Monday, July 23, 2012

Exhibition bits and pieces

Well I have come down to earth with a bump! I did 8 loads of washing over the weekend, I cooked dinner for 12 (for my whole family to thank them for their support with hanging the exhibition, cleaning, peeling off the vinyl lettering at the end, clearing up, plastering screw holes (er, the less said the better, the plastery stuff shrank and sank back into the holes), making and clearing food at the opening etc. I now have to mark some assignments and write a 2000+ word essay.

So life goes on - but in case anyone is interested I do have 2 hours of video and a time lapse photography sequence which I will link to, once I have worked out how to do something with it. I make stuff but have no idea of how to do video.

I have had a great response to the blog photos , wonderful comments,  thanks everyone.

I have to think - what next, do I aim high and risk rejection or just a bit higher and keep it manageable. We'll see. Mainly I just have to get through this year.

Ok - on a technical note - the exhibition pieces are wall hangings, not quilts. They are one whole layer with a second layer behind . However, I usually make quilts and these could easily be turned into a quilt except then they wouldn't be see through.  The stitching is done by free-machine stitching. I didn't use a programmed machine, I did it all myself by using a hoop to stop the fabric wrinkling (I hate using a hoop).

I used cotton thread which took the dye on the front and stayed white on the back . I expected the thread to take the dye better than it has.

They are  see through and look great in a window, unfortunately due to the high UV in New Zealand they would fade very quickly if I did that over here.

They are NZ$500 each (plus postage).





 Detail from day 3.

Oh - I never mentioned, what I called them.

I looked into fashion colour forecasting. I saw some Google Earth images where you can see the rivers running navy blue with dye run-off from jeans manufacture. I thought maybe it might be possible to work out what next year's fashionable colours might be, by looking at Google Earth.

From http://grist.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/google-maps-denim-dye-500.jpg

So here is
Spring/Summer Colour Forecast 2013
It is a bit of a mouthful but no-one really looked at the names anyway, they were too busy looking at the dye.


http://www.china.org.cn/english/environment/189819.htm

Here is a funny coincidence. I googled 'Clare Smith Watermark'. I was actually trying to find an article in a local newspaper which people keep telling me about, but we don't live in the area that gets that paper. So anyway - I googled my name and came up with a link to Clare Smith. I found I had made a film called Watermark and didn't know it.  It seems that another artist called Clare Smith has made a film called Watermark about a paper factory in Dover, England.

4 comments:

  1. Yep, that's tangerine tango . . . sad.
    Goals -- aim high!

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  2. Ahh what a co-incidence...maybe you should contact her??? You never know what serendipity might deliver and I say aim really big- like a very big wall piece with quite a lot of different dyes...like the google earth picture-

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  3. your work highlights the frankly horrifying disregard for the environment shown by manufacturers and is at the same time exquisitely beautiful. Caroline Keogh kindly directed me over here, wish i'd seen the show in person.
    warmly,
    india

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  4. Thanks India, Hi from Whitireia!

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