June 2020 Hand, cotton and sunlight!
June 2020 sleeves and buttons
A play with pattern. I couldn’t find my hands to create things during lockdown, I could see them but couldn’t use them how I wanted! To get into this work physically I have to have someone to button the sleeves up, then the hands are trapped into the sleeves. Stuck!
I have been looking at the Victorian Mutton of Lamb sleeves, this may become a work where the sleeves button up to the elbow, then a mass of fabric between the two sleeves hinders you, to the point of tripping the wearer up! Questions: what do you want the wearer to feel? What do you want to evoke?
June 2020, Restricted movement and breath
From playing with the patterns above, I’m keeping with the same notions of the loss of hands, but including the idea of being squeezed into something or a situation which hinders your breathing and posture. Panic from the lockdown made me breathless and the gravitas of it all really dragged me down. The binding is from my great grandmother c.1900 hence I haven’t cut it, but kept it in one piece! I made the pillow case ages ago but I hand stitched the alteration with minute stitches! A project of patience and precision!
June 2020 The beginning of a million tiny stitches for the restricted sleeves
June 2020, covering, hiding from reality!
The amount of time I just wanted to crawl under a blanket or hide under the carpet during lockdown to get away from my two beautiful children and husband were many! I made a really simple cloth/sheet from calico and added tabs on it to play with folding, layering and to see how I could form a garment or some kind of adornment from the most basic of shapes…this is where I have got so far…interestingly in researching the Madonna (discussed in the past blogs) I found that her base layer before all the delicious fabrics are added is normally either a cotton or calico basic A-line dress or petticoat. I am also thinking of embroidering this with white/cream silk thread, to convey just the essence of what’s within the work, but not so much it shouts over the form…know when enough is enough and when to stop! The head covering culturally involved the colour, the meaning, being veiled for marriage or for grief; It hides the emotion, yet everyone knows the emotion the wearer is trying to hide, or the religion they belong to. This research is still ongoing…Renee Bevan’s Push and Pull session helped with this greatly, Thank you Renee!
June 2020 Stuck!
I couldn’t resist putting both works on together! It’s not nice at all in there, and I actually got stuck and couldn’t breathe properly or move! Do I want the audience to wear this to feel the same, or do I want the work to make them feel the same physical restraints, does it matter if no one experiences at all????