Abstraction and materiality workshop with Angela 25/02/19
Today I spent my morning attending Angela's workshop that explored the materiality of flexible fibres and textiles that we had previously been asked to bring in (fabric, yarn, felt, wire, string etc.).
We began by looking at some artists that work by pushing the limits of fabric to create giant sculptures and installations, the artists I found the most appealing include Anna Ray, Mrinalini Mukherjee and Ernesto Neto. Anna Ray's work enticed me as she plays with materials that almost encourage you to touch them, the works are huge, tactile pieces that involve lots of vibrant colours. Once the presentation was finished we were asked to get into groups of around 4 people to collaboratively create something using the items we had all brought in.
My group discussed our studio work so far to start generating ideas whilst selecting materials to work with, we decided on a clear array of colours and a lot of the materials were ones that I had brought in and so had an emotional connection to. One member of the group suggested we made balls out of the materials which we all loved the idea of, but when looking at the wool I suggested we make a combination of fabric balls and pom poms. Whilst making these we discussed ideas of how to display this and very quickly came to the decision of hanging them. I began experimenting with wool fibres to create the pom poms as I wanted to add a variety of texture to our work, this worked very well and ended up creating soft, fluffy-looking balls. To hang the work we got creative using a mixture of fabric strips, ribbon, guitar strings and yarn which, with help, was tied to the structure of the studio.
Overall we were all happy with the activity and the work produced, it was very helpful in pushing me to explore the properties of a material and play with that rather than being so structured and planned.
