Final Major Project, the end.

My final exhibition was May 31st and much of the night was spent feeling quite nervous…

With the work complete and installed the next stage for me was to take the stage! I was to complete my performance, which had been fully planned and practised but doing it in real life is quite different.

My performance involved engaging with my installation, I played the part of the sea witch while my friend (Alex) played the part of the Little Mermaids sisters. The performance began with both of us walking onto the stage. Alex sat on a stool; which was part of the installation, facing the audience. As the sea witch character I took the wigs from the cast hands on the wall and put the wig on the Little Mermaids sister character, I then used a large pair of rusty scissors to cut the hair from the wig. The cut hair was then put into the cast hand and the rest of the wig placed on the floor underneath the same cast hand. This was repeated with all the wigs. This represented the scene of the book in which the Little Mermaids sisters sacrifice their hair to save their sister. The Little Mermaid realises their sacrifice when they come to the surface of the ocean and their hair is jaggedly cut. I therefore used my performance to show how I imagined the sea witch to cut the hair, in quite a violent manner, but the Little Mermaids sisters expressing love in allowing the sea witch to take their hair for the life of their sister. The performance ended with both participants walking off stage away from the audience.

Although nerve racking, I’m really pleased that I did the performance, I think it contributed well to my installed work and finished my foundation diploma course off brilliantly.

My final installation and performance images:

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Thank you for those who took photos of my installation and during my performance Paul Ramsay, Tom Jordan and Gareth Houghton.

 

Final Major Project, the installation…

With my garment complete, it was time to install the work!

Before installing work we were asked to write an artist proposal; this is what all artists must complete when wanting to exhibit work in a gallery so it was good practice and ensures that you get that best possible place for your work to look professional and sleek when fully installed.

Within my art proposal I stated that I wanted my work hung and that I needed enough space for six plaster cast hands to be evenly spread when attached to the wall.  The space also needed to be big enough for an audience to be able to gather in order to be able to watch my performance.

Although the installation of work can be quite tedious it’s great to have it completed and for the work to be shown in the best possible way. I began by asking for help from the technician, driftwood was attached to the wall at approximately a 45 degree angle, so that the garment could hang but not against the wall and could still be clearly viewed by the audience. As well as the garment I also hung a mannequin leg within the garment, this was to communicate the idea of metamorphosis and the moment the Little Mermaid is gaining human legs. Both the leg and the garment had strips of dyed aqua film attached and wrapped around them as to achieve a fleshy look and to add texture.

After this was completed the cast hands were attached to the wall with approximately 40cm between each hand and then the black wigs where hung on the hands.

These are some photos of the progression of the installation, final images of the installation coming soon:

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Final Major Project, still going…

Having completed my garment it was now time to start thinking about how my work was to be exhibited. With having an interest in performance art I had thought of having a live aspect along with my installed work. With my not only concentrating on fairy tales but also the relationships within them, I looked back at the Hans Christian Anderson version of the story and remembered the Little Mermaids relationship with her six sisters being the most prominent. This was particularly expressed within the scene when the sisters sacrifice their own hair in order for the Little Mermaid to get her tail back so that she can live her 300 hundred years life span with them.

I felt this was the best relationship to express in my work. I then came up with the idea of having six hands cast (which would be attached to the wall, protruding towards the audience) each representing a sister and each holding some hair. I really liked this idea, but it just needed to be refined…

Back to the idea of a performance aspect, I had originally thought of something pulling the fishtail apart, may be fishing lines and reals? as to link with the under sea theme. With some development of ideas I came up with a solution, by which I would actively use the objects within my installation to re-enact the scene in which the sisters sacrifice their hair to the sea witch for their sister the Little Mermaid.

As like my previous experiment of a paper wig, I had thought of making six paper wigs in which to incorporate into my installation. I decided against this as I felt they didn’t achieve the effect I was looking for and looked quite clumsy. I therefore bought six fake wigs which looked more serious for the atmosphere of the piece rather than comical.

Wig making development:

Unfortunately I have decided to keep exactly what I am doing in the performance a secret until it is performed at my final show exhibition. All will be revealed!

