creakingfolds

The tone of handling the unpicking of the dye laden fabric is one of expectant.The tension, both in a physical sense - within the hand - pulling the fabric apart, listening to it creaking as the hidden white folds are revealed and also the anticipation within the soul as the pieces take considerable time to stitch and all the work could be undone or lost within the 95 seconds that the piece is within the heat press.
This process and general experience has the experience of printing but is also akin to the bronze pour or ceramic firing that I have undertaken in the past - something that I enjoy but a process fraught with issues.
The process could be caught on video - something to consider....

finishednessstitch

Started to bind some of the textile pieces, building a number finished works by ‘finalising them’ – the work is a combination of ideas that come from rethinking stab book binding techniques and the way in which the fans are held in the archive at the costume archive. Laying out the sublimation/smocking pieces onto their box structures they resemble coffins shrouded with flags – possibly of a very colourful nation!  

foldingprocess

Working on binding the Vylene fabric – using book binding techniques and gathering stitches – then using sublimation printing with the heat press to transfer colour and mark making onto the work whilst it is bound –the piece is then unbound to reveal the folds and the trace of what was once there. The process is revealed and rebuilt in the mind – its history is unpicked – the pieces are a hybrid of sculpture and process neither one nor the other but a middle point alluding to both.

These pieces will be folded and become pages in a bookwork – I've been looking at how to document the work – using both natural and man made light from an overhead projector changes the tone of the work – the images are interesting on their own and could become large prints.