the pleasure of melting plastic... (or the least pleasurable way to get cancer)

2 1/2 inches

Ahhh, nothing like a stormy day where you can not open the windows to play with a heat gun and plastic bags... i love the smell of carcinogens in the morning! I especially love the results of this test, they look cellular, membrane-y, and downright skin like. the shrinking action of the plastic isnspired me to pin down parts on a few and see how that affected the melting pattern, it created a "taxidermy pelt" like tension. I then took a ball of wool and wrapped it with a plastic bag and then some interfacing and of course, heat gunned it. the roundness of these compared to the flat wool piece with the interfacing made on an embroidery hoop is much more pleasing to me. i love the little spaces and gaps. Not quite sure where this is leading but i am enjoying the results so far.

...

7" long x 3" tall

detail

detail of end

this is bigger, about 16" from top to bottom

I have been playing around with cheesecloth, wool and ways to stiffen fabric. After many different tests (mod podge, rabbit skin glue, wheat paste, gloss and matte medium, bees wax, all sorts of glue) that resulted in a toxic stench in my studio it occurred to me that i could use the heat bonding fabric interfacing applied over the circular wool embroidery hoop piece. I disassembled the previous wool and gauze piece and reassembled it with the interfacing. When heat gunned -voila! - exactly what i wanted! the gauze stiffened/ As a bonus surprise it also shrunk got a funny texture in some places, which i like it because of the texture and spontaneity it adds to the pieces. after setting the entire thing and applying multiple layers in some places and tearing in other places. i enjoyed unraveling the structure  of the gauze, which look like cilia. conversely, i also like the grid that is formed by the threads of the intact fabric.   as i hung them up they reminded me of my tumor series. not sure where they are going and how much i like that. i am going to make some more also some larger ones and see where they take me, and experimenting with the amount of stuffing they have.
For my next paper i have started looking deeper into fabric art and soft sculpture, as i have finally realized that i can not keep fiber and fabric out of  my work no matter how hard i try. I have been looking at the work of Annette Messager, christopher langton, ernesto neto, tim hawkinson and many, many, (many) others. I also have sketched some plans for a larger chamber that i might make. and ooh yes i am still cutting circles whenever i need a nice break from life! i just started the green color series. only blue and violet left!

the last two weeks...

My sneaky photo in Fireflies at the whitney.

After seeing the amazing Kusama explosion all over nyc and meeting with my mentor i was thinking about the possibilities for two dimensional art. These are just some experimental relaxing sketchy paintings. I have not done any painting (with the exception of my tumors) since (gulp) my foundation classes in undergrad, 7 years ago. i was surprised by how relaxing and gratifying it was to just play around with materials and no pressure or final product in mind. Making these paintings helped clarify some of the things that have been interesting me lately- specifically boundaries, and conversely the breaking of boundaries. I read a good book (not for school) titled "where to draw the line"about the importance of healthy boundaries and it got me thinking to the boundaries all around us, state and country lines, cell walls, the atmosphere, skin, acceptable ways of acting around different people, etc. and what happens when these boundaries are broken. I like graph paper and felt most comfortable starting my paintings on 11" x 17" graph paper so that is what these are on. I started painting these the day after i saw kusamas show and putsed around with them for about a week as kind of a relaxing evening ritual. The influence of Kusama's show is definitely visible in many of these.

detail

for some reason this came out much more blue than in real life.

detail

detail

broken square

i realize this looks like a president or something. unintended.

this is smaller than the reset at 7x9 inches

diagonal broken square (the paper is white with blue grid, bad photo color.

cheesecloth covered wool with leak about 4 inches wide and 12 inches long.

i like the way the cheesecloth can be morphed and looks graph like but skin like as well. 

my landscape oil painting, dated 1992 (made under my dad lessons when i was 7). Now under the white grid painting, bye bye bob ross!

close up of white grid encaustic painting

studio view

white grid painting with slice, i am working on material and things that are going to be spilling out of it onto the floor.

close up 

8" diameter embroidery hoop with screening, interfacing, and wool

a felt test with the interfacing materials and yucky felt colors

a little wool leak

these are just some forms i have been playing with

this is wax poured over an ice sphere, I made this my first semester but have been coming back to the idea of preserving something in flux.