New Blog

This blog will now come to an end and be replaced by a new one which will unite my practice now that my degree is almost at an end (just the dissertation to do). Thank you for reading it and please see new blog which will start after the school holidays are over and I have finished clearing out my loft - a project put on hold for the last 4 years!

http://julieheaton.wordpress.com/2014/08/25/new-blog/

I am very excited because my embroidered drawing of The Bristol 2 Litre Engine will soon be in the September / October issue of Embroidery. I am also going to London tomorrow to take one of my prints to the Bristol car Showroom on Kensington High Street. I am hoping to sell giclee prints of the embroidered drawing which are half the size of the original engine and printed on fine art paper. Tonight I anxiously signed the first copy and hopefully more to follow. 

After visiting the show rooms I am going to the Imperial War Museum to research my next piece of work. I am interested in the lives of women in the First World War - someone who was widowed but not because her husband died a hero, but perhaps because he was a pacifist or a conscientious objector. I hope to find an object or photograph that will represent her story - one that I can draw in thread. 

The final hours

What an experience - there are a lot of nervous people in one place all trying to be calm and help each other whilst we anxiously hang our work ready to be marked. It feels as though we are putting our whole lives on show because so much hard work and effort has been ploughed into some incredible work. I really can't wait to see it all finished and ready to present to the tutors followed by our families, friends and the public. 

Here are some pictures that show us preparing for the show - 

Plinths painted and wrapped

Sophia helping me to work out how to place the garment

My space

Tonight I will just add some final few words to my sketchbook; tomorrow I will take in remaining supporting folders, uncover all the work and then take Mikey to Bath for a very well deserved coffee and cake. 

The Photographs

I have been into the studio to take photographs of the garment. John (technician) was very busy but still had enough patience to provide various different lighting sessions for the garment. It is all quite scary now because the hand in date is fast approaching. 

I have chosen two images - one front and the other side view that capture the essence of my idea.  The Japanese Gampi tissue  night gown will not be worn but the possibility that it could be  creates an absence. And by showing this I hope that the garment will allude to the issue that when emotional damage happens through loss, it is so often worse at night, but also, it is the time when thinking can occur and a beautiful repair can happen within. 

The use of light helps to capture this mood but also illuminates the design. 

And to work along side, the hand made book that is a record of peoples physical responses to damage but also the emotions that we can all feel.

Thank you to everyone who has helped with the making of the book.

A perspex hanger has been designed and waiting to be laser cut in plastics along with a perspex bracket to hang the garment for the summative assessment. A tube light will illuminate the work from behind and hopefully this will help to create a similar effect that I have achieved in photography. Now I just need to think of a title for the work. 

Deciding how to present the work

We had a group crit at uni this week and whilst I did not reveal the garment during this conversation due to the fragility of the paper and the lack of space on the tables, it was discussed afterwards at a tutorial. 

The decision on the hem has been made as everyone was in agreement that it should be scorched enabling it to demonstrate the technique / damage part of the garment. And conceptually it says that damage never goes away but does become part of life, but without careful attention paid to detail it can just become part of the invisible.

Another suggestion was to try and create a suggestion of form in the garment by finding a structure that could go underneath and help give it some depth rather than just hanging flat on  a hanger. 

An artist that helps to confirm this idea is Caroline Broadhead

Dress with black holes, 1999, Caroline Broadhead

One dress overlays the other, the openings are dominant; the part where we are able to take the garment on and off. Maybe the suggestion of things gone and things to come. 

Ready to Tear, 1998, Caroloine Broadhead

Caroline Broadhead's work offers an experience; her interest is in the body or its absence, its senses and its movements. Wearability is not the aim, the important thing is the possibility that it could be worn. 

So I plan to make a hanger that will help to create some space in the garment because  I want to suggest the fragility of human emotion, the absent body which has struggled with the inner need to repair after a personal trauma.

The Garment

After a lot of deliberation over the design  to appear on the Japanese Gampi tissue garment,  I eventually settled on a simple route taken from a large Bristol A-Z map. One line was chosen and ran from our house to the bridge with some off shoots or variations on possible choices that Carl may or may not have made because that is what it is all about - I don't know how he got there, how he was feeling and just why he had to do it. Like everyone else who may have been abandoned through suicide, our lives change forever, our relationships with the world change forever  and our questions never cease. For some people this is difficult  to understand and the tragedy is not mentioned, for others they will offer support which is invaluable, but it is only the person affected who can truly make the repairs needed to be able to continue with the altered life that they now live.

