Parcel From Nicola

This again, is a late post. I am finding it rather frustrating that the day-to-day is getting in the way of our project so I have taken great advantage of a free evening to catch up; Nicola's final parcel has proven very exciting. I have been eager to experiment!

I was very pleased that Nicola included materials that I have no experience in working with at all as yet, for example the hematite beads and pearls. Both are typically associated with jewellery as opposed to textiles, so it will be interesting for me to apply my skills in reworking them. The ring blanks too, will be interesting for me to play with; having no concept of 'building' a ring from bands such as these, I am hoping that my novice will introduce a new (and successful?!) use for them.

Nicola also provided interesting textile items, such that I am more familiar and confident in working with, though I will say, have prompted me to more consideration of my methods;

Mens' collars: I like the idea of working with this more rigid, masculine shape as I feel that I have subconsciously approached the project thus far, with solely females in mind, favouring looser shapes and softer fabrics. It will  be very interesting to see how rust might 'move' against a heavily starched surface.  I am currently pondering how I might best embellish and/or print designs onto these. It will be a great task to work with these in contrast to the beautiful, and extremely feminine vintage lace collar that Nicola also included. Having received them both in the same parcel, I am now able to consider the real difference in treatment they will require if I am to get the most from them.

 Pink Basque: I agree with Nicola entirely in that, upon first receiving this item, it did not seem to fit within our colour scheme but in considering the direction of our project now, it is a welcome addition to our palette and has wide scope for use. I can see too, it being useful as an embellished garment or in being 'stripped back', using parts of it to form other pieces.

Pins: I love that they are gold! For the most part, any pins that I have worked with in rusting experiments before, have been silver. I expect that this will prove fruitful in expanding our colour palette. Nicola is right in her comments considering shape and draping - I think their size and weight alone will provide us with a strong collection of experiments.

Large Brass Chains: I can only dream of the beautiful prints we can create with these - I want to experiment ALOT with scale here, repeats and layers. I can envision these working well alongside other items (mostly chains!) that Nicola has sent me in the past.

I am off to edit photographs (these will be posted VERY soon) and develop some sketches. Nicola has provided me with a wealth of inspiration in this package and I want to do it justice. It is worth noting as well that I absolutely love the box that the parcel arrived in (the collar case); the fact that this is a purpose built casing being used to house its intended contents as well as 'new' found members is a lovely notion when considering the ethos of Reworked.

It has been too long

...Would be an understatement. I have been absent for a whole host of reasons but am very excited to be back. I love Nicola's most recent post (the physical parcel certainly!) and the artists/designers she has highlighted as possible inspirations.
I would like to begin by saying, I LOVE Eunsuk Hur, I found her work hugely inspirational when studying Textile Design last year.

I have also most recently been looking at the work of Therese-Morch Jorgesen - her presentation is beautiful, and very interesting when considering what Nicola and I have in mind. I very much enjoy her incorporation of found items.

Inspiration for Sara

Eve Lateiner

Eunsuk Hur

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining

Amy Tavern

Sharon Massey

Just a few images I have found that have inspired me for Re-worked that I would like to share with Sara.

Final Parcel for Sara.

So I have finally gotten round to completing the final parcel I will send to Sara as part of Re-worked, in order to move onto the next stage of the project. Sara and I had previously decided that we would show the contents of the parcel we would be sending online so that we could form initial ideas from viewing the items and perhaps changing ideas when getting into contact with them. This will allow us to voice the initial ideas as well as those that will come from interaction and closer inspection. We thought that we would share our ideas for the use of the items we were sending in order to compare them to the others initial reactions.

  

1. Box of men's vintage collars.

I came across the idea of men's collars early on when researching items to send to Sara when I was looking into buying vintage jewellery boxes. They instantly struck me as something I thought Sara would like as I think she tends to play around with androgynous styles. I like that they can act as a blank canvas for attaching something that has been "re-worked" to: I see them almost as a blank shank or necklace that needs further adornment. I think they would make great supports for textiles to hang from in a poncho-style or something chains and necklace style pieces could be attached to. Alternatively they could be pieces within themselves. The box they came from is also a fantastic piece with a crumbly surface that has been leaving little trails of powder everywhere: maybe this could be incorporated into a piece?

