refinement

I added a backdrop of scrim (the black scrim is still in place behind the first row of boxes), dyed a very pale green fading to blue at the base. The piece now looks even more mysterious, which I love. I started out thinking I was making an ocean. Now it looks more armageddon-ish. I want to call it " the huddled masses". It feels somber.

scrim

This past week I attempted to find a short cut for putting together my ocean - it failed miserably. I also attempted to silk- mache a larger piece, which was also unsuccessful. I did sew more boxes, dye more cloth and expanded the blue whorls further. And then I began to experiment with using a scrim, dyed black. At first I placed it over the "water". In certain light it was gorgeous and shimmered like a wet surface. Just tonight, I stretched the organza in front of most of the ocean - and it looked so mysterious.

progress

I've spent a good deal of my time lately researching for my crit theory paper. In the studio, I began to make these "silk-mache" half balls (about tennis ball size) - I was thinking about Hannah's idea of using rabbit skin glue to stiffen the silk, but am actually using a Golden product: GAC 400 that is specifically made to stiffen fabric. The stiff silk is kind of translucent still, which I love. When I put a few of the half balls together, they reminded me of poppies. So, today I dyed more shades of red to multiply my numbers of poppies. I also dyed more expanses of blue yesterday to keep expanding my "ocean". It is quite a bit larger than before (compare to photo on previous blog)- on the way to what I hope is much larger. The sewing takes a lot of time, but I have thought of a way to build the support boxes more efficiently. I'll report back on that.

whorls begin to multipy

As of February 1, 2010