Angelina

No, not Jlie, but a very interesting new material I have worked with yesterday; It is colourful, responds to heat , its surprisingly easy to use, and its very tactile. I basically experimented with materials which are sensitive to heat, bubble up, change shape, and it provided me with lots of information about possible use. So much so, that my head is full of ideas, how I would be able to apply this in my work. Today, I added hand stitching to the marking i made with heat sensitive powder, and i thought it was very effective.
Why then is it that I feel it is cheating to use an already excisting design (a stamp). I feel it is to easy, but the results I like,Would there be a way I could incorporate my own design, then I would be really happy, For now I have framed my little golden tree, with a red letter T, in a beautiful wooden frame I found in a charity shop.O, talking about charity shop, I also bought an old suit case , which I will place underneath my display , which I will put up on monday, In the suitcase I will place the questionaire about touch. I will think of questions relating to the piece, but also enquire about early touch memories.
Another wonderful thing I have done this week, was visiting the embroidery workshop.Apart from being delighted to be with my own tribe, It also showed me that there is a market for textile workshops. And there is always the bonus of meeting nice and interesting people. There might be a possibility that we will continue with a small group of women.
In preperation for the display, i still have to do machinestitching for probably eight panels. When I finished of the hand sttiching today, I let go of the rigid counting of the stitching (panel one , one , panel two, two, etc. and as a result my stitching became looser, and more interesting.
I start to see potential,
I also read about an interesting eighteenth century technique, called 'knotting'. It was an occupation , usually for well to do ladies, who sat in the drawing room knotting thread, because it created an elegant movement of the wrist. Once the thread was knotted, it could be used for couching, a technique which means that the thread is applied on top of the material, and not through it.

Is this usuable ? Must exercise my wrist in  elegant manner, and start knotting some diffrent threads.
I feel that the social contacts this week in relation to my work were hugely beneficial. and great fun as well!

Hands on

Working on my small exhib. for next week, and I bloody hate it ! first discussed with C., I was excited, and very quickly after I imagined an image how I would like it to look. I feel now that my heart is not in it. I must persevere. I know from previous experiences, especially with drawings, one reaches a dead point, and , in stead of starting all over again, it is better and more satisfying to continue. The idea is a sequence of twelve red squares

 titiled 'DUODECAD', meaning ten plus two. I started with creating a series of little white cameos, adding one ,ore to each piece., so I ended up with twelve. There are some ideas floating around; Like touch in human life and living. From being continiously touched when you are a baby and a child, (and is it not sad that one can't write this without thinking about inappropiate behaviour!) and explore the world around you through touch, to not being able to touch at all, and very often not being touched.Thinking about the harsh environments of big school institutions, or old peoples homes, but also being the full exoerience of Aestetic touch denied.
I started with one , very quiet,little stitch, and let the number and thickness grow according to the number, so like a musical composition, it starts to get louder and louder, until there is a Halleluja from Handel feeling with the last piece, wich has to be the first piece, if one starts chronologically. Well, perhaps not quite the Handel Chorus, but that is the general idea. It has to fizzle out, ofcourse.While working on it, I decided that I will also add machine stitch with the same principle in mind, to add more interest, and I love building up with stitches. Then I immedeately start to wonder; Will my idea still be clear, if I machine stitch on top of the handstitch ?
I have also used textiledye to intensify the colours, starting with no colour, , then a faint peach colour, a brighter pink, to end up on the twelfth piece with bright red. All the hand stitching is in red, I will talk about the significance of that later, afraid that I will side track too much.
The thickness of the thread , the number of stitches, the itensity of colours, also the number of times I stitched around the cameos, and the size of the stitches, are all carefully thought out and excecuted,although I feel very much this is a piece which will lead to further work, and therefore merely samplers
I like to experiment with bleach on the red, the same metaphor of touch fading away in a visual manner.
I also like to add that I have a strong connectiong with appropriating old materials, because that adds to the narrative and the quality and history of touch .They make my enquiry in Aestetic touch a much more interesting experience.

in touch

When I was looking at how to make cloth more tactile, I remembered old techniques, like Pleating, Controlled Crushing, Slashed Tucks, Flat Pleats . They were names I would have given my children !!!
I Love the language connected to stitch: What about Ravelled Fringed Tucks or Single Pointed Darts and the one which sound most tactile of all':Horizontal Pleats that Gradually Decrease In Depth'.I know I have to start experimenting and sampling and actually handling material, so that i literally get back in touch again with the process.So today I will be looking at disstressing materials. I do have an idea of a piece wich starts as a whole and then through time it changes, and finally diseapears.I have to give it a lot more thought, and that is the old dilemma: How to work intuitively, and how much does one allow the brain to take over !Enough writing !Time to gather materials and start! with burning, pleating ,bashing, rubbing and stabbing !

getting back in touch again

One of the most interesting articles I have been reading in the last week is called 'may I Touch it ?'by Marilyn DeLong, Juanjuan Wu and Minxin Bao. They argue that 'The point of a full complemaent of touch awareness is to develop a vocabulary that includes all aspects. Ofcourse that is my line of research. But more and more I am convinced that the key for touch awareness, in particular in relation to cloth and material, is also linked with this very phenomena.I recorded a few phrases and words yesterday from this beautiful tactile book, covered in real printed textile, From the MOMA, one of my favourite museums in the world, related to Japanese Textiles. Like 'crimp' and 'bunch' ,pliable, moulded,sculpted, the thickness of cloth, shrivelling and crumpling textiles (would you describe a tactile experience as 'crumpling'?)or lustrous and smooth.Rich tactile experiences and sensual qualities. There is a beautiful example in the book about an cross over between a mechanical process which is interupted to include tiny organic elements, like feathers and snippets of paper into the material. The result is incredibly touching.Another artist , called Chiyoko Tanaka, 'grinds' her fabricFor the panel depicted in this book, she used a stone to burnish both the front and back so that 'previously concealed warp began to appear on the surface.The ochre color is a result of carefully rubbing soil into the surface. This then reminded me of the lecture yesterdaymorning, where an artist was mentioned who burried shoes, and dug them up after five or six years, having increased in quality of lustre. Tanaka has found a way to transfer the texture of the earth into her canvas.This insight, this information, really expands my way of thinking of how to use different ways, apart from stitch, or in combination with stitch one can make textile more tactile, enhance the qualities of the original cloth, like a coarse weave, for example, where it it would be interesting to remove threads by rubbing, or pulling.More about this tomorrow! The Memory of touch, for example