2. Large brass chains.

The idea of playing around with chains has also been circling around for a while, although I had originally thought of silver. However, after playing with wrapping nuts and bolts and larger objects, I thought it would be better to play around with larger chains as it leaves more room for play. I had noticed a lot of my blog posts contained sentences along the lines of "I like this idea but think it would work better on a larger scale." so I thought I would start off with large chains. Sara could possibly wrap these with threads or ribbon etc but I also thought that it would be interesting to see how she uses these on the body as these, for me, definately fall into the "jewellery" category. They also have the brass finish that left such interesting "prints" with the washers on felt so she could also incorporate that idea with them. A lot of scope for play I feel.

3. Vintage lace collar.

This collar was accidentally missed out of a previous parcel and I still feel it has a lot of relevance to Re-worked. It could act in a similar manner to the men's vintage collars but with a feminine edge - something that can be used to play around with soft/tough clashes. I like the shape of it - it could be attached to the body in a number of ways meaning it doesn't actually have to be used as a collar at all. I like the very antique look and colour: a lot of items used on Re-worked have been either white or orange with rust so I like that other shades are being introduced. 

4. Pins

These small pins will provide a lot of scope to experiment. One thing I immediately associate with fashion and textile is how they will be draped on the body and the shapes they create, so I thought that the pins could be used for working with textiles produced in the project. As well as helping us create pieces, I think these pins could be used as pieces themselves: clustered together and rusted, used to brand material and creating growth-like constructions within materials. Again, I like the play on them being almost jewellery-like: small metal objects so I am interested to see how Sara uses them.

5. Ring Blanks.

I liked the idea of using jewellery findings as a fun way of introducing embellishment to materials and also a fun and easy introduction to jewellery supplies for Sara. I personally don't use ring blanks such as these for my own work, as my shanks etc are hand created and silver, but I love them as a tongue-in-cheek take on introducing jewellery into the project. I think that, branded, these would make great shapes and silhouettes on textiles, sewn on, they will make great embellishments and also lend themselves to the rusting process. Again, because there is a lot of them, there is scope for play with these. They are very cheap so will be a great start for adding jewellery into experiments. The idea of "clusters" and "collections" is becoming apparent in a lot of the experiments for Re-worked so I think these will be interpreted fantastically.

6. Hematite beads.

I have wanted to give Sara some beads for a while now as they are, again, a small introduction to materials associated with the jewellery profession and they can also be sewn onto clothing as embellishment within textiles. I had struggled to think of stones that would lend themselves nicely to Re-worked when I came across the idea of using hematite. I've used hematite in work before but it was only when researching the properties of some stones that I read that hematite can actually rust. I've not tested this theory out so I thought I'd let Sara try it for herself and see if she can work her rusty-magic on the beads. As we have started introducing metals such as brass, I thought the steel like appearance would fit it nicely in the project. Again, I like the idea of them clustered together or used in structures within a textile piece.

7. Freshwater pearls.

Another bead that came into my attention quite a while ago was the humble freshwater pearl. I did an experiment on my personal blog, after reading that pearls dissolve in vinegar, to see the effect it would have on some garish pink pearls I'd bought, being not quite aware of the colour. The vinegar dissolved several layers of the pearls, reducing the pink dye, turning them into a softer pink version albeit with a less shiny surface. Because of the use of vinegar with rusting, I thought Sara would enjoy mixing these pearls into the process and seeing if she can combine them nicely. I use a lot of pearls in my own work so thought it would be nice for Sara to use them too. They can be used as embellishment and I thought the irregular shape will produce some interesting results. I like that these pearls have a destructive process all of their own and seeing if they can be worked into our project.

8. Vintage corset/bustier. 

This corset was actually sent to Sara a long time ago, when we were first discussing Re-worked. We swapped some initial ideas and items to get a feel for this project and we disregarded this item because it was pink and we didn't think it fitted in with Re-worked. However, on second inspection, I think this could be a great "canvas" piece for which Sara could attach items too, as well as be re-worked itself. I want to introduce some more colours into Re-worked and don't want to scrap an item just because of it's colour. The hook and eyes at the back are also of particular interest to me and I thought that even if Sara decides this item isn't suitable then it would be interesting to strip it down and use the hook and eyes from it: showing any item could have a potential use, even if it is just a small element. I hope Sara enjoys the items and am very eager to hear her initial reactions.

