Family Tree: Rowena Dring

Rowena Dring paints pictures with thread.  We are alike because of this.  Her pieces are mainly landscapes, and look more pixelated because she uses computers in her process.

Family Tree: Satoru Aoyama

An artist that inspired me to work with my sewing machine more was Satoru Aovama. All of the pictures created by Satoru are straight stitched on a machine.  These pieces are more clean cut than mine, but still are using thread to illustrate a picture.

Family Tree: Margarita Cabrera

Although her work is more sculptural than mine, Margarita Cabrera relates to my pieces because of her use of thread.  Both our styles allow the thread to hang down, or at least be well noticed. We also are connected in the sense that our work is about domestic life.

Family Tree: Annette Messager

Annette Messager relates to my own work by her use of textiles, and color.  Annette is a french artist who's work mainly consists of installation pieces.  I admire her use of fabric and the way she combines different materials.

In Progress!

As the pieces develop, new ideas form.  I began with the bedroom, worked for a few weeks, then started the kitchen.  The bedroom has a much more whimsical feel to it, more personal.  The kitchen consists of clean lines and a stronger sense of perspective.  I also worked mostly by hand on the bedroom, and the kitchen was more machine based.  These images are not the finished product, but both in the works.

Bottom left corner of the bedroom.

Bottom left corner of the kitchen.

Bedroom Brainstorming

I went through the same method of researching for my bedroom view and actually began to sew this one first.  Here are a few images of bedrooms I referenced during the design.

Sketchbook.

Sketchbook.

Sketchbook.

Just for fun.

But on a more serious note, cool angles.

Kitchen Inspiration

These images are what I used as research and inspiration when designing the kitchen.  I was attracted to bright colors, interesting angles, and appliance details, such as double ovens, or a unique sink.

Some are just interesting.

This is from my sketchbook, I used these specifically as references.

Experiments

This is when I begin to test everything out.  Here are some samples of different fabrics, embroidery techniques, and applique.

Research

Before beginning stitching, I had to do some serious research.  I raided library shelves, leaving no textile or fiber book untouched.  These are a few that really aided my process and gave some very helpful guidance.  One book in particular that was extremely useful(but is not included in a picture here) is By Hand: The Use of Craft in Contemporary Art.  This book was a great source of other textile and fiber artists.

Description

Between the end of August and beginning of October Maine College of Art's SYL War of the World's class mission was to research, design, and construct scale model houses based off the average town of Muncie, Indiana.  I was lucky enough to be a part of this.  After having completed all the finishing touches on my model a new assignment was given, that we were to come up with our own project.  

    I started by evaluating the house.  What was it exactly?  I had come to the conclusion that this piece was aiming to be a visually perfect house.  While constructing it my partner and I had to cover up flaws with little tricks, and our ultimate goal was to make it so that the viewer wouldn't be able to tell what we made it with.  This Parthenon like mind set was not how I was used to working. I prefer to allow the material to show through, for there to be flaws and quirks.  

    I also began to think about how average and boring the houses all were from the outside, just imagine how bland they must be on the inside as well.  So for the second half of the semester, instead of creating another visually perfect house, I decided to portray the quirks and uniqueness of a home.  I chose to illustrate a view of a bedroom and another of a kitchen with fabric pieces sewn onto one another.  Perspectives are skewed and thread colors clash with the fabric and patterning to represent the personalities a human brings into a home.  

Schematics!