Sculpture - Content Research

History of Embroidery in India

History of Indian Embroidery Embroidery is an expression of self, rendered with patience and dedicated hard work, it is an art rightly described as "painting by needle". Embroidery adds grace and elegance, life and style even into articles of everyday use. Indian embroidery takes its inspiration from nature and religion. The colors, the base the theme and the style are reflective of a particular region. Embroidery on leather, velvet, net, cotton and silk is done all over the country. The patterns are decided upon on the basis of the fabric and its texture the stitches depend upon the style and the effect to be produced. Themes and motifs have remained as such for centuries. Even in the pre historic civilization probably it was the same (embroidery needles have been found in excavations). The patterns have always been floral, animals, geometric and religious. Each embroidery style has its own history and a story of development. Things till very recently remained the same till the craft of embroidery was commercialized. Even now , the themes and the motifs are same but the production techniques have changed, the requirements have changed. Machine Embroidery has introduced new styles and uses. So has the effect of western patterns and embroidery styles. Embroidery is now not just an expression, it is the means and art of decoration; decoration of clothes, bed covers, furnishings, almost anything that one can think of in fabric. Works cited article taken from - http://www.suembroidery.com/articles/history_of_Indian_embroidery.htm An interesting site to look at - http://www.modernedition.com/art-articles/string/string-art-history.html Dream Catcher History & Legend Dream catchers are one of the most fascinating traditions of Native Americans. The traditional dream catcher was intended to protect the sleeping individual from negative dreams, while letting positive dreams through. The positive dreams would slip through the hole in the center of the dream catcher, and glide down the feathers to the sleeping person below. The negative dreams would get caught up in the web, and expire when the first rays of the sun struck them. The dream catcher has been a part of Native American culture for generations. One element of Native American dream catcher relates to the tradition of the hoop. Some Native Americans of North America held the hoop in the highest esteem, because it symbolized strength and unity. Many symbols started around the hoop, and one of these symbols is the dream catcher. Dream Catcher Lore: Native Americans believe that the night air is filled with dreams both good and bad. The dream catcher when hung over or near your bed swinging freely in the air, catches the dreams as they flow by. The good dreams know how to pass through the dream catcher, slipping through the outer holes and slide down the soft feathers so gently that many times the sleeper does not know that he/she is dreaming. The bad dreams not knowing the way get tangled in the dream catcher and perish with the first light of the new day. How the Dream Catcher is made: Using a hoop of willow, and decorating it with findings, bits and pieces of everyday life, (feathers, arrow heads, beads, etc) the dream catcher is believed to have the power to catch all of a person’s dreams, trapping the bad ones, and letting only the good dreams pass through the dream catcher. Works cited article taken from - http://www.dream-catchers.org The Legend of the DreamCatcher      A spider was quietly spinning his web in his own space. It was beside the sleeping space of Nokomis, the grandmother.       Each day, Nokomis watched the spider at work, quietly spinning away. One day as she was watching him, her grandson came in. "Nokomis-iya!" he shouted, glancing at the spider. He stomped over to the spider, picked up a shoe and went to hit it.      "No-keegwa," the old lady whispered, "don't hurt him."      "Nokomis, why do you protect the spider?" asked the little boy.       The old lady smiled, but did not answer. When the boy left, the spider went to the old woman and thanked her for saving his life. He said to her, "For many days you have watched me spin and weave my web. You have admired my work. In return for saving my life, I will give you a gift." He smiled his special spider smile and moved away, spinning as he went. Soon the moon glistened on a magical silvery web moving gently in the window. "See how I spin?" he said. "See and learn, for each web will snare bad dreams. Only good dreams will go through the small hole. This is my gift to you. Use it so that only good dreams will be remembered. The bad dreams will become hopelessly entangled in the web.      Another Legend of the DreamCatcher      Long ago when the word was young, an old Lakota spiritual leader was on a high mountain and had a vision. In his vision, Iktomi, the great trickster and teacher of wisdom, appeared in the form of a spider. Iktomi spoke to him in a sacred language. As he spoke, Iktomi the spider picked up the elder's willow hoop which had feathers,horsehair, beads and offerings on it, and began to spin a web.       He spoke to the elder about the cycles of life; how we begin our lives as infants, move on through childhood and on to adulthood. Finally we go to old age where we must be taken care of as infants, completing the cycle. "But", Iktomi said as he continued to spin his web, "in each time of life there are many forces; some good and some bad. If you listen to the good forces, they will steer you in the right direction. But, if you listen to the bad forces, they'll steer you in the wrong direction and may hurt you. So these forces can help, or can interfere with the harmony of Nature." While the spider spoke, he continued to weave his web.      When Iktomi finished speaking, he gave the elder the web and said, "The web is a perfect circle with a hole in the center. Use the web to help your people reach their goals, making good use of their ideas, dreams and visions. If you believe in the great spirit, the web will catch your good ideas and the bad ones will go through the hole." The elder passed on his vision to the people and now many Indian people hang a dream catcher above their bed to sift their dreams and visions. The good is captured in the web of life and carried with the people, but the evil in their dreams drops through the hole in the center of the web and is no longer a part of their lives. It's said that the dream catcher holds the destiny of the future. Works Cited article taken from - http://www.american-native-art.com/publication/dreamcatcher.shtml

