Photo story

I showed my photos to 10 different people aged between 17 and 52 and they came up with a range of stories. There were some similarities in them such as the horse actually wearing the socks and being able to speak, the horse being ridden by a girl and the story being set at the north pole. My target story is that a girl has been given a horse for her birthday and she rides him along next to the icy water wearing her stripey socks to keep her feet warm. In order to reach this story I added in a picture of a young girl and the word Birthday.

However I found the experiment to be quite unsuccessful as I got another range of stories varying from the girl realising her feet were too big for her horses stirrups on her 5th birthday, it being the actual horses birthday and the girl being taken on holiday to Antartica for her birthday. The closest story I got to my target one was about a young girl and her horse and the girl was very upset that she lost her cosy socks, her parents bought her another pair for her birthday so that she could ride her horse along the water again.

I found this experiment to be really interesting and some of the stories were hilarious! I found that students had more of an imagination then the others and their stories were the most diverse. I even got one poem which was the basis for my target story.

my final image

photos

These are the three photos that I have selected for the second assignment. So far I have had lots of weird and wonderful stories from everything from wars and global warming to horse beaters and karma. I have asked lots of people from aged about 52 to 17 students and full time workers to make up stories connecting my three images and have yet to find a fourth in order to make everyone come up with the same story. The experiment continues....

Catwalk Project

So I have finally finished my piece! Today I dragged my flatmate down to Magdalen Green to take photos of my piece as I wanted to photograph it outside next to nature. She had a belly piercing which was ideal and I was able to attach my design to her ring. The poor girl must have been freezing as I made her stand outside topless in the cold! My piece can be attached to various different body piercings and be worn in a variety of ways. The pics turned out great though. Our exhibition opens tomorrow at 5 in the jewellery corridor... all welcome to come along :)

having problems uploading pics, will try again soon :)

Fashion Project

paper mock up of original design

two seperate wire structures - just doing the top one now!

This week I have been working on my final design which seems to have changed about 20 million times!! I was originally going to do one big body piece and then changed to do two smaller pieces as the wire didnt have enough support. Now I've changed it again and am only doing one of the two pieces due to the timescale we have. I've decided to make it wearable on various parts of the body including the belly, nipple and face. It is a simple wire structure, a moon shape and I am going to add lots of beading and wire detail. The piece can be attacted to various body piercings making it wearable in loads of different ways. The beading is driving me a bit mad but I hope it will all be worth it in the end!

some sketchbook stuff

some samples - beading, flocking, dying, felting, gold leaf

Catwalk Project

Well our first project of the year was a FASHION PROJECT and I have LOVED it! Lots of people in the class have seemed to be a bit uncertain about it but I have had a great time researching and making my sketchbook!

We were to look at a particular culture or period in history and I chose to study China. I went on to look at Chinese textiles, writing, patterns and architecture. I became particuarly interesed in Chinese Buddhism and the beautiful temples and shrines. I then went on to research the Phuket Vegetarian Festival which is a celebration led by Chinese Buddhists. During the festival they invite the Gods to descend down on them and enter the bodies of a selected group who are known as th Ma Song. The Ma Song perform self torture tasks such as extreme body piercing, walking up bladed ladders and over hot coals in order to cleanse thier spirit and bring good luck to their community. During the festival they wear all white and are only permitted to eat vegetarian food. The Ma Song pierce themselves with anything from swords to bicycles to arrows usually through the cheeks and face. They seem to be in a trance and feel no pain whilst performing these rituals as they believe the Gods have entered their bodies thus preventing this.

Ouch!

For my final piece I wanted to make some form of piercing. I looked into body piercing and the unusual places people can be pierced. Some of the pics I found gave me the heebie jeebies! They were the kind of pictures you didn't want to look at but you just had to! I took inspiration from the Chinese patterns and shapes of the temples and made a few sketches of pieces made for piercings such as belly buttons, eyebrows and noses. I then went on to look at connecting different piercings together and came up with some almost full body outfits all connected by piercings. The design I went for at first was connected through the face, nipple and belly button, I wanted to make the structure out of wire and possibly fabric with a pattern flocked on to it. (We did flocking in one of our workshops and it was sooo much fun!) I then thought about a wire pattern with bits flocked to bring in the vibrant colours of the Chinese culture. However when I started making my design I realised the wire I had was not thick enough to hold the structure up and altered my design slightly to make two seperate body pieces. I also had to change the way it fastened as it was not strong enough to hold. In the end I ended up with quite a different final design to when I started out but I find this is the way I work... changing constantly as I go along. I never start out to make something and it ends up exactly as it was on my page to begin with!

just a few piercing pics

I wanted to introduce something other then metal to my piece so have decided to do alot of beading. I did some over the summer and some of the things I made reminded me of the intricate Chinese patterns plus with the beads I can bring in the bright colours widely used in traditional Chinese textiles and architecture.