Final Major Project, full steam ahead…

After creating my final designs it was full steam ahead for my final piece. I started the process by sewing a basic garment, which was based on an original Little Mermaid design. This was done in a light weight cream voil fabric as the fabric draped well (as this may have been nessassary when it came to installing the work in the final exhibition). Once intact I began sewing into the aqua film material with differing shades of red thread. This had to be heavily embroidered as when the aqua film came in contact with water the sewn threads would be what remained. As well as embroidering the aqua film I also stitched tucks/gathers into the material as like a previous fabric experiment in order to create a scale like texture. This process took the most time, I used the embroidered aqua film to fil in purposely ripped/torn areas of the garment therefore to create a fleshy look. Once the garment was completely embroidered, using some very watered down red ink I immersed the gament into the water, the aqua film dissolved and left the fabric very slimey and sticky. The fabric was also dyed a light pink, which only added to the goriness of the piece.

When the garment was dry the fabric and threads were stiffened by the stickiness of the wet aqua film and made the piece more sturdy.

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Final major project, final designs…

So I had my ideas, experimentation and research… now for final designs. Having been making drawings throughout the experiment and research process, I then researched some illustrators for some illustrative inspiration. I looked at the work of Daniel Egneus, Mathiole and Florian Nicolle. All of which I think are fantastic illustrators, their styles are so beautiful.

Although my illustrations aren’t to the standard or beauty of the researched illustrators, I was pleased with them as I feel I am developing my own style successfully and for the story and scene they are based on they express the emotions well.

My designs…

Final Major Project, further research and experimentation…

Following my mid-way critique at university my ideas and research really started to take shape. Unlike Disney, Anderson was a little more descriptive in the way he told the reader how the Little Mermaid got her human legs.

“Then the little mermaid drank the magic draught and it seemed as if a two edged sword went through her delicate body: she fell into a swoon and lay like one dead.”

This was the main research I took to drive and inspire my final piece. But when researching the story I came across a poem by Debra Cash in which one stanza influenced also got me thinking about final piece:

Hans lied. He simply couldn’t imagine

I would want to shed the blubbery tail

dragging behind me like a torn bridal gown,

that I would prefer to stand on my own two feet

and walk on my own, love or no love.

Before creating any formal design ideas I researched my theme in a broader sense. Firstly I managed to catch a little bit of the documentary Mermaids:the body found, I wasn’t watching the documentary to find out whether these scientists believed that mermaids were real or not but to see how they imagined them to look like if they were. This opened up my thinking: if mermaids were real creatures they weren’t going to look like Disney’s perception of them, although the word mermaid is defined as half human half fish, they wouldn’t literally be the top half of a humans body and a fish tail. From this I imagined a mixture between fish scales and human skin. Fish skin being quite transparent, often able to see the fishes skeleton and veins. This was like a light bulb moment! The loose ends of my project were being pulled together.

The moment I wanted to capture through my garment was when the Little Mermaid is in a state of metamorphosis, her tail is disappearing and her human legs appearing. When I first began to speak of my ideas to my tutor a suggested artist to look at was Roger Hiorns, the main piece of work I looked at was his sculptures that created foam within the gallery. My initial idea was to incorporate foam into my work as at the end of the Little Mermaid story she becomes sea foam (as all mermaids do when they die). Then it became more apparent, Hiorns work changed/transformed as like the Little Mermaid. I wanted my work to transform from one state to another, not necessarily mechanically like the work of Hussein Chalayan but able to change to express that the characters costume is physically changing her. When this was discussed during my critique, discussion found me the answer to what material I should experiment with… water soluble/aqua film, a plastic sheeting that dissolves when dipped in water. Success!

So here is my further experimentation based on the Little Mermaid, aqua film based as well as others.

Final Major Project, final piece theme…

Since the previous blog post, I began to experiment with different materials to create garments based on the Little Mermaid. After the first few experiments completed I decided to have the Little Mermaid as the final theme for my final piece of work. The main reason for choosing this fairy tale was because I thought it had great potential for me to expand my ideas as well as the fact that I really like the story, I didn’t want to complete a piece of work on a subject that I wasn’t greatly interested in, you need to be able to really motivate yourself. The original tale by Hans Christian Anderson is quite different from the Disney version…

Here are my original Little Mermaid experiments:

 

Final Major Project, Experimentation…

Following on from my previous post I have began some experimentation of materials. Having thought of a few ideas, particularly thinking about what a costume says about a character and what it is communicating to the surrounding characters. I thought therefore that the colour and materials of the garment/costume pieces would play a great role in enabling the audience to identify the atmospheres on stage/set and the feeling between the characters.

