Starting on another project

Whilst the Mary Greg project will be on going i am going to start on another project focusing on a theme of 'flight'. Loosely based on the Glossop project, which i ill be making a flying machine for, i will be also be looking at birds and flight. This all stems from a hobby, previously mentioned below, of bird ringing, enabling me to get close up first hand images on birds and their wings. I have started by creating a few very quick sketches of birds in flight from a trip to Portugal this summer and will be particularly be looking at the shape of the wings of different types of birds. initially i will be working towards the idea of recreating the wings of different birds, so different shapes and sizes, and i will try to create these in various materials, and they will be life size. this means tiny tiny wings of a Goldcrest to much larger wings of a Stalk...

Goldcrest

Stalk

I will be focusing on this project while Mary Greg will be second in line for a while.

Presentation

After doing a short presentation to a few class members to demonstrate our ideas, we had to do a 10 minute presentation to Liz from Platt Hall to explain our plans for the exhibition in Platt Hall 2012.

We set up a small 'work in progress' exhibition in the Link Gallery, each with our own space to display our work. My proposal to Liz went well, explaining my ideas about producing my own collection based on the collection of Mary Greg, involving old objects and materials inspired by what i had found on my trip to Platt Hall. I explained that this items on display were really just experiments of what i would create and that this would be on-going until the time of the exhibition so my collection could continuously be growing, as was Mary Greg's.

Work displyed in the Link Gallery.

Pin cushions in objects; glass jar, tin, shells, bottle top.

Quotes from the letters in pins.

Pin Cushions

So i have started making some pin cushions to start off my own collection of 'pin cushions in objects'.

Some small experiments begin with, just using some plain white material to practice way in which to actually make the pin cushions:

I have just cut out a circle of fabric, hand sewed running stitch around the edge and pulled the thread to is gathered together. I have stuffed the round shape with filling and then pulled the thread tightly closed and knotted in place so the filling doesn't fall out and the shape is nice and round. I then cut another small circle of fabric to sew around the small opening to neaten up the bottom of the pin cushion.

I have also gone to a fabric shop and bough a few scrap pieces of material in the kinda of old style i want to make the final pin cushions from. Ideally I will also be collecting the fabric from places where they have been previously used, carrying a story with them also. I so not want to use brand new fabric as this wont have the history to I that is important in this project.

A few more experiments with some small found objects to put the pin cushions in, and using the pins to write in the quotes I found in the letters:

Quotes

I have had a read through some of the letters from Mary Greg to Mr Bath and have picked out some quotes to use in my projects to write into the pin cushions with the pins:

April 2nd 1935
' interesting the world in handicraft' Mary Greg

April 20th 1934
' very kind gifts of yours' Chairman

July 8th 1934
' paper doll and her wardrobe' Mary Greg

July 9th 1934
' gifts of yours'

June 23rd 1937
' remember my age and be merciful' Mary Greg

Sharing Ideas

We had a small meeting about Mary Greg to share some of our initial ideas for the project and get some feed back from others involved. We did a small talk about what we were planning on doing and then using feedback from the group, develop those ideas.

I started out with looking at the hair combs i had found, using these to start of my ideas or recreating objects like the ones found in the collection. I though about being able to make my own copies of the combs to be displayed, perhaps different sizes and styles to be suspended using lacy materials, to tie in with more of the collection involving the dresses we were able to look at also.

My next idea, which i have used as a starting point for something i would prefer to work towards, is using the pin cushions i found in the collections. My initial idea is to create lots of small pin cushions, and using pins, like in the picture below from the collection, draw into them patterns inspired by other items donated by Mary Greg. Also i was thinking of picking out some quotes from the letters and pinning them into the pin cushions as well.

My next idea is to perhaps create a giant sized pin cushion, to play on the idea f scale within the collection, and also to tie into ideas that i had heard from others doing the project of create a doll house theme with in Platt Hall. If i were to create a giant sized pin cushion, i would also use the idea from my first idea, using pins to spell out words and patterns.

Another idea, continuing from this one would be to make my own large scale pins to make the words and patterns instead of using normal pins which would look very tiny again a large scale pin cushion.

My third idea is drawing from the other pin cushion in the picture below, a pin cushion in a shell. To make this my own i thought about using different objects to put my own pin cushions into. Objects such like; tins, other shells, small boxes, anything that can have something places into.

To obtain these objects i would be collecting them from various places, trying to find items that have a bit of a story behind them, as this was something tat Mary Greg was interested in as well. Objects that were hand crafted and had a history.