Animation

Last Sunday, quite by chance, I saw an exhibition of ‘Out of the Ordinary’ craft work at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Anne Wilson, an American artist, had some amazing pieces made from bits and pieces of lace and crochet. The main piece, set out on a white table, was called Topology and was a kind of black and white landscape made out of black lace and pins. You had to get down to eye level to take in all the fascinating detail.
By coincidence she also showed a series of videos of bits of thread and pins with some co-ordinated music which made it really funny; the coincidence was that we have been learning how to make the most basic animation at college. So I went home and had a go with bits of wool- so here is my basic attempt. Unfortunately I can't get it to loop here so you will need to keep pressing the play button.
I recommend you visit Anne Wilson’s web site to see her great animations and inspiring work.

Space 2008

Amongst other things, i.e. learning how to use a SLR camera and a life drawing class, I have continued with the pieces related to the theme of personal space. I will spare you my life drawings out of respect for the models, and because they were really best kept to myself. It was daunting as it is the first time I have done life drawing but a good experience and I would certainly like to have the opportunity to improve. We were all at different stages, and of course some people’s work was excellent - which is good as you can see what to aim for.
I have worked on the shadow images by stencilling onto silk noile and then onto silk organza; I have also machined the outlines onto organza. I have then been playing about with the layering effect. Nothing is stitched down as yet, and I can imagine the pieces hanging freely, so that you really get the effect of the layers and transparency
The piece about personal space and the ‘aura’ between people began to look more successful as I went over the seeding with markal oil stick, and put in some thicker threads. Still work in progress.

New Year 2008

Happy New Year to those of you who visit my blog. I hope that 2008 will go forward in a healthier way than over the last few days when I have had a nasty stomach virus, which according to the headlines in my newspaper today is sweeping the country. Thank goodness for the internet - you can’t catch it! I decided it was not safe to go to work today as you are supposed to be reclusive for a couple of days after the worst has passed. I must be loosing some weight, which has got to be good. It is pm on the fourth day now, and I have just felt like doing some work; sorry to say I have wasted some time I needed for course work but it has been quite exciting to start thinking about the new theme and to appreciated how precious ones health is.
This terms theme is Space; you can take that in any direction and at the moment my idea is to think in terms of personal space. I have been using photographs of shadows which I took on a course visit to some galleries in London before Christmas, and also some photographs taken during the holidays. By the way my son is smiling in the actual photo, we were acting, honest. I have been researching work and also stencilling and spraying. These are a few of the bits and pieces I have started on; I am putting all the course work photos in the Access Set on Flickr and there are sometimes photos there that are not on the blog.

For any of you who are thinking of doing a course such as the one I started in September, at this stage I would certainly say have a go; I had my doubts at times during the first term but certainly the amount of work covered and the new ideas I picked up during the first term make it well worth the effort.