11. Hard Calico

(24/1/23) 

Today I came in with the goal of executing an idea for a piece that I had been having in days previous. This idea was to get a piece of material, preferably calico as it has a certain grain and raw cotton colour to it that I had been imagining. Then saturate it in a clear drying adhesive that would leave the calico rigid when dry and  drape it over something square (in my case a wooden board I had to hand) and ruffle it up and wrinkle it and leave to dry. This piece is me searching for new directions to go in with my artwork in the coming term. This is an idea that really strikes me as it conveys motion, texture, the effect of a moment caught in time and oddly enough the peaks and valleys left in bed sheets. To me there is something profoundly emotional in the idea of these sheets shrouding parts of themselves and standing up of their own accord while simultaneously falling into one another. Below are pictures of the process of this piece. 

I managed to buy a sheet of calico and PVA Glue from the college shop. This then allowed me to set to work on constructing the calico on the wooden board. I began by laying the material down and testing different methods of wrinkling it up until I found a look that satisfied the idea in my head. I then lay the calico flat again and tried to brush the PVA over it but it proved too thick to spread correctly, so I watered it down slightly so be able to gain better coverage and that worked on saturating the sheet completely. After this I began to wrinkle and shape the sheet to my desired effect. Now all the hard parts were done it was time to let it dry. I am happy with the outcome of this piece and I feel a lot of potential for the future of this method, but I would like to incorporate paint in some way in future pieces. 

Inspiration for this piece came from that place in between waking and sleeping, but upon later research I had seen some pieces that implement a similar technique to achieve a frozen sheet like result. One artist I have seen achieve similar effects is Daniel Arsham. His work is often sculpture based and where these works differ to mine is that he is not using material but mardened sculpted surfaces creating a draped material effect. Another way I differs is he is either using an object to justify and facilitate the movement, one is a baskedball seemingly thrown into a curtain of material that creates a rippling effect, with the basketball justifying the movement of the surface. Another is of a person as if trapped in material draped over them, where the bodies are creating the protrusion of the material or surface. Pictures of Daniel Arsham’s work are below. 

I feel that there is beauty in the way the light falls on these pieces as the ripples, wrinkles and curves create shadows that change depending where the light source is placed. This gives these artworks a particularly fluidity in how they are viewed, even though they are made of a solid, non moving object. This is an element that I thought about when creating my piece with the calico, as well as the romantic notion of a sheet blowing on the wind that can be both eaqually beautiful and sinister depending what n it’s context. 

Overall I believe this is a good starting point and a good base for future work to be build on. I am really looking forward to seeing where I can take this idea. 

More later 

Lots Of Love 

John Hancock X