Thursday, September 23, 2010

tumbleweed

While in Chicago for my birthday, my friends Jason, Janey, and I happened upon a tumbleweed in the middle of Halsted street. We were in an industrial area (just north of Halsted and Archer, to be exact) and it was just lying in wait for us in the middle of the street. Naturally we took the tumbleweed back to DeKalb with us, and I have since been gradually building up layers of abaca on it through the process of dipping. Ultimately the tumbleweed will be part of an installation. I plan to build up the abaca until it is a chaotic mass at the center of the plant, where one cannot discern where the plant structure ends and the abaca begins. In that sense I will be controlling the amount of chaos found within.

It will be hung from the ceiling and light will again be used in conjunction with sound, moving, so that the shadows cast upon the wall are constantly changing.

2 comments:

  1. This already looks great. I can't wait to see it done!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Looks amazing Erin! You really got to work fast. I love the stuttering concept. You might want to look up Kyoko Eba and her Japanese paper cutting technique, it involves many little dashes to create a fabric like material. And you might be able to mess with the wiring for the light-bulbs to make it flicker like it's broken, you know how when the lights near the end of there life they start doing that irritating on and off thing.

    Also, have you tried tearing little bits of abaca sheets to mold around bits of the the center of the tumble weed so that the center is more solid?

    Can't wait to see your master piece at thesis (remember think modular! storing big art is expensive :). You're so much further along then i was in my first year!

    ReplyDelete