Wednesday, June 22, 2011

After the Fabric comes the Dress

Printing the "Fabric of the Gulf" (see the previous post) and working with this delicious Japanese paper, the desire to attempt to sew it up into something was too much temptation to resist.  With that in mind I found a cheap pattern and went home ready to print and sew and that I did.  While at the fabric store a few days later looking for black satin to fashion a slip and oil spill for this piece,  I ran into Ross Dress for Less (conveniently located next door) and ran into the most perfect dress form in a size and shape unknown to any human female.  I grabbed that baby and stuffed her into my cart so fast it made my head spin. And, when I got her home she perfectly fit the dress which is a more or less size 4.   A Great Debate followed as to whether or not my new model needed a slip.  I finally decided it made a much stronger piece with a black background for this transparent paper.

With every piece we do we should learn something which will make the next piece we do even better, right?  Well, I learned so much on this one that my next venture should be a real doozy.


And to give you a little closer look:


The bird nest was contributed by a family of hummingbirds.  It is filled with three Sculpey  eggs looking pretty oily thanks to some acrylic pigments.  The title of this dress is Big Problems For Sale.  According to the tag, this is brought to you by Bad People and can be yours for a mere $200 biillion.  Information on the reverse of the tag says, " Species at risk, people at risk.  Waiting for restitution."

A few days later I printed the same block one more time, but that will be the next post.