jens windolf

Jens Windolf

missing this..

image via here

joie de vivre

Can not stop watching. 
Video by Ruth Hogben- Gareth Pugh A/W 2010

knotted

These pieces are so amazing; intricate, dark, textured, and moody.  What more could you ask for?  
by UK designer Eleanor Amoroso.

abraxas rex

You can never have too many crystals.

images via bleachblack

monday blues

 

Such beautiful organic shapes and rough textures in these ceramics.

black mountain

♥♥♥

creative archive

Creative Archive Scarves from No.6

mix + match

I love the look of a mixed collection of chairs.  They add so much character to the room.

diaghilev

One of the current exhibition going on at The Victoria and Albert Museum is the impressive Diaghilev and The Golden Age of The Ballets Russes.  This Russian-born impresario was  in changing the ballet scene in the early twentieth century.  On display are countless extravagant costumes, intricate small scale mock-up stage models, costume illustrations, painting and drawings for inspirational material, etc.  You really get a great sense of what it really must have been like to see one of the elaborate productions and everything that went on behind the curtains.  Diaghilev was definitely a dreamer and a man of detail and he often enlisted artists and composers like Picasso, Matisse and Stravinsky to collaborate on the productions.  

It is easy to dismiss the construction quality of some of the costumes as looking craft-like but then those thoughts soon turn into astonishment when you remember that his grand visions and ideas were executed and realized during the early twentieth century. 

I can only imagine how impressive it must have been to attend one of the shows and get lost in the elaborate production, like a form of escapism. 

exhibit c

Brown, sepia coloured

Black and white printed photographs

Discoloured from old age, soft edges

Starting to turn-up/roll, from age

Photographic paper

Glossy top coating

Somewhat creased at areas

Old memories, stories lost

Cameras, point and shoot, printed photographs, dark room developing

Black and white photography

Discarded memories

Images for sale

Friends, family 

Captured stories in time

Old technology

The market- Spitafields

If the old photograph was placed within another context, such as an art gallery, it would not be out of place.  Photography is an art form.

Boxes of old photographs are commonly found among antiques and vintage objects at market stalls.

Department store context would be odd.  It wouldn’t look out of place if it was placed in a picture frame and used as interior decoration with household furniture display.  Old imagery and photographs invite feelings of nostalgia and comfort.

exhibit b

Round, circular spheres, smooth and shiny surface

Glossy black strings of beads- wrapped and coiled

Dark and emotive, gothic/mysterious quality

Blurred vision, when viewed up close- clear perspective of the installation when the viewer steps back

Plastic beads are glued onto the white wall

Tactile qualities

Rhythmic quality in the curved lines which outline the tribal silhouettes-strings of beads, hang down off of them

Black, dark, gothic, mystical, cultural, mysterious, enchanted, spiritual, religious, ritual

Tribal, parade, spiritual- dancing procession of a group

Marching in one direction towards something but there is not a figure of superiority among them.  If so would it be placed higher, to signify superiority?

Each figure and detail has been constructed in black.  Is the uniformity of colour used intentional? Does the viewer now question the mural artwork because of this colour scheme choice?  Had one silhouette be singled out, by being coloured differently, the message might be clearer to the viewer..

An abstract piece of artwork is better received in the context of an art gallery, as it is open for interpretation from people whom are specifically in that setting- to view art.  Whereas; if it is within the context of a market stall it would not be received as it was intended, by the artist.  It may not even be acknowledged in another context, such as a department store or on the street.  Who is to say, that if the piece would end up simply being ignored or forgotten because it is placed within a different context.

Image via Hales Gallery

exhibit a

Three round circular tins, metal aluminum with closing top lids, stackable.

Outer cage-like contraption that holds the them together vertically, when the tins are placed on top of each other.  

Curve downward, the top handle of the cage, to secure the three tins in place.

Travel, convenience, practical, re-usable, sustainable

East indian, travel tins, food- rice, curry, lunch/dinner

Compact

Industrial, metal, strong

I associate these tins with Asian Culture because personally I have only seen them in the context of Chinatown or for sale at a local Chinese Restaurant.  I am not familiar with seeing them in the context of East Indian Culture.  I also associate  portable stainless steel containers with natural food shops from back home, as they are very popular to use for lunch.  I associate this object with previous thoughts and experiences and now with a new association of place.

I have prior familiarity with this particular object, so I can easily envision it placed within another context.  The tins would not be out of place within the context of a department store- they are currently viewed as sustainable housewares.  Taking something out of its original context and marketing it as a new product has been done before.  

Import or foreign products are most often for sale and associated with market stalls, therefore; these tins would not be out of place if found there.  

Art gallery- someone could argue it art.  I see it as a clever design.

trade between East and West

What you can’t have, is what you want; during the 1600-1900 Europeans wanted Asian goods.  By 1686 the British Colonies were already shipping goods worth over £1 million to London, mainly imported by the East India Trade Company based in London.  The imported items included spices, tea, sugar, tobacco.

Indian Textiles were viewed as luxury goods because they were made of fine cashmere and cotton; two textile resources not popularly farmed in Britain at the time.  The European equivalents available were not comparable in quality either.  Along with Indian Textiles, silk from Asia was also of high value and interest specifically because Asian silk worms only fed on mulberry leaves, unique to their region.  The dye fastness of the Indian Textiles also made their textiles highly covetable in the European market. 

However, around the 1770s Britain was becoming more technologically advanced, mainly in the fabrication of cotton; thus, beginning to export woolen textiles to India, around 1800.  Due to machinery advances in the production processes, Britain later took over the market by providing comparable products to the consumer.

