I heart natural curiosities

I apologize for neglecting my blog!! I’m in the middle of working on my thesis (both visual and written components) so I have very little free time for anything else. I won’t be posting very often until after January because that’s when I’ll be finishing my thesis, but you might see me every once in a while.  Check out my new website!

I went to this really great lecture tonight and had to share this. Enjoy!

Christopher Wilcox – Natural Curiosities

Iron Work Inspiration!

Here are some pictures that I’ve taken over the past few weeks. I’ve gotten a lot of new iron work pictures..yay!

More Daily Drawings…

Here are some more of my daily drawings. Most of these are inspired by Savannah iron work.

Daily Drawing Update

Here are some more of the daily drawings that I’ve been doing on note cards. They are inspired by iron work in Savannah, cameos, and frames.

New Materials and Excitement!!

Today after class I went to Primary Art Supply and got new materials to work with.

Some of the feedback in my critique last Thursday was to work with metal, wire, and copper mesh.

In my class with Cat Chow, she suggested the same thing for my final project. I’m really excited to add something new to my work!! I also went to @ Home Vintage General which is one of my favorite stores in Savannah.

They had some vintage metal thread and embroidery floss from France which I saw last week and I figured now would be a good time to buy it. So stay tuned because I’ll probably be posting samples from these materials soon. Also, check out @ Home Vintage General’s Blog.

Deconstructing Silk

Here are more examples of how I’m deconstructing silk for some of my work.

It started with a sample that I posted from my stitch class. I started thinking about the word destroy while I was responding to another group’s presentation in our class. Then after I made the sample I thought about how this process relates to memory. Memories are not always clear and over time they can start to deconstruct.

So I’m using it in my little samples as reverse applique. There are lots of possibilities with this process so hopefully you’ll see more posts about this in my work. I’m just starting to explore it so it might take a while.

I’m also saving the threads that I’m pulling out of the fabric and plan on using them in some way eventually.

One thought that was brought up in class would be sewing the loose threads on water dissolving stabilizer. I am working on a free motion pattern for this so that a pattern joins these threads together. If anyone has any other thoughts I’d really appreciate them.

I heart Charleston!!!

My sister and I went to Charleston for a quick three day trip before the summer quarter started. It’s a lot like Savannah, but bigger & better shopping..hehe We spent a lot of time touring the plantations outside of Charleston and walking around downtown. The plantations were amazing. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to live on a plantation, but I think I would have enjoyed it. The history about each plantation was really interesting. We were told about several generations of families that lived on them and what happened to the plantation during the civil war (or the war between states, as they say in the south). Only one had the original plantation house, the rest were burned down and either rebuilt or they used the guest house as their own. They were also all decorated from different eras, which was so cool! The plantation that I was THE MOST excited about was, The Charleston Tea Plantation. We learned anything and everything you would ever want to know about tea. It’s also the only tea plantation in North America. We also stopped by the Charleston Museum and Aquarium. We actually fit in a lot of things for three days: The Charleston Museum, The South Carolina Aquarium, Middleton Place, Drayton Hall, Patriots Point, The Charleston Tea Plantation, a ghost tour, a trolley tour, and we explored downtown. YAY, it was lots of fun! I hope I get to go back sometime because there is so much more to do there!

Savannah Inspiration

The iron work in Savannah is beautiful and incredibly inspirational. I’ve been taking pictures of the iron work since I moved to Savannah in 2004, so I have a pretty large collection. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how these pictures relate to my grad work. I’ve been working with a lot of frame imagery, lockets, and thinking about shapes and Victorian mourning jewelry. The more and more samples that I create the more I think about how this iron work is influencing me in one way or another. I’m going to be doing some of my daily sketching from these pictures and will probably take more pictures soon. Here are some of my favorites.

Yoko Iwanaga

Yesterday while I was walking home from class, I stopped in the Pinnacle Gallery (for the third time!). I took some pictures of Yoko Iwanaga’s work because it’s so inspirational. I want to share this with those of you who couldn’t make it to the gallery. Her work is based on childhood memories and she combines these memories with present memories. I love how she abstracts images and only gives the hint of an image.

Random Inspiration

I’ve gathered several pictures from various places that I’ve been: New York, Hawaii, Charleston, Savannah, Chicago, and good old Yorkville. I’ve been taking pictures while I’m walking around in Savannah and looking through my archives so I thought it would be a great time to share some of these as inspiration. Enjoy!