My Space

My desk

Last weekend we went to Newcastle as there were a couple of exhibitions I wanted to see (Nora Fok at Shipley Art Gallery; closed, boo! And at the Baltic, Maurizio Anzeri; fantastic!) Here's a link to the Baltic site with a summary of the exhibition: http://www.balticmill.com/whatsOn/past/ExhibitionDetail.php?exhibID=154

On the way home we went to Ikea as I wanted a desk and we needed yet another bookcase. When I first finished my degree I pretty much stopped making art. However, in the past couple of years, the past year in particular, I've started making work again which is great. However, I've been working on the floor, which hurts my back and the dining room table which means I can't really leave stuff out as we use it, strangely enough, for dining. So, I'd reached a point where I was desperate for a little space to use as my studio. We have a very small spare room (partly very small because it's full of my stuff) so I had to choose a small desk. It's far from my dream studio but I'm so happy to have my little space where I can go and work and leave things spread about and everything's to hand.

Inspiration board and mannequin

My stuff!

View from the door

Harris Re-fencing

Head Space Weaving

If I could do a passable impression of a Geordie accent I would now be saying "Day 7 on The Heathlands Summer Project." But I can't so instead I will regale you with tales of weaving, sunshine and shiny things. This afternoon (in the sunshine) we used the fabric we've been dyeing to weave two panels of Harris fencing. It took rather a long time but I think the panels look really good. One of the panels is just woven in calm restful blues to create a waterlike space and the other panel features a head and 'thought bubbles' and it has a working title of 'Head Space.' These panels also cunningly disguise the bins and recycling area as well as improving the Harris fencing, of which there is a lot around site.

Weaving begins

My Able Assistant!

 

Weaving complete

Onto shiny things, in Costume I've been making shiny silver space hoods (I'm not totally sure what they want them for) and a Mummy Alien costume. More pictures to follow...

The Lace Space and Monster Capes

How organised am I? I said I would blog about our Summer Project-Universal-and here I am actually doing it. Anyway, enough self congratulations. Today we have been outside chucking dye onto fabric ready to cut it up and weave it into the Harris fencing up around site. Another of the Creative Textiles projects I'm doing is a space (see drawing) that you can step into created from knitted/crocheted/woven plastic bags, melted and attached together. It's beginning to concern me quite how much plastic I have to knit before Thursday but I'm not alone, my able assistants are more than pulling their weight.

The Lace Space-Concept drawing

Knitted and melted plastic bags

Crocheted and melted plastic bags

One of the Costume projects I'm doing is monster capes. I made a pattern for a simple hooded cape and then decided the hoods would be good with eyes and teeth to make them into monsters. Which is what you see below. The second one even has eye holes!

Monster!

Monster with eye holes!

Stay tuned for more fun fabric based frolics!

Universal

So, my excuse this time for not posting for two weeks is...Universal. This week we began our summer project up at The Heathlands, two weeks of arts and madness involving various community groups, volunteers and artists . Last year we did a production of Midsummer Night's Dream which was fantastic but incredibly exhausting. Our theme this time is 'space' in all its many forms (inside, outside, imaginary, outer and so on) and the title, as mentioned above, is Universal. This year we're doing things a little differently and instead of one big performance the two weeks will culminate in a two day community arts festival on 12th and 13th August. There will be all sorts of performance and visual arts and food.

You can see some of the things we've been getting up to on The Heathlands Project Facebook page, which you can find here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/The-Heathlands-Project/137242449671346 or just search facebook for The Heathlands Project, Carlisle.

I've been working with the participants to create costumes and also I've been running creative textiles. We've come up with some really exciting ideas and I will hopefully blog about them as the week goes on. In our creative textiles group we have several different projects going on. One involves weaving fabric into the Harris fencing up around site (those big metal grill fences you see around building sites.) We've had fun chucking dye around and if the weather is kind to us we will start actually weaving next week.

Another project involves plastic bags, more specifically knitting and crocheting plastic bags, melting them and then joining them together. I hope to make a cylindrical shape that you can step into from all the pieces of plastic-lace we're making. This piece is about negative space, as the plastic creates beautiful lacy patterns when melted, and also about how we perceive the space around us.

A drawing I've done of 'The Lace Space' to show how I envisage the piece looking when finished. You will be able to step inside and look through the lace at the space around you.

Detail of 'The Lace Space' drawing

We're also making pom-pom galaxies, crazy space creatures and various bits of art using textiles. It's all good fun and ideas are being sparked all over the place. Or should that be space... 

Anyway, pictures to follow and if you're in the area on the 12th or 13th please come and check out what we've been up to. We'll be open to the public between 11-3 each day.

Space Pirates!

Space treasure!

I'm fairly certain that almost anything can be made amusing by preceding it with the word space. For example, door frame is not a phrase that tends to elicit a murmur of excitement. Add the phrase 'space door frame ' to a conversation, however, and you're much more likely to get a giggle. Not that this has anything at all to do with this post, so, back to business.

Last week at work (at The Heathlands Project) I was asked if I could help the film group make some hats for space pirates (the theme of their current film.) Naturally I said I could and we created some really cool paper hats. However, they need something a bit more solid so this evening I've been making a pattern and prototype fabric hat. I wanted to create something recognisable as a pirate hat but with a bit of a twist so I extended the brim to quite sharp points. I have to keep the pattern simple as the people making these hats have very limited sewing experience. To my hat I added a space skull (see what I mean about adding 'space' to phrases?) because I wanted to have a variation on the skull and crossbones theme as well.

It doesn't show up in these pictures but the fabric is black and glittery, very cosmic.

Space skull

Super pointy pirate hat