Are you aware of where the products you currently buy come from?  What is their history?

Some more interesting information, about the current industry and trade, can be found here.

winter blanket

This lovely patterned wool blanket, from Pendleton, would be ideal to have during the current cold weather we are experiencing here, in London.

Warmer weather feels like so far away, I know, but once it does arrive the blanket could then double as a nice picnic blanket, during the summer months.

collecting things, collecting people

The origin of various museum collections began from gifted or donated personal collections.  Particularly, cabinets of curiosities during the sixteen hundreds, from wealthy affluent men who collected various objects, predominantly religious related, from distant and exotic travels abroad; such as, natural objects, crystals, fossils, preserved plants, skeletal bones, taxidermy animals.  

From 1870 onwards European museums, notably in London and France, started to ‘collect’ and display African artifacts.  These objects were viewed as primitive and exotic to the public and were of great appeal to museum visitors.  Notable admirers of such African Exhibits was Pablo Picasso, who was often inspired by the pieces and displayed reference in a few pieces of his work, like Demoiselles D’Avignon.

For a long time, African Art was being overlooked as art and was often associated with the connotation of being primitive but the foreigner’s view of Africa was later shed during 1960’s.

In The African Galleries, The British Museum has successfully curated ancient and contemporary objects and sculptures together cohesively, without forgetting to bring awareness to current issues (gang violence, HIV/Aids) facing Africa today.  There was also a range of both traditional and modern woven textiles, on display with traditional Kanga Fabrics made using non-conventional patterns.

trash fashion

With all the global high-street fashion brands taking mass-consumption to a whole new disturbing level, this Friday it was interesting to see the opposite of this ethos and have a look around the Trash Fashion Exhibit at the Science Museum.  I find it inspiring to see that people still do care about the environment and are beginning to take-into consideration the effect that their consumption or production ultimately has on it.  Maybe it is a cultural thing and has something to do with how and where I was brought up, but I still find it baffling when I hear that people are only just realizing the impact that their lifestyle choices have on the environment.  Better late than never, I guess


One of the interesting ideas on display was a dress that had been made of ‘Ingeo’ which is a fiber made out of plastic(PLA) made from plants, like corn, wheat, sugar beet and sugar cane.  Back home, I have seen corn-based compostable products used for food packaging and grocery bags but I never knew it was possible for it to be made into a fiber for textiles.  What makes this fiber really amazing, is that it is a renewable resource, recyclable and is fully biodegradable but only within specific industrial composting facilities though.  When describing PLA, they used a term I had never heard of before, called ‘closed-loop recycling.’  This means that PLA has an infinite life-cycle.  It can technically be recycled forever, without creating off-waste.


I enjoy learning about new resources and technological advances, merging science and design, to create new fibers.  What concerns me though, is whether, or not these new advances are really efficient, as far as the manufacturing processes, energy and water consumption used to create them.  

It is hard not to consider these questions when being introduced to a new fiber like PLA because most people consider bamboo and other regenerated fibers to be sustainable or environmentally friendly; Whereas, the textile manufacturing processes used, hydrolysis alkanization and multiple bleaching, is very damaging to the environment and is a high risk health hazard. 

Food for thought, really.

Another interesting textile development on display was that of Suzanne Lee, aptly titled Bio Couture.  Lee, a senior researcher at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design in London, has created a process for growing garments from bacteria culture.  The method begins by growing a solution, consisting of green tea, sugar, bacteria and yeast.  How it works, is that over the period of a couple weeks the ingredients naturally ferment and bond together, resulting in a thick gum like surface layer.


In the accompanying video at the exhibition, Lee demonstrates how she can only use the gum-like layer only when directly wet from the solution.  In order for the garment to achieve its shape, Lee molds the wet layers onto a wood bodice and then leaves them to dry and take shape.  The dried result resembles a resin-like cast.  

The process she has develop is quite interesting, melding the fields of both science and nature.  What concerns me about this process though, is it’s practicality in the fashion world.  It is a time consuming process.  Once dry, the material is also very sensitive to water and if it comes into contact it will revert-back to its original gel-like state.  Because of its malleable abilities and its transparent qualities, I really think Bio Couture would be better suited in another field; be it furniture, lighting or spacial design.

I think this is such an unique and fascinating development in the textile industry.

Sandy Black was another one of the participants at the exhibition.  Black’s creation is that of producing bespoke knitwear, rendered from the client’s 3D body scan; thus reducing yarn wastage during production.  Is this concept not similar to that of altering a hand knitting pattern with your own measurements, taken with a tape measurer?  I understand the sustainable aspect of creating something new with minimal wastage but the idea falls short, in that, the sample garment on display is a loose fitting knit jumper.  Was a lengthy computerized 3D body scan necessary, for calculating the measurements, to make a loose fitting knit?  Would it not have been more effective to have illustrated the knit-to-fit idea with a more suitable silhouette, like that of a body-con knit dress?  

Maybe, simply rename the concept, knit-to-wear?

On another note, in the Challenge of Materials Gallery at the museum there are some really interesting things.  Continuing on in the material and development theme, one of the objects on display was a pin tray made of Bakelite.  Did you know Bakelite is recognized as the world’s first synthetic plastic?  However, it is seldomly used today because of its costs and its complex production process.  I have mixed feelings about this object.  As much as it has brought upon a revolutionary change in the production of kitchenware, jewelry, radio and telephone casings; it is a plastic.

If Bakelite wasn’t invented, would we be where we are today?  Would we have developed a method to recycle plastic like we know today?