Container Sculpture 

Rebecca Hutchinson

 

• Elements and Principles - Shape, negative space, organic shape, line, scale, space, texture
• Looks and reminds of of fishing wire or lobster cages something weathered by the ocean.
• Artist Statement - Hutchinson has an interest in both human world and natural world, her work is very organic, some pieces are influenced by observing plant growth and ecosystems. 

Sue Walker

 

• Elements and Principles - Rectangular line, symmetry, scale, texture 
• The stitching inspired me because it is very irregular and unfinished looking and it goes well together with the black ink prints
• Artist statement -This artist mostly works with sitting printmaking, and photography 

Rickie Wolfe

• Elements and Principles - Organic shape, color, texture, space, negative space
• The use of wire with fabric is an interesting concept to me, how it creates these organic shapes with it creating an beautiful shadow.
• Artist Statement - Wolfe explains that he is drawn to the tension between the raw metal and the delicate elements; fragile yet strong. 

Web of gold - 

This work begins with a fascination in the materials used. Thread is a simple yet interesting material to work with, it can be manipulated in many different ways and it can also have a mind of itself running in directions you don't always not intend. I wanted to use a combination of this thin delicate material with the strength of the metal nails to create something thick, layered and strong. My interest came from the research that I initially started with. Thread and string can be used and manipulated in a variety of different ways its used to stitch things back together, to bind things, to wrap things up. All these actions require movement and involve using your hands, these actions became very important to me by the soothing and rhythmic action of placing the thread between each nail and stretching it across to reach the next. This movement and rhythm are as much important with the piece than the final product. I chose to use black as my primary color because I wanted it to be simple and bold against the white wall. I used a small amount of gold thread to highlight certain aspects of the work, mainly I wanted it to be very minimal and only thread it around the eye of each piece which are the middle circles. These circles are important and are a common theme in my work. Circles are important in my work representing the whole, the infinity of things and the perfect unifying shape. They correspond to the importance of movement in creating my work the shape is a gestural shape, yet it is geometric, chaos and order. 

3D to 2D

Artist Statement -

I chose to use my architecture relief project to manipulate for my 3D to 2D project, I used a close up image of the cut out design of my architecture relief. The repetition in this is somewhat inspired by Andy Warhol's Pop Art, but also from Art deco architecture and art that includes a lot of repetition. I chose to keep it in black and white giving it this almost optical illusion effect. 

Themed Objects 

In Process pictures

Final Pictures

Artist Statement- 

My theme changed frequently throughout this project, my first research for a theme was always built on the idea of nature, which branched out to different things. I finally came to my theme of the Ocean in particular ocean plants and jelly fish, my inspiration for this was sparked by the Disney movie "Finding Nemo". I stitched together tissue paper filled with more tissue paper to create these half moon shapes that I eventually strung together on thread and hung them from the ceiling. I chose to hang them on thread to get the soft movement that they have when hung to replicate the fluid movement that seaweed or other sea plants have in the water. I chose soft warm washed out coral colors to go with my theme. I decided to use tissue paper because it is so thin and transparent which I liked because it reminded me of the translucency of jelly fish, and how other plants look in the water. The thin tissue paper slightly exposes the tissue paper stuffed inside creating these light and dark shapes underneath.