I have recently completed experiments based on the fairy tales The Ugly Duckling and Goldilocks and the three bears. For The Ugly Duckling (based on an initial design idea) I made a base garment of calico fabric and then covered the base with strips of paper, which I then cut to create a fringed effect. This represented the ducklings stubby feathers. As I had used white paper I had thought about sponging areas of the garment with a light grey, but thinking that this would be to heavy and the colour quite possibly too strong I decided to crush some willow charcoal. With the charcoal being crushed in a bag I then cut some tiny holes in the bottom of the bag so that it could be used like a pepper shaker over the dress, this gave a subtle grey tone to the piece, which I thought was really successful in achieving the ducklings colouring without over powering the piece. To accompany the dress I also created a mask, made completely of paper with the same fringed effect as the dress. I also made some duck feet shoes, using a pair of flip flops as the base of the shoe I then used card for the basic shape and then paper machéd over the paper framing and painting them afterwards. I was influenced by artist Susan Cutts for the works due to the use of paper, she creates sculptural art pieces from paper that are intriguing and theatrical, her works could easily be part of a theatre set. Most of her works consist of paper dress sculptures, all being based on differing themes, affecting the pieces style and colour. I then had the whole ensemble modelled, which showed how the pieces harmonised together and with a bit of acting, how the character would be viewed by an audience, showing the Ducklings sadness.

As for the Goldilocks experiment I created a wig, again out of paper. This being influenced by Ella J Kidd, who creates wigs and millinery for stage and screen, one of her works being paper wigs. Paper being the chosen material as it over exaggerated the fact that the characters were wearing wigs, it was more obvious to the audience, this being an important factor for the play as it was set in the Georgian era, when the wealthy worn wigs also at the time paper was very expensive therefore the wigs also tell the viewer the richness of the character. I therefore decided to create a wig for the Goldilocks character from paper as if would be the focal point of the costume, as it is to the character. She is so named after her hair. I began by making a head cap from paper, weaving strips of paper to the size of the models head measurement. I then cut paper into thin strips and curled them with scissors to create ringlets. Using the longest strips of paper first I glued the strips to the wig in layers (as like hair extensions) starting from the back to the front of the cap. Once the paper curls layered up to almost the top of the head, I created a parting with uncurled strips of paper from the crown of the head to the from, then creating a curtained fringe at the front to finish it off. As like the Ugly Duckling costume I had the wig modelled along side a costume of collected pieces of clothing, based on an earlier costume illustration and some acting involved to show the differing emotions throughout the some of the stories scenes.

Many thanks to my willing models!

Final major project continued…

So since my last ‘final major project’ post, I’ve developed my ideas a little further. I began by researching some fashion/costume even book illustrators. I wanted to get some inspiration for my own designs as the next step was not only add colour to my illustrations but also drama!

I first looked at illustrator Rie Cramer. Cramer beginning her illustrating career for books and soon went onto illustrate for fairy tale writers Hans Christian Anderson and the Brothers Grimm. Later on in her life she began to also create costume designs/illustrations, set designs and write poetry and novels. She clearly had a passion for communicating with people, telling stories and drawing scenes from them. Her drawing were often accompanied by a quote from the book, this giving a narrative to the image and reminding me of the work of Muntean and Rosenblum.

I also researched costume designer Jacqueline Durran; who has recently won a Costume Designers Guild award and an Oscar for her costumes for Anna Karenina. Her costume illustrations are so beautiful and very dramatic. The viewer can feel the the drama of the story through the drawings and from seeing the drawings and stills from the film they are perfect, an exact likeness. Truly fantastic.

So here are some of my developed illustrations based on the same fairy tales I mentioned in my earlier ‘final project’ post.

My Final Major Project…

So I’ve started my final major project, which means a few things: Firstly that I chose the theme of this project, so the brief is totally my own and self lead and secondly that the year foundation diploma I started in September 2012 is nearly over! Which I’m finding unbelievable!

For the project I have chosen the theme fairy tales and the more I explore and look into this theme the more excited I get by it. In wanting to do a project on the theme fairy tales I decided that it would be interesting to concentrate on the relationships within the stories, therefore the final outcome to the project would be a costume that not only showed a characters personality but also their relationship and thoughts towards another character who is also in the story. I began the project with initial research and firstly read part of J.R.R.Tolkiens essay ‘On Fairy Stories’, this was a really interesting account of someones thoughts and ideas towards the fairy tale genre, in particular actually defining what a fairy tale is. From this I chose six fairy tales in which to research quite thoroughly and I chose these ones mainly because I like them and enjoyed reading them as a child but also because with some of them I had heard of alternatives and differing endings, which I immediately wanted to find out about. I researched: Goldilocks and the three bears, The Ugly Duckling, The little mermaid, Snow White and the seven dwaves, Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast.

Here are some initial design ideas I completed due to the initial research I did at the start of the project: