Mollie Flowers tutorial from Roman Sock
But yesterday I did something a bit different. Months ago I enrolled in a workshop at the Art Gallery of WA run by David Walker. There is an exhibition of his jewellery on at the gallery at the moment. I woke up feeling a bit tired and not really in the mood for it but having paid I went. It was quite interesting and I came away with a couple of bits of important information.
At one stage he was taking us through his exhibition and telling us where his ideas had come from. Now I know you will all probably shake your heads at the obviousness of these revelations but I guess it was just something I needed to hear at this point.
1. Make something that you like...yes it is important that it is something that others might like especially if you want to sell it but make things that you like.
2. Focus on things you are interested in or passionate about- emotionally or intellectually.
The aim of the workshop was more about exploring ideas than creating a piece of jewelery.
Unfortunately one other girl and myself did not get the preliminary workshop notes so we were well and truly behind all the others who came with materials, tools, notes and stimulus pictures as well as some idea of the materials they wanted to explore.
I made a start wrapping yarn around a curly vine. playing with the contrasting textures of the wood and the different types of yarn. I felt a bit embarrassed when David came to talk about "My ideas" and "theme and direction" and I weakly replied "oh, I'm just playing with the textures at the moment....nothing deep and meaningful"
Than I tried melting plastic together with an iron, surprisingly easy and quite effective- something I might do with the kids at school (Sorry no photo, I've lost the piece I made.)
Then I started to think about weaving yarn and came up with these ideas.
(Remember they are an exercise in idea development not finished pieces)
As I worked I thought about my interests, I love fibers and traditional methods of working with textiles things that are predominantly or generally thought of as woman's crafts. I feel passionate about my children and my role as a mother. In my head I played with ideas of how we weave the threads of our lives together, we weave stories and treads of memory and how we bind those memories close - especially now that the kids are growing up I feel a bit sentimental about those memories and those traditional crafts have a link with the women of the past- my own direct past with my grandmother who knitted vests for us and our children and my great grandmother who crocheted, knitted and embroidered but also with the generations of women who sewed their hopes into things they made in the home and wove their memories into quilts, and other things they made for their families. These things in turn become the fabric of the life of the family and serve to provoke memories in the future for the children and grand children.
So I guess these little pieces are about that taking a traditional craft and presenting it in a more contemporary way. I actually enjoyed the different textures but these could be woven in different types of wire.
I also felt better when David found these experiments interesting and wished me well in my jewelery making pursuits.
And this afternoon I finished my crochet (It will be a cushion cover for a round cushion I have hiding somewhere or a trivet for hot pots. I'm not sure which just yet.)And I managed to post this!
