07 December 2010

Volusia: Wrapped in Fiber

This is my ENTRY piece for the Volusia show "Carbon Footprint".  This is just the beginning of the process. I finished my piece yesterday and took the shots outdoors in dim sunlight, cropped and adjusted the photos in Corel and entered online. I took six pictures to capture the 3 dimensional piece but you can only submit 2 pictures: one full and one detail. I submitted the full environmental side and the detail of the industrial side.
I  had no options on pictures so I figured I'll either get juried in or not. I just left it up to the universe. I should know within a few weeks of the due date, December 15th.
Full frontal view

Environmental side - one of the views I submitted. This is what the earth looks like without man's interference.

Environmental detail
Industrial side
Industrial detail
                                                                        Sole of the shoe
I made this by making a pattern for a wooden shoe tree I had just gotten. Each piece (right, left and bottom) were made individually and then sewn together. It was a disaster. I took the three pieces apart and decided to glue them onto a real shoe. I liked the look of this clog (still in use but sacrifices had to be made for ART). The bottom piece was made by scanning money and printing it on to fabric. The backing is my favorite, natural linen and the batting, organic cotton and bamboo.  This also went along with the environmental theme of the piece. I machine quilted the sole with green ($) dollar signs. Each side piece was made with hand dyed cotton, cotton/bamboo batting and linen. After all the work was done, I used dry wall adhesive to attach the three sections to the shoe. The "natural" earth side was pretty much just embroidery with a tiny shell and three stones trapped under my tulle "sea". The industrial side was made with my flame colored fabric (hand dyed) a leather oval, black "slick" paint, black tulle, an embossed old piece of discolored copper for the factory with a rusted key for a smoke stack, another building made with blocks printed with a tiny stamp and rust and copper paint and that brass bit as a stack. I embroidered and painted oil derricks and three three red X's are the universal symbol for poison. Both side pieces had a beaded edge done with a blanket stitch and bead. The beads on the industrial side were perfect and menacing in color.
This piece came out EXACTLY the way I had planned so I am very pleased whether I get into the Volusia show or not.

8 comments:

  1. Those are amazing! Are they wearable? Tell more about the construction and materials and process. Oh, I am blown away!

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  2. I'm assuming that Volusia is in Florida, right? This should hit a few nerves down there after the BP disaster. It's wonderful, by the way!!

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  3. Thank you both. I am REALLY happy with it. Finally putting my BS and MS in Environmental Science and Policy to use! My next piece in the planning stage is about the wholesale slaughter of animals during the Lewis and Clark expedition.

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  4. I don't know where my first post to this went anyway. You are amazing!! I LOVE the piece. If it does not get juried in, someone will have to have blindfolds on. LOL

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  5. Your piece is WAY cool...very thought provoking.

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  6. Gorgeous work! I can't wait for the other shoe to drop -- ha ha!

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  7. Aha, found it!

    This piece is incredible and now I know why I never saw it before - it was before I knew you!

    It's incredible and so aptly depicts the danger we're all in. Glad it got into the show.

    Now I'm going to go and look for the next piece in the series!

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