Seems I have alot of work to do if it's to be finished by Friday! More pics of sketchbook work, samples and designs to come.

Photo Swap

For our first assignment we were asked to take in pictures of ourselves growing up and swap them with someone we didn't know very well. We were then asked to analyse our partners photographs and report back to them on what we discovered. I swapped with textiles student Judith who gave me 5 photos of her and her friends. I looked at each picture in turn and wrote down my thoughts about her influences, tastes and situations.

The first was a picture of her sitting on a step with ice cream all over her face aged about 1. She looked happy and was smiling so it seemed to me she had a very happy childhood. She looking away from the camera and I thought this may have been an indication that she was a bit shy but when I met up with her she told me she was actually a bit of a poser! She was wearing shorts and a t-shirt so I thought this could have been taken in the summertime and later came up with the idea she might have been on holiday as her top said 'Florida' on it. She was also busy playing with a Minnie Mouse purse and didn't seem very aware of the camera so I thought this might mean she was focused and not easily distracted.

Awwww aint she cute?!

The second photo was a picture of her with a girl who I thought could have been her friend or sister in a backgarden. (Judith later told me it was her neighbour in her backgarden.) She looked like she was all dressed up for a party in a pretty dress and had obviously been told she wasn't allowed to play in the sandpit! The other girl was sitting in shorts and t-shirt in the sandpit having a great time and Judith was outside pointing and looking upset. I think she thought it was unfair and I think she would have remembered that feeling and has grown up with a good sense of fairness and likes to treat everyone equally.

The next photo was of her outside with some friends. I thought it could have been taken in a school or nursary playground at some kind of event. It reminded me of my sports day at nursary where we all got an apple and our parents came along. Although I could tell this wasn't sports day as the girls were dressed in dresses. Her and one of the other girls had a packet of golden wonder crisps and seemed to be standing in a line which was what made me think it was an event and not just break time. Again she was smiling and surrounded by friends which made me think she was a happy and sociable person but she was hiding behind one of her friends and that indicated to me that she could be quite shy. But then again maybe she was just standing in a line! When I met up with her she said she was never really shy but infact chatty and could be quite bossy - so I got that all wrong! She said it was taken at nursary at an event or fundraiser but she couldn't remember what for!

The forth photo was of her and 2 friends at some kind of music festival - possibly T in the Park? They were on the campsite so had obviously stayed for the weekend. This made me think that Judith wasn't too into her looks, that she was confident and fun loving. She had her hair back and probably hadn't showered for days! And she was still having a great time. She was really into her music and had a similar dress sense to her friends which made me think she was close to them and they were quite heavily influenced by each other.

The last picture I thought was taken in school and shows Judith with a group of friends. I assumed these were her best friends from school and recognised another girl Paula who also does textiles. They had obviously known each other a long time and were friends before coming to uni. I assumed it was St Andrews day as they were all wearing tartan and it was taken in school as the wall behind looked as if it had a history timeline on it. Her and her friends all had a very similar dress sense which made me think they were all very alike and influenced by one another.


Sorry the pictures are a bit fuzzy but I'm useless with technology and couldnt figure out how to work the scanner! ha

When I met up with Judith to hear her analysis of me she was spot on with what she said. She mentioned that she thought I was a girly girl who had gone through a tomboy phase as I had short hair and was wearing trackie bottoms! She also thought I was an animal lover which I am - and I'm a vegetarian. She thought I had quite a large family with lots of cousins but I don't think it's particuarly big - I have 5 cousins altogether. She also managed to recognise my best friend Mel from a picture when we were wee and a picture taken just last year. I don't think there was any big revelation about myself but I realised its quite amazing how much someone can tell about your life from a few snapshots.