For an evening in honour and memory of my friend Kay Maclean, I made 12 banners. The designs were created from smaller drawings enlarged and transposed into stencils. The different shapes were attached to the banner by using shiny and adhesive holographic paper.
Growing (and Vegetable) Fashion 2001 - 2002
Grass!
In 2001, I made the above grass dress. In 2002, I exhibited the same dress on the mannequin to the right. Through the drying out and dying process, the grass transformed into a fur-like substance. The monochrome-coloured dress is a combination of black kidney and haricot beans.
Carrots!
In both instances, the carrot slices were *sewn* together with thin copper wire. The cloche was made as a trial run, a sketch if you like, for the carrot *tunic*. The dress was made for an appearance on the local HTV showcase 'Grow Your Own'.
Radishes!
In preparation for the vegetable dress commissioned by the National Trust in 2002, I explored the ornamental possibilities of using radishes as a substitute for sequins. When kept moist, the radishes continued growing, first with vibrantly-green leaves. While keeping those watered, to my surprise, soft, fluffy, white roots began to sprout, but alas, I haven't those photos to hand.
Wallpaper & Stencils- 2000 - 2003
Daffodils!
For the 2003 Stroud Open Studios event, I transformed a studio space by tinkering with scale and repetition overload. I created a stencil by enlarging a small drawing. The method for the painting consisted of repeating the pattern using sample pots of coloured dulux wall paints, and occasionally turning the stencil. As I reflect over these photos, I regret that I hadn't turned the stencil more often and less regularly.
Lace & Sand!
In 2003, I tested ways to repeat patterns in lace, drawing attention to the pattern by focusing on its negative space. In other words, I treated lace as a stencil. Because of its abrasiveness, paint was too heavy to match the delicacy of the lace.
I settled on the medium of fine sand (chinchilla dust) to explore this relationship between materials. In this case, the sand is loose and transitory paralleling the fleeting fragility of the lace. The work is exhibited as a floor piece on a coloured background without ropes or cautions. The sand shifted during the exhibition, sometimes having to be re-made. On the other hand, it is surprising how little attention the work needed as people allowed it a respectful distance.
Rose Wallpaper!
Keeping in mind that wallpaper designs feature roses more often than any other flower or fauna, I pinned hundreds of small dried roses to the wall to create my own version of *rose* wallpaper. I collected and dried the roses from the rambling rose vine that enveloped one end of my cottage. 2002.
S t e n c i l s !
After having decided to paint a room using handmade stencils, I used dulux sample pots and grass seeds to reach that goal. It was during this project when I first noticed that grass seeds needed very little attention - except to be kept moist - to grow quickly and luxuriously. For the design part of the work, my only objective was to stencil the room indiscriminately - sideways, diagonally, along the ceiling, over the window, one stencil across another, incongruent colours and materials, etc. It was not altogether successful; I would do the work differently now. However, to its credit, the *painting* prompted a number of other related works that developed certain aspects of this original effort. 2000.