IP Weekly Progress -- #18

What I Did:

Monday: (4 hours) – Tissue Paper folding.

Tuesday: (4 hours) – Made drafting shapes to use as a master shape to cut out of final pieces of paper

Wednesday: (4 hours) – Obtained samples of paper (at Hollanders, Art School, Xpdex,) Cutting shapes and some scoring

Thursday: (7 hours) – Wet folding and paper sewing.

Friday: (1 hour) – Paper sewing. Quick snapshots.

Process:

Made several “petal” forms, final draft shapes from scrap paper to overlay on good paper for actual form, and thinking about arrangement of paper pieces for postcard. Working into the weekend to prepare for Tuesday morning.

What I accomplished/discovered/encountered:

Found several samples of paper, bright white 110 lb paper, smooth mulberry, student-grade watercolor, Tyvek, and a couple other watercolor sheets of paper. I tore the edge on one side of each sample and soaked them under the sink just to see what kinds of unique folding I can achieve through this. I stuck to one universal form to create a good amount of pieces to compose together as one. Though my little mini experiment of various papers will not piece together entirely, it was a great exercise to really determine what ones I really liked the most. In terms of placing them together, the shape of the petal forms do not really compliment each other by how I place them. I forcibly sew them together, but they wrinkle and contract from one another. It’s not aesthetically pleasing at all. I will probably need to fit tabs on each and figure out a way to link them together properly. I’m really close though because the petals look really nice, but I need a little more of a complex system as to fitting them.

I tore the edges of a few pieces of paper samples just to see how the paper looked with “natural” paper tears. Though a lot of the paper turned jagged or just wasn’t easy to tear. I probably may stray from the tearing of paper, but I wanted to see how it would go at least.

It's really hard to see it as a section like this. Always better in person. I wonder how I can photograph these better. Only reason it wasn't hung in this photograph is because of being too delicate at this moment.

FOR MY POSTCARD:

I have a few ideas as to how to brand myself. Last semester I remember when I was talking in consultation a lot of what I said felt natural and emotionally driven. I was at a point where I didn’t need to read my notes and started speaking from my drive and heart. I wrote down a few things after consultation and these are phrases I am thinking about saying:

· An exploration of a unknown natural world

· A medley of natural worlds unknown

· Tales of an Amateur Naturalist

· Is there a chance we can ever know everything of the living world? Let alone, manage, preserve, and make full use of it?

· The world we live on today is an endless living being to walk through and explore.

· The world is paper because there are so many ways to explore it.

· Paper has a memory: each crease and fold are pictorial moments in time.

· Paper: An easy receptacle for sharing thoughts and ideas, paper is a medium where my ideas ascent because it begins as nothing, but in my hands it becomes something.

· Paper’s origin is from plants and it too can adapt and take on many forms as time moves on. By changing the structure of paper, such as folding it over or rolling it, you can change it’s overall structure and make it stronger this way. Just like nature.

For the photograph, I have one form that I like the most – but it was sugguested to me to consider having a drawing behind the paper form because through paper I’m illustrating physically these forms. Something to consider!

These are some old images I made awhile ago that I'm thinking along the lines of for my postcard. It's very progress oriented and I feel like I am just that. A progress oriented person.

What I should do next:

Make a large piece “bell” of the beast by weaving the petal forms together. This is to be finished before next week starts however. Apparently the sewing portion is taking me a lot longer than I anticipated yesterday and this morning. I would like to make a 360 degree view of a rounded form big enough to engulf my head. Just need to work on "linking" the petal forms together. Hmmmm ...