Open Ended

For this final project I wanted to work further with materials I've used throughout the semester. I created a textile piece that involves rust staining. Using leftover fabric from the skin project, I wrapped jersey knit cotton onto very rusty objects around my home. The image below is the tire frame on a bicycle. 

Here I have wrapped fabric around the entire bike handle and wrapped the fabric onto two very rusted bells. 

After 48+ hours of dying, this is the result.

When i put the fabric onto the gate for drying i discovered my interest in the draping form of the fabric. I went and got textile stiffener/draping liquid and soaked the fabric entirely to make it a bit rigid.

Time, Space, Culture

I continued working with cypress knees as well as the natural world. I began by casting the cypress knees i have in white paraffin with a surface layer of encaustic to create texture. My intention was to explore how the recreated knees work in the space in which they could have come from, and how they may convey the sense of deletion or removal from the contrast they create with the landscape. 

my knees vs their knees 

Dualism

Skin

Using fabric I wrapped the PVC to have a better surface to work with (the PVC's slick surface is difficult to work with). I have used armature wire and stuffing to create different forms and weight to the PVC structure. 

I began to use thread and skeins of yarn/fabric to explore color and line weight. 

 I would have liked to photograph this piece in an open field, but it's difficult to transport. i'm going to try anyway, since i need higher quality photos for juries. Any suggestions on transporting this would be helpful. 

I feel I could have gone further with changing and transforming the form with using more stuffing. Now i have learned different ways of using material in space, and how some of these materials can work together. I feel this was a necessary step to the learning process. 

Skeleton/Armature

My material of choice for the armature project started with found PVC pipes. After researching techniques I began to play with heat bending. I was unsatisfied with the bending of this particular PVC so I then purchased a wider gauge pipe and began the heat bending process again, more confidently and slowly. 

I began to explore shape and how the PVC sits in space.

Final assembling of PVC "legs" resulted in a very stable structure, yet i plan to explore more interesting ways of arranging its form.