Wednesday, October 31, 2012

New work

I've been working away on my pieces for the end of year show which is a groups show with the other graduating students from Whitireia. The show is at Pataka in Porirua from the 15th of December to the 15th of January but the work has to be in on Monday (5th ) for marking. Once again I am working with white fabric so I am having to do most of my work at home or the fabric gets very dirty. It's hard to work with white in a shared space. As technician I am also helping the students with their work and its getting a bit too close for comfort for some of them who left it a bit late to get started.

Here are some detail shots of my work for this show. They are based on pojagi, Korean pieced textiles and the patterns are field patterns from google earth. Once again they will be dyed vertically in the gallery but the dye will probably only run on opening night as it is too hard to control unless I am there all the time. The dye represents the dye which is dumped into rivers which then is used to water crops such as rice or wheat.

Actually I don't even know whether I will be allowed to run the dye in that gallery space. maybe I should match the dye I use to the carpet colour just in case!




These are detail shots only. Don't want to give the game away before the exhibition opens.
C

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

getting a bit behind with stuff

It is holiday time and I have been frantically trying to make work for the end of year exhibition before we all go back to work next week. I work part time as the 'tutorial assistant/technician' and do a few hours of part time teaching as well as being a student myself. I am trying to get ahead so that my own stuff is nearly done and then I can help the other students with the technical stuff to get their work done.

Looks like there will be  lots of screenprinting and silk painting to keep the textile room busy.

I've made one and a half wallhangings which is way less than I had hoped to get done so I feel like I am getting left behind. It is all due to be handed in on the 5th of November.

Does anyone else feel under pressure from technology these days? It isn't good enough just being able to use a computer and a cellphone any more. I feel a bit of a failure that I'm not really able to do wizzy things in  photoshop, make images in Illustrator to use for Lazer cutting, take my own top quality photos of my work (even if they are hard to photograph being nearly 3 metres long), set up my own super duper website, do video editing etc. Comments such as "You should video this and use it in the next exhibition" are guaranteed to make me feel inadequate but with the help of the Whitireia computer technician I did actually manage to video one of my Watermark wallhangings being dyed, filming and editing the video took 2 days of the holidays.

Some technology is fun though when the pressure is off. I used my prize money from the Queenstown Symposium to buy an Ipad which I love.  The Ipad makes great kaleidoscope patterns. I was helped by a 13, 10 and 5 year old.



 Agapanthus flower on concrete



 These few are pictures taken of an Agapanthus flower on a wooden table


Apart from Kaliedoscope pictures you can also do some very strange mirror image pictures and make weird soft toys and cars