Research pictures -

Touch by Diane Ackerman 

Speaking of Touch 

First Touches 

The Skin has Eyes 

The Hand

It is fascinating how the concept of touch can mean so much. This article explores in the most interesting way the idea of touch and how important it is. It opened my eyes to the reality of how much touch effects our lives. Everything we do revolves around it and our understanding of the world. Touch is one of the simplest things yet it is so vital to our nurturing as babies. The concept of hands is interesting because we do everything with our hands, as artists our hands are one of the most important things, are hands express, and create the things we want. When you get a small cut on your thumb or other finger even as small as a paper cut it makes you realize and acknowledge how much you use and need your hands to work, to type, to write, to build to talk, after that cut you feel everything. You can learn a lot about a person from looking at their hands. How they work, how they use their hands musicians, artists people who work outside, the rings that people wear on their fingers everything is connected through a persons hand including the most important - touch. 

Inventory / The Tokens - Christopher Turner 

This article is extremely emotional, I cannot begin to imagine what life must have been like at this point in time. Something that stuck with me when I read the article was "These trinkets are transitional objects––Severed umbilical cords––that embody the grief of separation." This is a melancholy idea yet it is beautiful in a way that there is an everlasting bond between the mother and child. The mothers who are grief stricken have something tying them to their child. I can not compare this article in any way to personal experience however, I can compare it lightly to the idea of separation and what comes with that. Separation is hard to deal with, we all live with a kind of loss or separation from something, for me I have family that live in all corners of the world, that separation, (although it is very different to the idea in Turners article) is hard and I am reminded of that when I am away from them and when I have moments of being with my family, I have to cherish them and after hold the memories close to me. The apartment that I live in now used to be mine and my sister until she moved to New Zealand, throughout my apartment I find small tokens of hers that remind me of our time spent living together, memories are important to us, especially when we have an object that reminds us of someone. When I was younger I used to collect and save my families empty perfume bottles. As a child I loved the small glass bottles to decorate my room with, but what I didn't realize is that when I got older those bottle meant more to me because the bottle still smelled the same, and that scent reminded me of my family members and of times I had spent with them. It is interesting how scent and sound have such a great impact on memory. These small bottles are mementos of my family. 

It is unbearable to thing to think about that these mothers had to give up their child in order for them to live a better life. A better life for the mother and for the child. These mothers had to part with nothing to remember their child by other than knowing that their child had a small token of their own in some way to have a lasting bond with them this is a sad but perhaps hopeful thought that maybe one day they would be able to come back for their chid. Or that the token left with them was somehow a wish for forgiveness when the child got older. 

Janine Antoni Video - Personal Response 

I enjoyed learning about Janine Antoni, her words and work are very inspiring. I like the way the video begins with the idea of the umbilical cord and how it connects two things together, the idea that her life is a rope connecting all the people, this idea really struck me. I love how she talks about these materials as different peoples lives coming together. Saving the story behind how something was made. I found it interesting how she emphasizes the idea of using her whole body in order to create her art work I haven't experienced many artists like this, I think she brings up an important point about creating art with the whole body. She has a strong relationship with her art, connecting her body with the art. She is involved in it rather than just creating it, she steps into the art rather than just sitting outside making it. Her voice is very inspiring and important in understanding her art. She expresses this even deeper when she creates a mold of herself in chocolate and soap, again she steps into her art she becomes a part of it which is a concept that I haven't experienced as much or liked as much as her work. Going back to the beginning of the video, her idea of an umbilical cord connecting two things together she does this with her art connecting it to herself, she is bound within it. Her soap mold's reflect perfectly how we deal with the idea of self, she explains she is slowly erasing herself through washing with the soap. Our internal conflict the, "love hate relationship with our physical appearance" This is a powerful idea and one which to me is quite truthful in our society today, we do have a love hate relationship with our physical appearance.