Project 4 - Almost Finished

Well, this is my final project hanging. I will raise it up to shoulder height for the exhibition, but as I have been doing the final touches, it was easier to have it lower for now. When I raise it up to the right height i'll work on getting a better front on shot than the one just below.
For those of you who haven't read the rest of my blog, I'll do a full write up on the piece and concept, as well as an evaluation for myself and my tutors :)

This piece is about a friend of mine who has two personalities, and both of them fight over control of their body, but at the same time they need each other to stay strong, and whole.

Another way to read this piece is about human psychology as a whole. We are all full of conflicts and contradictions - obvious ones, like love and hate, sad and happy, angry and amused. And more subtle ones, like how we act slightly differently depending on who we're around, and we all have a side to ourselves that we never show anyone else, one that is often in contrast to what everyone sees.

Using myself as an example, I'm a very shy person, but I try to be more outgoing, to be friendly even to strangers. So I try to hide my shy self, so people don't see it, and yet, I often think of things I want to do or say, but am still to shy to do or say, so I have another self, more hidden than my shy self, that is in complete contrast to my shy self. 

This whole piece is designed off something that is traditionally wearable (armor) but here it is purely sculpture. I have intentionally made it difficult to try to put on. The tail piece of leather hanging down would make it highly impractical to wear as well, not to mention to use it as armor, but for the sculpture it is designed as, the tail piece adds an extra dimension as it curls down and around the semi-sheer silk. It encloses the silk and creates a sense of wholeness about the piece, instead of having this shoulder piece with the silk hanging down looking like a separate thing.

I should really go right down to the basics to explain the whys and whatfors...

I have chosen my materials to try and portray the contrasts in my concept. Silk and leather; something soft, delicate looking, but so strong when braided into a rope, something tough, and thick, known for its use as armor, but when leather has been prepared for use as armor it is not soft, or nice to feel... Then there's the fur on the shoulders, which is soft and silky to the touch, but it is still animal skin.

I left most of the leather the same colour it came as, and the silk a plain white, but have placed two brilliant red tabs of leather at the front of the shoulder piece. The plain, undyed silk was to symbolise innocence, purity and an uncorrupted soul. The red leather tabs show a partial corruption of the personality symbolised by the leather - corruption by hate, and rage, and all those fiery red emotions that burn inside a body. The placement of the red tabs was chosen with a necklace sort of thing in mind, for the feature of a necklace hangs down the front, over the heart area, and the emotions portrayed in the brilliant red are of the heart, so should be over where a heart would be if this pieces was to be worn.

The long fall of silk that reaches from the shoulders to the floor is to give the suggestion of a body, without suggesting that this piece is meant to be worn. I used silk to fit with the concept and the fabric I used to thread the piece together, and I found the thinnest I could, so that when a person stands facing this piece they can see all the layers and folds of the silk as it hangs, as well as a shadow of the tail, twisting around and down. The thinness creates an ethereal spirit body, which is how spirits and ghosts are often portrayed in movies and images in our culture. And what is a personality but the ghost or spirit when it is inside the body - the Soul. The silk pools on the ground below the piece, grounding the piece that otherwise has no contact with the rest of the room, or even this world of ours (the piece is hung with clear nylon cord, barely able to be seen).

A closer look at the leather parts of this piece shows a fine coat of silk fibres, cobwebbed across the surface, like veins, or lines of the web of life. It can be very difficult, when working with unhemmed silk, to not get little threads of it floating around, so I decided it is better to go with the properties and quirks of the materials I use, instead of fighting it. As such, I have picked out threads of silk, and draped them over the piece to create this web look.

Project 4 - Theorist Influences

I find myself drawn to Freud's theories on repression as something that relates to my concept. The theory goes that people repress memories and desires that they cannot consciously cope with, Freud encouraged people to try to consciously remember these repressed memories through a method commonly known as "the talking cure" during which a patient would lie on a couch and look up at the ceiling, and talk to the doctor who was sitting at the head end of the couch, just out of sight. Freud discovered this as a good treatment for some metal illness' and problems.
The reason my friend has split personalities is because she went through enough trauma as a very young child that she simply could not handle what was happening, so to cope, she hide herself away, and created a much stronger personality who was able to handle things. She could not bring herself to hate the person hurting her, so she created someone who could hate, someone who was completely made up of hate and anger, born of pain and fear. Even now, when she's not going through the same things, she cannot get rid of this other half, for her other half has grown up too, and is too strong to just disappear. Of course, there's always the question, even if she could get rid of her other side, should she? Does she have the right? Her alternate personality is just that,a personality, a fully fledged person, to get rid of her would be to kill her.

Project 4 - Artist Influences

I have been influenced by quite a few artists for this project. I'll just give a bit of information about some of them, with a link to more information in case any of you want to learn more about them and about why they're so amazing :)

Alexander McQueen: Alexander McQueen was a contemporary fashion designer, who made garments that were as much sculpture as they were clothing. I love how out there much of his work was, rendering it useless in everyday life, but so expressive if you stop running around life, and actually look at it.


