Old Stuff

Feeling these right now. All 3 are from early 2010.

In the next month my goal is to go through all my photos from 2010 until now and organize them, both digitally and by putting all my negatives in special archival sleeves in binders. Right now they are packed like sardines in a suitcase, and stuffed in other random places as well. I find little takeout boxes with developed film in them all over my room. 

Once that shit is organized, I can work on re-scanning the majority of the negatives at a super high DPI so I can print super large, both for the Society6 store and my grad school work, whatever that may entail. 

Whew, 5 years of haphazard photography storage is tough to undo. But it's fun to look at everything now--my aesthetic has certainly changed, but I still like what I was doing before. The chaos of 2010 comes across, for sure. 

In the meantime, my first assignment for school is partially due this Friday--I have to submit 5 images of my "work" to go along with a 2-minute presentation given in front of EVERYONE in the MFA program at CCA, plus like whoever wants to show up faculty- and student-wise. The presentation isn't until September 4th, but we're getting a head-start, it seems. I'm working on creating some kind of visual cohesion between all this photo work and my previous textile work. It's a little trippy. Wish me luck.

More Dyeing, Weird Results

Yesterday's ombre dye experiment.

I'm probably not the most scientific of dyers out there--I don't always measure, I kind of just wing it, unless the project calls for more precision. This was definitely in the winging-it category. I mixed together a bunch of powder fiber reactive dyes in a bucket of water--coral pink, olive green, china red, and some "wisteria" which I think is a blue of some sort (I found some of these dyes in a closet, haven't tried them all yet), plus about half a container of iodized salt.

I stuck my fabric samples into the bucket, half-submerged, and left them for about half an hour, and then before I left for work, I pulled them about 3/4 of the way out and left them like that for about 6 hours. The result was pretty nutty when I got home--the fade from dark brown to white had crazy red/yellow in between, like fire. After washing them out, though, the white became this  pretty tan color, the brown stayed pretty dark (especially where I left it for 6 hours), and the border between became this interesting pink. 

Dyes are made up of a lot of different colors--even the olive green on its own has many colors inside it. It's interesting to see those colors separate out on the fabric like this. I'll sew these up into napkins or pillows and see how I like them.  

Whoa, 3-D Printed Clothing!

Facebook came through for me today--one of my friends posted this video and it blew me away. Check out Danit Peleg's  website to see more of her stuff. It's RADICAL. 

Call me crazy, but apparently this is a thing now in the fashion world--I just did some internetting and found this:

Swimsuit by Panamanian design student Nadir Gordon (google her for more images)

and this--

Apparently the world's first 3-D printed dress (in 2013! Where have I been!) by artist Michael Schmidt, worn here by Dita Von Teese.

...and this, the greatest thing ever, it's giving me so many ideas--

Pieces by Iris Van Herpen, who uses 3-D printing and special weaving techniques to get these insane effects, seriously go to her website, I'm BEGGING you.

Jesus, that just took me on a wonderful internet adventure. Maybe it'll slip into my work somewhere. Patterns and repetition are my jam, after all, and 3-D printing is basically those two things all the time. Inspiration is rad, y'all. 

Ombre

A friend recently told me about this wallpaper company called Calico--they make incredible handmade wallpapers based on the end papers in ancient books. They do unbelievable marbled paper BY HAND but I'm really into their ombre designs, fading one color to white to another color. They remind me of sunsets or water. There's a Swedish company (of course) called Sandberg that does a similar thing that they base on actual sunsets and sunrises--

This one is called Gryning, which means Sunset.

And this is called Skymning, which means Sunrise. I think they're ridiculously gorgeous.

Of course, this concept would be pretty easy to replicate with dyes on fabric...next round of tote bags and napkins maybe?

Friends, Fabrics, and Weddings in Lavender

I've been in Portland,OR the last couple days--celebrated a friend's birthday and caught up with old friends in general. I spent a good portion of my time walking around, one of my favorite activities. Sadly I didn't have my Diana camera with me--I was really missing it. So many great potential building pics! I took one with my phone just because I couldn't resist:

I also visited a great store called Appetite at a friend's suggestion. They have a variety of handmade textile goods, mainly napkins and towels and shower curtains and pillows. Some vintage fabrics, too. I liked their aesthetic a lot! Lots of geometric patterns.

And on Friday, I headed to Seattle to see my youngest cousin get married (not pictured: lavender field):

<3 <3 <3 

Lovely weekend...back to San Francisco tonight, and back to work on projects tomorrow.