100 Days Project - 100 days of Textile experiments.

Last year I hadn't even heard of the 100 Day project till all my friends seemed to be taking part. This year I signed up so for For 100 days I will be doing textile experiments and I hope that most will be inspired by architecture that I've taken photos of whilst I've been travelling. This is a link to my project .

I am working through some of the fabrics and art materials I have accumulated over the years. The first week I used Evolon.  This is a synthetic spun polyester and nylon fabric. It feels a bit like suede. The samples are approximately 6 inches square unless they shrink when melted or I start to run out!
I bought my Evolon from Village Books and Crafts in Palmerston North.

Day 1 - I  free motion machine stitched it then painted it with dilute indian ink and acrylic paint. It spreads a bit like watercolour paints.

Day 2. I painted two different pieces with acrylic paints and fused one shape on top of the other piece. The Evolon takes the paint well and it is easy to cut intricate shapes because it doesn't fray at all. It stitches like fabric but would be better if stretched in a hoop. Unfortunately my pieces were a bit small for that so I stabilised it with fine batting.

Day 3 I monoprinted by spreading the ink on a piece of glass and then laying the Evolon on top and drawing on the back of it. It is a bit blurry as the Evolon has filaments which sort of wick away the ink. Some people use it for making watercolours as the ink soaks into the fibres

This is an image of the full 7 days of samples together.

Day 4. I used some very old transfer inks to add colour. I am limited to blue, black and red as the rest have been lost over the 15 years since I bought them.

Day 5. I stitched 2 layers of Evolon together using a picture I'd taken of a window in Ahmedabad in India. Then I heated the stitched piece with a heat gun. At first nothing happened then it started to melt and finally became quite hard and plasticky.

Day 6. I did a different type of mono print by inking the glass then drawing into the ink. I then cut out the design and tried to add foil by using fusible webbing. The iron was too hot and I managed to melt the foil and the backing onto the Evolon. The background is hand painted cotton.

Day 7. I cut out shapes in the Evolon using a soldering iron then coloured the design using transfer inks. The design comes from a window screen in Ahmedabad.

So thats the end of the Evolon. Next week I will be working with Lutrador which I bought thinking I might use and never got out of the packet.

Advantages of Evolon. It takes paints very well, it can be cut into intricate shapes without fraying or tearing. It is strong and can be burnt to make very interesting shapes. I think it will be very useful for making costumes as well as for covers for hand made books.

Lastly - This is an interview of me by Charlotte Scott  the 'SlightlyMadQuiltLady".

Here is the link. Interview Clare Smith. Charlotte asked some great questions. She is interviewing all the tutors teaching at the New Zealand Quilt Symposium in October this year.

Experiments

Hi anyone who reads this occasional blog. I go through spates of writing lots and then write nothing for weeks. I think it is time for a catch up.

I have a mixed media piece in the "Changing Threads' exhibition  which is on in Nelson at the moment.  It is called Tsunami (II) and commemorates the 2011 Tsunami in Japan. My sons and I had been travelling in the area that was hit by the tsunami only 6 weeks before.
The layers are kimonos stacked on top of each other.

I mentioned in the last post that I am doing research on cotton production. Mostly I have been looking at the pollution that results from dyeing cotton. Most of the pictures unfortunately come from China. Greenpeace has been doing a lot of research on textile pollution in China and has targeted some of the big sportswear companies to show them what is really happening in their supply chain. I watched some videos from the Greenpeace website and I came very close to tears. We can pat ourselves on the back and say how 'Clean and Green' we are, while China is trashing it's environment to bring us cheap goods. The big chainstores have demanded cheaper and cheaper clothing and to do that, manufacturers in China have had to cut a lot of corners in order to make a profit. It makes me look at cheap jeans in a very different light. Ok so I know there are a whole lot of other factors at work and I don't want to get too much into that. As an artist I'm more interested in showing rivers which change colour depending on what the next season's fashionable colour is. Pink is the new black etc.

I have tentatively chosen the title 'Out of Sight, Out of Mind' for my project/solo exhibition which has to happen some time before the end of July even though I haven't booked a space and don't really know what I will be making.

In the meantime, here are some of the experiments I have been doing. I'm playing with 3 dimensional shapes instead of quilting for a change. Perhaps it is time to move away from 2d into mixed media, but it depends on what works.

 These are experiments with plastic bags when I thought I might like to have a look at plastic in the oceans and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

 Here are some strange things made in a hotel room on the weekend I had to drive to Auckland to drop off my son's drum kit. I got bored with plastic bags and changed to an old wool blanket I found for $2 in an op shop. Mostly I made sort of worm shaped things.

 Then when I got back to a place where I could work with messier stuff, I tried dipping wool in wax and plaster of paris. The red ball of wool dipped in wax is great because it looks so soft but when you pick it up it is hard.

 Then I started doing research on jeans. Stone wash and sand washed jeans are very unfriendly to the environment and also to the health of the people working in the factories.

I had fun with satay sticks and a hot glue gun until I found I was on the same path as several other students without knowing it.

More to follow...