Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Drifting Off

Every time I turn around I have a new art project to share with you guys, it's a wonder I even sleep.

Remember the little woven paintings I discussed last month? While I enjoyed making them and thought they were a good solution to my "what is fiber art?" question, I ultimately decided I needed to try something that fit in better with my current paintings.

A trip to Houston and all the galleries that I love there got me back to thinking about making puddles again, but this time I came up with a better idea, partially due to seeing the works of Paul Flemming and Harumi Shimazu.  With Paul's works, while hard to see in the photos, he creates little ceramic basins that he then fills with a colored resin.  As for Harumi, her installation of the wax petals and floating orbs really made me want to try similar.

Paul Flemmings

Harumi Shimazu

My recent paintings have been branded (by me...) as "Tide Pools", despite the fact that are representative of more than just floating forms in water.  To me, they are a representation of thoughts, ideas and memories and how we are always gaining new ones while old ones just sink and float away.  But that's a discussion for another day.  Where am I going with this?  Well I decided I needed to push the envelope for that show here in town and propose a small installation.

Trying to achieve the idea of water before seemed hard, as creating free form puddles wasn't working with any material I tried.  But seeing Paul Flemmings' works reminded me that I don't have to have free-flowing puddles.  They can be contained.  Well, one thing led to another and the next thing I knew I had this:


Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present my first physical tide pool! Created using paper mache as a base and filled with a polyester (and really strong smelling) resin to represent the water, I think this could really be the installation step I've been needing.  While my other installations have been fun and simple, this really is unique and interesting.  


This project was a complete experiment for me.  While I have used paper mache before, this was a whole new realm of sculpture.  Building up the pool and filling it with resin got messy and smelly, not to mention expensive.  I wish I could have added more resin to fill it up, but I just couldn't afford it this time around.  Playing with the placement of the knitted forms within the pool was also an experience.   As usual for me, I left the whole thing white, so that I can shine colored lights on it and play around with the mood.  


Photographing these with random lights was so much fun.  I am sad to say, though, that the light is not this prominent in real life, or at least not in a daylight setting.  Can you imagine these at night?? 

The plan is to have this in a gallery setting, with more balls hanging from the ceiling at various heights to represent new forms falling in.  It was really hard to photograph that in my apartment, so I don't have that yet.  

I am really really proud of this and want to make more when my budget allows.  I really hope it gets into that fiber show!

I hope you all had a great week.  See you next time.  ;)

~Lisa


4 comments:

  1. Such a smart idea! Love fiber art installations - they have so much life in them!

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  2. This is very cool! In other photos I hadn't realized that the color was from lighting effects, very neat!

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    1. Yes, in my installations and the setups i paint from I use colored lights. My paintings of course are simply the colors I put on the canvas :)

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