I
had some idea of what I wanted to create for this project but I had no idea how
to go about making it. For help and guidance and mainly some inspiration along
with a sprinkle of motivation I turned to my alexander McQueen book which is full of quotes and fashion advice wether it be making or wearing. McQueen being my favorite fashion designer I took
one of his quotes on board and started my project.
Before
I created my outcomes for homage I decided to look at two artists, Louise
Richardson and Jenifer collier.
Louise Richardson makes objects with an ethereal
quality that hint at the fact she almost became a ballerina.
It's difficult to know what to call Louise - she
is more of an object maker than a straightforward artist. Her work has been
described variously as dark and morbid. I took a lot of inspiration from Louise
and her approach to dress making, she takes a handful of old memories and
personal experiences when creating her work, it makes the audience stop and question
their emotions and feelings. I wanted to do this in terms of my memory dress. I
wanted to have a conversation between the book and the pictures so that they
created an illustrated story through words and documentation. Prior to this I
researched old photograph throughout my family tree, and used an old childhood
book which was already falling apart, both Louise and Jenifer use old house
hold or memorial objects that have become unable to use and ready for the trash
and transform them into art and this is what I have tried to achieve.
In reference to Jennifer collier, I created two
dresses made out of both padded envelopes and paper envelopes. Prior to the
start of my homage project I took it upon myself to collect a various range of
envelopes and stamps, making sure that they had previously been used. Taking my
envelopes into textiles I sewed and created a dress template and cut out the
finished dress. I collected a lot of pictures and inspiration from Jennifer I researched
her personal blog thoroughly and had a look at her online exhibitions and
installations. Jennifer’s work was a breath of fresh air, its quite diverse to
Louise Richardson in terms of the use of materials but there is still some sort
of underlying connection with the both of them. Her work is mainly paper based
and she only ever uses a sewing machine to bind them, she created items like
paper telephones and lamp shades her work seems to have no limits.
Louise Richardson’s work is diverse because she
uses a range of materials such as wax and led being her main ones. Her outcomes
are really astounding, it makes you take a step back and really admire the
quality.
My favorite part of this project was delving back
into old times and photos, and also my old childhood book, like Jennifer these
were things left in cupboards probably never going to see the light of day
again and so I think my outcome has brought a new leaf of life to my personal
items.
Working on my sheets was great fun; I experimented
with different drawing techniques and processes. I definitely pushed the boundaries
in terms of presentation for this project. I have never produced sheet outcomes
this successful yet.
One thing I realised while doing this project was
the amount of respect I have for both Louise and Jenifer as artists because
creating a these three dresses took a serious amount of patience and concentration,
it really was a tester for me, there were times were I thought I wasn’t going
to achieve anything
I placed my outcomes and sheets in my portfolio,
it starts off being the Alexander McQueen quote and follows
on to my dresses and design sheets, the sheets and dresses are coherent and
have a certain relationship, I think you can clearly see this.
This project would have been impossible if I had
not researched before, it really helped me expand my idea and created my
outcomes. I hope to further homage in FMP and research into Louise Richardson
and more of her work, I definitely y want to create work in the style of Louise
in the future. This project has been a steppingstone of realisation for me and possibly
were I want to take my work in the future.
