Ideas for exam piece - Furoshiki Wraps

I have made a mock up of a fabric wrap with a central printed design of shoes and a contrasting border which would include a printed text design. I used a lawn fabric which is fine enough to wrap and tie well and machine felled seams to give a finished look on the front and back and I have included a label sewn into the edge seam.

I have used the fabric to wrap a book. My idea for the exam session is to created wrapped books for two people and include stitched portraits on the labels.

Final Patchwork Piece

I completed this patchwork by adding some small back stitch crosses to fill in some of the spaces and to attach the piece to a backing fabric. I have added a thin black edging and four more labels around the edge.

Patchwork piece

I made up this patchwork piece using printed fabrics, a stitched portrait of Sarah and I have added labels in the seams and machine stitched words. The piece is influenced by the work of Judy Chicago. It is a homage to my friend Sarah and is created in the style of Audrey Crirchley's patchwork pieces. 

I think the piece needs to be cropped to this shape and size. I will add a black border and more labels around the edge. Ideas for labels - HIPPY, JEW, LEFTY, LIBERAL

Japanese Furoshiki

When giving a gift to celebrate major rites of passage the Japanese traditionally use square pieces of cloth known as furoshiki or fukusa (crepe wrappers). The gift is wrapped in a furoshiki of a suitable design for the purpose. There are different styles and techniques of wrapping and knotting the cloth. I used a book by Chizuko Morita of contemporary designs to  try out wrapping books with my printed cloth.

A simple wrapped paperback book

I like the way that the shoe design looks a bit like japanese characters when it is folded for wrapping.

  Rectangular wrap with carrying handle

Simple flower wrap using fine silk fabric

Two book wrapped with carry handle 

Using my machine made Labels

A label for Sarah's cushion

Small pin cushion with labels

Back of the pin cushion

using labels in textile work

http://www.lifeiscarbon.com/weblog/2008/05/intriguing-swed.html

screen prints, cushions and labels

I created a photographic stencil and printed my shoe design on plain and dyed fabrics

I used the printed fabric and stitched portrait to make a small cushion in an attempt to create a more tactile and completed piece.

I am interested in the idea of labels that are given to women and here I have used the computerised Benina sewing machine to write out labels for my friend Sarah. I have deliberately left the threads which join each statement together. I really like the bicycle pattern and I have added it to the words.

Here I have added words to a piece of printed fabric and I think that this is a good development of my work as it starts to layer up techniques and ideas within one piece.

Using the reference below I experimented with making labels and these are my most successful designs. I used a an eyelet machine and created the ribbon using the Bernina bicycle pattern again.

Ideas for fabric labels

Juliet

Juliet's slippers and birkenstocks.

Repeat patterns based on shoe drawings

Audrey Critchley

I like the use of screen printed imagery, text and patchwork in this piece by Audrey Critchley, whose work I saw at Alexandra Palace. The images are line drawings based on her own photographs and then transferred onto the fabric by screen printing.

Stitched portraits of Sarah

Sarah and her shoes

In response to the exam question on gender and my research into the named artists I have decided to explore ideas of feminism and female identify among a group of women who are in a book club with me. We have recently read and discussed How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran which initiated debate and discussion on what it means to each of us to be a feminist. To start the project I visited and photographed two of my friends and inspired by a chapter in Moran's book, I photographed the shoes which they wear. 

Here I have created a print design based on Sarah's shoes. The shoes represent practical aspects of Sarah's life, such as keeping fit, cycling to work and keeping her feet warm at home. The design is meant to look pretty and girly in contrast to the practical and well worn shoes.

Artist Research

Mona Hatoum is a Palestinian artist whose  pieces are concerned with confrontational themes such as violence, oppression and voyeurism, often in reference to the human body. Conflict arises from the juxtaposition of opposites such as beauty and horror, desire and revulsion. Until 1988 Hatoum worked mainly with video and performance, but since 1989 she has concentrated on making installations. She has created a number of works using metal grids which allude to physical violence and imprisonment, notably Light Sentence .She has also explored these themes in a number of smaller sculptures based on items of furniture and household appliances such as the piece shown here. 

 Jenny Saville's feminism lies in a clear-eyed and unromantic view of the average female form. On a trip to America she visited the malls where 'you saw lots of big women. Big white flesh in shorts and T-shirts,' she has said, all of whom 'had the physicality that I was interested in'. Living in New York in 1994, she spent hours observing the work of a plastic surgeon named Dr Weintraub whose interventional techniques not only influenced her anatomical understanding of excessive human fat, but fuelled her interest in the extremes of bodily shape and, in some cases, deformity.

Artemisia Gentileschi born in Italy in 1593 was the daughter of well-known Roman artist, Orazio Gentileschi. She was one of the first women artists to achieve recognition in the male-dominated world of post-Renaissance art. In an era when female artists were limited to portrait painting and imitative poses, she was the first woman to paint major historical and religious scenarios.

Cindy Sherman does not consider her work feminist, however many of her photo-series, like the 1981 Centerfolds, call attention to the stereotyping of women in films, television and magazines. Sherman works in series, typically photographing herself in a range of costumes. To create her photographs, Sherman shoots alone in her studio, assuming multiple roles as author, director, make-up artist, hairstylist, wardrobe mistress and, of course, model.

In her landmark 69 photograph series, the Complete Untitled Film Stills, Sherman appeared as B movie style actresses in all of the shots.

Nan Goldin addresses issues of gender (one of her themes is the pressure on men to behave like men, and where that leaves women).Her work is most often presented in the form of a slideshow, her most famous being a 45 minute show in which 800 pictures were displayed. The main themes of her early pictures are love, gender, domesticity, and sexuality; her photographs are usually shot with available light. She has affectionately documented women looking in mirrors, girls in bathrooms and barrooms, drag queens, sexual acts, and the culture of obsession and dependency. The images are viewed like a private journal made public.

Judy Chicago is an American feminist artist and writer known for her large collaborative art instillations pieces that examine the role of women in history and culture. She coined the term "feminist art" in 1970’s and founded the first feminist art program in the United States. In her famous piece of work The Dinner Party she explores Women’s history. The sculptural piece consisted of a large triangle, which measured 48-feet by 43-feet by 36-feet, consisting of 39 place settings. Each place setting would commemorate a historical female figure, such as artists, goddesses, activists and martyrs. The project came into fruition with the assistance of over 400 people, mainly women, who volunteered to assist in needlework, creating sculptures and other aspects of the process.

http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/eascfa/dinner_party/home.php