further Y's

 

mapping the holes

Charting the rips and tears in my 'canvas' - what goes where, what could be expressed and how. The frayed fringes that get cut out from some of the holes during prep are all saved up for potential use later.

 

 

hyoid - it's a Y

The interesting Y shape that is the woodpecker's tongue. It's not as simple as the Y shape, but nevertheless. I like how it ties in, and informs my woodpecker element further in this work.

Research:

 

Woodpecker skull biomechanics (illustrated)

Structural analysis of the tongue of a woodpecker (and domestic chicken)

Woodpecker tongue from above

reconstructed continuity

...or perhaps imagined or wished continuity.

The Y shape as a natural form and growth progression has been playing on my mind. I tied little roots on my y shaped sticks, to carry the thought/process further.

purpose, viewpoints

Half jeans - not useful as jeans, as for wearing. Their purpose was to represent the new products in a wholesale environment, to show what is available in the coming season from the particular producer. Their purpose is also to save material and work output, as in halve the effort and raw material put into producing these smaples. However, after they fulfilled this one and only purpose, they have become totally redundant, a waste, and instead of representing saving on materials and work needed, they became wasteful and a problem to deal with. 

In their one-leggedness, in a society where the norm is two legs, and where the requirement for coverings is to hold two legs, i appreciate them as something quite poignant in their existence. For me their usefulness is telling the truth about our wasteful culture. Objects are brought into being considering just a select - or just one - point of view. Wishing to involve all points of views in producing my objects. Impossible? I can only wish and then try to comply.

new addition

Mending, reinforcing, fusing, one supports the other, and the other supports the one.

I felt like the pair of jeans with a torn area at the crotch was a good colour to embroider on but not holey enough for the mending aspect. So went to hunt out a more holey one. It was found in a charity shop.

I realized that it could be melded with the original pair for support - I have been thinking about having to use a backing fabric to support my 'canvas' so it wouldnt collapse into creases when I hang it up to show. This way, one broken pair supports the other broken pair, making a strong new wholesome unit. I'm happy with that.

Y

This shape occurs in nature EVERYWHERE. In us, on many levels, in plants, in animals, in minerals, visible and microscopic.

Legs sprouting from a torso, fingers from a palm, branches from a tree trunk, twigs from a branch, antlers from a deer's skull, blood vessels, veins in a leaf, a nervous system, a root system, atoms organising into a chrystalline arrangement...is it a lung, is it a tree, is it a rock? 

Y ...a will forcing material to reach further.

Research:

Bent into shape: The rules of tree form

materials and colourways

I have been separating materials to begin on the project, thinking in tree bark, logs, forest floor, moss, lichen, woodpecker and timberman beetle. Still found the sum of the selected colours too colourful. Too uncentered in a way.

So I took the colour of the base material ie the pair of jeans, the leather jacket as the driving colour for each piece respectively. Almost sure that the bird and the insect will be similarly colour coordinated, since the patterning I’m thinking to create will suggest them clearly.

I’m pleased to notice that the majority of the scraps I ended up on are also textiles that were once worn on the body - I have panels from old shirts and blouses, an apron, pajamas, flannel shirt. I’m pleased because it aligned with the concept of the base of the project, ie the thrown away pieces of clothing.

I’m also going to try to incorporate pieces of a blouse I made and cyanotyped many years ago for a project.

tree bark

 Textures of tree epidermis.

woodpecker, timberman beetle

 

Research:

Lahopuut elinympäristönä

Rotting logs as habitat

Valkoselkätikka

Sarvijaakko

two weeds / viewpoints

What makes a plant a weed? Assigned meaning, a function that is observed from a certain point of view.

Nettle. Found last autumn on the balcony growing unnoticed in a flowerpot. One of its young leaves was put under our toy microscope.

White goosefoot or lambs quarters. Grows anywhere, even in sand and other poor quality soil. Its leaves are meant to be highly nutritious. In Hungarian it has a funny name, my homesteading grandma explained that it’s because it gives pigs diarrhea.