks were very worn and hard. They also had holes and were not as flexible as they should be due to extreme wear!! These are teenage boys socks don't forget!!

2) Visually- the black and orange combination is very striking and looks much better than with the White combined. I think the White may have worked better if they were very white and better quality!







This is the final sock patchwork.


These are the final pieces together.

I have long had an idea for making either a wall hanging or a blanket out of patchwork squares of my daughters clothes that she has grown out of. I would like to do this as a project to develop further as part of my portfolio. I have now added the idea of possibly incorporating circles- maybe instead - maybe as well as squares and I would like to incorporate embroidery on to the top of the blanket. Maybe also incorporating felt letters and words. I feel that this would be developing the socks and the corks ideas.

I would also be interested in taking the corks forward into making more and more squares to use in sculpture - not necessarily floating!! I think these cork blocks are an interesting first prototype in the early stages of developing a new block for building, possibly in construction but certainly in sculpture. I think it could also be interesting to further develop this idea for a Childs bath toy as well.

This assignment was interesting and it does make you think about developing fabrics and not simply using what is commercially avaliable now. I have really enjoyed the first module and am enthusiastically sketching and looking at things in a different way on a regular basis.