Following Cally's experiments incorporating pieces of brass into woven structures on the loom...we met at the Helmsdale residency to debrief and do some quick further testing with some of the more promising shapes with brass pieces and cut acrylic, thinking about the best type of shape to use to anchor the brass into the woven structure and possibilities in layering them like scales. Through this meeting we came up with a triangular 2 pronged shape with hoops that we imagined we would be able to incorporate into loom weaving, to be layered through the fabric and small enough to turn on the loom...
In our October meet up at my studio, as we played around with some stiff paper yarn and the brass prototype pieces, we had a Eureka moment and quickly realised it had a greater potential!
It is now our intention to use the brass pieces along with woven braid, using the general structure of weave, at a larger scale, off the loom, weaving the brass pieces together through the holes with lengths of braid to create their own structure and tension.
Following this revelation, I am interested to look into playing around graphically with some other basic weave structures and shapes that may also lend themselves well physically and visually to this process and have been digitally sketching some options up...
We are envisioning a few parts to our final piece, each producing a piece to compliment the collaborative element - Cally is working on some woven cloth structures and I'll add a more jewellery focused neck-piece. I'm interested in further exploring the connection of solid shapes with a woven structure and a positive / negative zero waste structure for this and the potential of using leather or wood similarly to the way the brass elements are incorporated.
After a very interesting show and tell from everyone on zoom, I feel spurred on to continue our experiments and to work further into the sound connection. Inspired by Marie's emotional response to sounds, we are planning to do some sound inspired monochrome mark making to inform and create new shapes to weave with. We hope to further draw on the positive and negative graphic elements and technical structures that link both our aesthetics along with rhythm, and then explore disruption and mutation within these structures.
It is so useful to see the ways in which others pairings are working together, the different approaches, and similar themes emerging in the process. The technical marrying of hard and soft materials seems to be recurring, along with the need get the connections between materials feeling smooth in order to create a satisfying outcome. This will be one of our challenges creating in the final pieces.
In these very odd times it will be interesting to see how well we can work remotely on the next phases of the project. Cally and I are generally going off an doing a bit of exploration, then reporting back, but have found that the points where we have been able to work with our materials physically together, have been key to our progress with these collaborative ideas. Timing will also prove key in figuring out the scope of the project going forwards, for example how much longer our experimental phase can go on before getting started on final decisions for the finishing phase.