The way the lines and fabric flows, and creates movement fascinates me, especially since this is a still piece, on manikins. It gives the whole piece a kind of ethereal look, which is something i'm aiming at for my piece when it is exhibited.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_McQueen
wiki info about him

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/
Information on McQueen's exhibition "Savage Beauty"



Yinka Shonibare:
Shonibare uses fabric and costume to explore the ideas of cultural identity, colonialism and post colonialism.

Shonibare dyes and patterns the fabrics he uses himself, and creates stories out of his pieces, all set up on manikins like scenes from a play.

http://www.ofnotemagazine.org/2009/09/01/yinka-shonibare-the-art-of-victorian-dress/
comments on Shonibare's exhibition "The Art of Victorian Dress"

http://www.yinkashonibarembe.com/home/
Shonibare's artist website



Julia Morison:
Morison is a New Zealand artist who plays with painting, sculpture and print, and does a fine job of it.
Her work tends towards surrealism, and in her 2011 exhibition in the Two Rooms gallery in auckland, her work was heavily influenced by the christchurch earthquake.


she used liquefaction silt in many of her pieces, including using it to paint with.
http://eyecontactsite.com/2011/11/morison-sculpture-in-auckland


This pieces appeals to me because of the way the dress extends down to the ground, and effectively becomes part of the ground, which grounds it in way. The piece hanging free in the air, and the grass bringing it back down to earth, but not in a bad way, more in a sensible way.

http://juliamorison.co.nz/
Morison's artist website

Project 4 - Colour Tests

 I have been doing tests on my scale mail, and what the best colours and patters would be.
Here I have used pink silk on plain leather, which I personally think looks nice, but does not really create enough contrast for the concept.

 This white silk stands out much better than the pink, and in some cultures (like the western culture, which is quite prominent where my friend lives at the moment) white stands for purity or innocence, which suits the original personality very well.
As you can see I have been doing the weaving by threading the strips of silk onto a large needle to make it easier to get the silk through the holes in the leather.

This is a large sheet of leather tabs that would be the front of the piece if it was final. I have made this to show how the leather looks in that colour in a large group. The top right tab has a goat skin trim, though I have now decided not to use this on all the tabs, because it is too difficult to make it all look tidy, and it would take far too long to trim all the tabs like so, when I only have a few weeks left.

 This is a card example of one colour set I was thinking of using. The brown stood for the fur trim, and the pink ribbon for the silk. The contrasting light pink and vivid red where to show the differences in the personalities. Red for strong, violent and volatile, and pink for soft, innocent and easy going.

This is the same as above, but without the fur trim. I think this will end up being too strong without the brown to break the red up, and other things may get lost in the strength of the red red red.

Project 4 - Scale Mail?

Scale mail is a type of armor that is made up from many small tabs attached together. I am using leather, though it can be made from pretty much any material solid and tough enough for armor.

I chose to make scale mail instead of using one large piece because it allowed me to weave the leather and silk in amoungst each other, rather than having large, separate areas of materials, as the two personalities are woven into each other, rather than being two completely separate identities. They can never really be without the other, they are a part of each other, and I wanted to make my piece show this better than it was when it was one solid piece.

I will go more into this once I have done some more work on my physical piece and have some photos to put up here.

Project 4 - Concept Development Update

Out of my varying interpretations of my concept, I am finally managing to pin it down to one thing. So I am going to do a scale mail shoulder piece (I will go more into scale mail and why next time) and the whole piece will represent my friend/subject. One piece of body wear to represent one person. To represent the two personalities I am going to use two fairly opposite materials - leather and silk. Leather is tough, thick skin, hard to hurt, and good for protection. Silk is soft and delicate in appearance, if handled coarsely it will roughen and lose it's sleek shine. I will use the silk to weave the leather tabs of armor together, to represent how the two personalities hold each other together and protect each other. Even though they fight for control of the body they also keep each other together.
I am also intending on edging at least some of the leather tabs with goatskin fur, which is soft and smooth to touch, but still it leather in a way, it is still an animal skin, and tougher than many materials of a similar softness. This is because sometimes the two personalities almost seem to be one again, if (for example) they are talking about or doing something that they both totally agree on. This may not happen very often, but there are times where the softer, more innocent one is harder, and the tougher one softens.

Project 4 - Critique Results

We had our first critique for this project last week, as I expected people didn't really get my piece without prompts from me, but that is largely because it is just not finished to a stage where people might get it.

I had two drawing manikins holding up a marionette puppet I had quickly made, I used the manikins simply because I did not have anything more suitable to use, and the idea was two personalities fight for control over one body, which was the puppet. People got the control idea, but they saw the manikins as outside influences - parents, governments, etc
I also had some samples of boiled leather I had done and my little leather mock ups displayed, but people could not get any idea of a concept from that.
Most of the suggestions people had were things I was intending already - larger/life sized pieces for the real piece, and more development of the concept.

Overall I am not disappointed with the results, I knew it was too early for people to really get my concept from my mock ups, I just need to keep working my concept into the piece and develop both further.