So my garment looks beautiful, delicate and fragile; there is an attractive design but it is only on further questioning that it may e realised that the marks have a far deeper meaning. Also the techniques used: the paper was very fragile and difficult to manage just as out lives have been since loosing Carl. The design was burnt into the paper causing holes that had to be repaired very carefully and with meticulous attention to detail, but one wrong move would cause another tear.  These two images show parts of the garment -

The garment

Close up of Japanese Gampi Tissue with free machine embroidery repair

These pictures show the work in progress - working out where to place the chosen design, scorched marks on Japanese Gampi tissue, attaching the magic solvy with hand stitches ready to stabilise the work before repairing with machine embroidery.

Planning where to place the design

Scorched Japanese Gampi tissue 

making the repair

The last part of the garment was to add the buttons and hem. But after struggling to make the hem level, unpicking first attempt (which is very difficult as the paper becomes very weak and fragile) and then completing the second attempt I realised that this did not work. 

Hemmed garment

The garment had been closed, the subject finished and there was nowhere else to go with the idea. But I did not want to remove the hem straight away and have left the garment hanging in my bedroom until I decide just what to do because any  changes will be irreversible. 

The next image shows a sample with the hem scorched just at the marks which represent the end of the journey taken by Carl. Whilst a lot of repairing has happened and looks quite beautiful, the vulnerable issues of the design is now evident at the most poignant part. This suggests that the subject of why Carl died and how successful the repair to our lives has been will never be fully known, but we can look at the positive things that have happened and that whilst life will never be the same again, it can still be full of hope and beauty.

Scorched hem line

I now have to decide on an appropriate title for the work and how I might present the garment for the degree show. And there are the stories of physical objects that have been damaged and how the repair was managed; the typing has to be completed  and the pages bound together in a handmade book.

The Bridge

My work is all about mending after an emotional trauma an this week I have pushed it to the limit. I went back to the bridge where my husband ended his life and our dreams. I took my camera hoping to find something normal but usable as a design motive for my garment. A design that would tell some of my story but only for those who wanted to see it. But during my very emotional drive, I knew I had already decided what I was going to do - I had to find Carl's map that he had left on the day he died - the map that showed where he would be. But I didn't know which route he had taken:  this was easier to question than the why and how and  is symbolic of all the processing that occurs after suicide.

Inspired by a wonderful book called 'The Map as Art' (Harmon, 2009) I began to realise how I could make my idea work - I will pare down the routes - just a few lines will question the journey and what happened next. 

Guillermo Kuitica is an Argentinian artist whose work makes people visibly absent from his drawings and paintings. But are they visibly present? - The maps, diagrams and objects suggest  human activity as if time has momentarily been suspended until someone arrives and imparts meaning to the space.  The maps can be made of painted bones or barbed wire - death and danger characterise the journeys.

Guillermo Kuitca

Jonathon Parsons dissects maps - all but the selected routes  are removed as he finds intriguing visual elements. Here a deconstructed 1991 intercity rail map is dissected from a sheet of metal and presented as a sculpture.

Jonathon Parsons

Jessica Rankin explores the landscape of her mind in a series of mental maps, embroidered text and fragments from an array of mapping documents. Organdy  canvases hang away from the wall to suggest 'dream'

Jessica Rankin

Nothing else will be needed - the lines will  show the struggle that happens after suicide - they will symbolise the  numerous questions that will never be answered. But also they will show that mending can happen: the scorched lines of the routes will be repaired with a beautiful embroidery thread. I will use my paper nightgown as the canvas and add light to strengthen the processing of thoughts and emotions during the night.

Can I make this work?

Work so far - trying to use free machine embroidery with paper that has a design made through burning / scorching the paper. A really interesting, but very tricky technique and difficult image to manage emotionally. I thought I would be ok to use a design taken from a difficult time in my life, make the pattern and then repair with stitch. It would be beautiful and hide the trauma but at the moment it is too graphic and therefor hiding very little. 

Glassine, plain 40gms

unknown paper type

Technique - photograph manipulated in photoshop and then traced / scorched with a pyrography machine set at number 4 (1-10). The paper is then sandwiched between 'Madeira cut and iron away film'. The image is very carefully made / repaired with free motion embroidery. A fine, sharp machine needle, i.e. not a ball point, is used to minimise further damage to the paper. Once the embroidery is complete the support fabric is removed with an iron set on a medium heat. This proves quite difficult because the support fabric is quite sticky and the paper is very fragile and therefor easily breaks as the iron is moved over the top. 

And the image is quite stark - I have not managed to hide it and make a beautiful repair, it is obvious. It needs concealing either by adding layers or manipulating the design, turning my image into a suggestion but still resonant of the damage otherwise the beauty can not show.