Unplanned Post

This is not the post I had hoped to make tonight - I am having irksome technical difficulties uploading photographs of my latest experiments. So instead, I decided to show some more goodies I've found laying around. On my jaunt around the factory I work in, I found some utter beauts but they were sadly too large to pocket, so for now, meet these:

Another mobile phone special, this photograph lacks in quality but I am glad that it still portrays well the warped shapes of these 'specimens'. I still enjoy the idea of cataloguing these found pieces and examining them for inspiration. I feel that shape manipulation and moulding are aspects that I would like to play around with more. Being a printer by trade I am too quick to 'make prints' and dye as opposed to physically kneading my materials and affecting their structure.

Wrapping & Rusting

Here are the latest batch of images from experiments with the contents of my latest parcel from Sara - combined with some items from previous parcels - which coincided with collecting items for a "final parcel" for Sara. The final parcel is just about complete and I am looking forward to sharing it's contents and the reasons I chose each item for Sara to work with and what ideas I have in mind for them and how that differs from Sara's initial ideas and impressions.

Washers linked with a lace trim creating a bracelet.

Worn as a bracelet.

The washer bracelet after rusting. I love the intense orange combined with the black. The coating on the washers has also corroded into some  interesting colours. I got the instructions for the linking in the bracelet online and I think that it's a nice way to integrate the metals and materials. Individually the bracelet isn't enough though, and I would like to see this idea layered up.

Bolt nuts linked in a string braid.

Again here, but rusted. The rust has only affected one nut because of the way the nuts were placed in the vinegar. Again I tried linking them into a braid with instructions for simple "craft" bracelets online, but this method was less effective as I hadn't used the right nuts. I will have to see if I can get thinner ones as the bracelet links they can create are really tough looking and would look brilliant on a large scale design.

Again taking inspiration from combining metals with fabrics I came up with the idea of wrapping nuts and washers with different materials. I like them already; before any destructive processes as they are very soft and feminine and I think they will look really striking after some experimentation. I love the mix of different shapes and fabrics so I think for a final piece, a good mix of different wrapped objects sewn together would work most effectively.

More experiments with wrapping - this time a large screw and string. However, this wasn't nearly so impressive as the other "wrappings" and I have definitely overloaded the string with rust and it is now rather sludgy. I like the marks made on the tissue with it though, so maybe it could be used as a tool for mark making. 

A Rusty Haul

We must apologise for our absence from this blog - it has been a rather busy couple of weeks for us both! In the interim, before we get our teeth back into things, we have been on a joint scavenge for rusty goodies.

The image above - and a rather poor quality image at that, (I am in the process of moving homes at the moment so have been unable to get things together to photograph properly), shows our findings from a short walk along the Riverside. Although, dark and blurry, I like this image as it reminds me of museum displays; collections of curious implements and tools. I find this a very inspiring mode of research - each of the items found tell a different story and some hold such intrigue as we pose question to what they began as at all! I hope to post better photographs soon as the gradation of the rust and the different effects of the process are aesthetically very interesting, and indeed the shapes and altered forms themselves. Some are brilliant orange and others are mottled with such a range of colour and filing, that they appear only a muddied, ruined 'thing'. I feel it was a hugely successful trip - definite food for thought in developing our project. I feel it will help me to move in a less literal manner.

Latest Items.

Here are the latest items I have received from Sara that I will be experimenting with. This will be the last parcel swap of this kind in Re-worked as we will be taking around two weeks to build up larger parcels that will signify the end of the swapping stage before starting more of a design-led stage: mini-workshops, sketching together and beginning to produce larger samples. The larger parcels will be shown differently as well as we will be choosing items that we feel will challenge or suit the other, posting pictures here before swapping parcels detailing why we have chosen the items and how we think the other could use them. I have a few ideas already for what I can send Sara so I am looking forward to this next stage.

Bolt nuts. I am interested to see how this coating is affected by experiments.

More brass washers.

Large screws. Again, another coating to experiment with.

A selection of weather-rusted characters.

Hook & eyes. Both coated and bare.

Coated snap fasteners.

String. I am thinking that wrapping items with this, 

such as the bolt nuts, could produce some interesting results.

Various trims and ribbons. Again. these could be used to wrap some of the other items. 

Latest Playthings...

Here are some of the materials Nicola has recently sent me. I am playing around with a few ideas - how to rust/affect each of them, composition, end use etc. Nicola has a great eye for delicate, lovely things...

Apologies for the darkness of the last pictures. I feel when edited, that they do not correctly represent the true colours of the handkerchiefs... They are beautifully fragile, so I am taking care in considering how to use them. I wonder who 'R' and 'E' are!?!

Will post some sketches soon!