Khadi, Natural Lokta 3

This pattern is more abstract, there is a link but it is concealed unless looked for. The image has been cut and manipulated. It is raised because I tried a different way to remove the backing - ironing over baking parchment - the support fabric just fused with the paper instead of lifting. 

Silk Crepe Back Satin, medium

Material was a lot easier to work with so for that reason I will continue experimenting with the more problematic medium - paper. Also, it strengthens the element of fragility and need for careful handling.

Today we had a really interesting lecture by Michael Brennand-Wood: it was titled 'Pretty Deadly' due to his link with the beauty of stitch and the uncomfortable language of war. From the beginning of his career, Brennand-Wood has realised the potential within embroidery to explore ideas and transform it in to a 'fine art'. Wood can be combined with fabric, machine embroidery will hide the ravages of war.

Pretty Deadly, Michael Brenand-Wood

So I can combine the image of our family trauma with a delicate, stitched technique? Can I find a paper which is strong yet delicate and a pattern that suggests and does not hide?

Tutorial with Matthew Harris

It is now time to move forward with my textile work as my main piece of work for art is in the final stages. Having this pause  in textiles has given my time to really think and consider my options and also allowed a tutorial to take place with Matthew Harris.

Matthew Harris a fantastic artist who uses dying, cutting and hand stitching to translate drawn marks into cloth. I carefully talked about my work whilst he quietly listened, he thought and then started to give me some really helpful advice. Whilst he encouraged my theme of damage and repair he did say that I had to be careful that my idea of producing a garment could just become a design project and that my work is about an idea which I must carefully consider. Do I want to convey a message and if so just how much do I want the viewer to see? Could I use a pillow case or a bed sheet instead of a night gown? This was an exciting idea. When there has been a trauma some people look and just want you to be ok, some will question you further and some will listen to how you feel. Some times you want to tell people and sometimes you don't. So I may include some layers to hide and conceal or reveal more. But what will be the best vehicle for this conversation  - small scale blocks, a full sized garment or bed linen made from paper or silk? What I must do now is think carefully about the image I use for the damage design and just how much of it I show. The one thing I am sure about is that I want it to be beautiful - and I only want the people who want to see - 'that mending can happen'. 

from the 'Lantern Collection', Matthew Harris

Harris draws people into his work through pattern, repeating and disrupting the marks so that visual connections amplify the suggestion he is trying to make. So this is my next step, find an image (which I think I already have or know), draw, cut, manipulate and see what happens.

Why the delay

This is just a short entry to explain why I have been a bit slow at posting on this blog. Last year I just had one blog and this was much easier to keep updated but this year it is a little more of a struggle with two.

So why the delay - well I have just got a little stuck with where to go next with textiles and my art piece is consuming every spare minute because it is a huge piece of work and by it's nature - it is an uncertainty - it may work really well or may just fall apart at the final stage or worse still, may just not get finished in time. 


Here it is in progress

The Bristol car engine, free machine embroidery on dissolvable fabric

But for textiles I just have lots of ideas that still need to worked at along with a little more research, and hopefully a solution. An email from my mother-in-law suggested that this is about me, my damage and repair, caused by carl but not now about him. This makes a lot of sense and therefor I think I will look at the idea of making a feminine garment - it may be monochrome. dissolving / disintegrating and loosing it's form, but equally it could be formed with an exquisite panel suggesting that damage can be repaired and may take of a different guise - one that may be fragile but strong, damaged but still beautiful.

I will look at the exhibition Future Beauty, 2010, 30 years of Japanese fashion. An exhibition that showed how fashion has been turned into art - away with the magnificent ornament and extravagant techniques of the post war era and instead the stark and monochrome with a new direction where holes, rips, frays and tears would emerge from the fabric.

Paper dresses - modern take on the traditional

Shadows, monochrome

Flatness

I also want to look at look at Kirstie McLeods work about Dreaming Dresses. For her degree show in 2004 she designed dresses that misbehave - they dissolve, melt, inflate, cleave together and are bound. McLeod dissolved a crinoline dress in water down to the skeleton but said it was neither a sense of boredom or relief.

Kirstie McLeod

Kirstie McLeod

McLeod mentions John Berger as an influence for her work - this sounds really interesting and I will try and to get his book Ways of Seeing from the library at uni. He suggests that women look at themselves - her actions indicate how she would like to be treated but men are just actions. Is this how I look at myself - the damage is part of me and maybe my strength rather than just something that needs to be fixed - it is making me who I am now and helping my work to develop.