END OF SECOND YEAR- Finished piece

Placing her at the exhibition site went well and I thought my spot was perfect. I really like the light shining down upon her. 

Experimenting with Density

Adding the shredded paper after blending it in the blender with the mix to make paper, i noticed that because i had printed on one side of the sheet only it was very noticeable the unnecessary white bits. I then went on to print double sided, and experimented with making many sheets of paper with varied amounts of the shredded notes. Unfortunately my battery died and didnt have the chance to document all of them.

When i had made a batch with the correct density of ripped/shredded bank notes that were printed on both sides, I made multiples of sheets of paper, kept them damp over night, then the next day i started to rip up the paper mash and press it in softly into the cast/mould. Waited 4 days for it to dry then with fingers crossed, removed it.

Paper shredding

I decided to go ahead with paper making to mould into my cast. I thought that the shredded £20 notes, fragmented and scattered accross the body would emphasise her trickery of exploiting men of their money, acting as a metaphor of disguise, because at first the money would not be recognisable, just the shape of the body but as you walk closer and look you will see. 

I “un-scrunched” the £20 notes above and fed them into the paper shredder. 

As you can see they are still recognisable.

Experimenting with Paper making

I booked a time in with Don and he showed me how to make paper. It is a very simple method but very satisfying and pretty fun! 

Discussing medium to use to make body and fill the cast with.

After i had experimented weaving the paper strips together, it got very difficult and they would mostly rip. Then i thought of having the ripped £20 notes all over the body piece instead of woven. When i went into ceramics to discuss this with Andy he explained a method he uses called paper-making a moulding. The showed me some examples of it. 

Casting the female form

To get a realistic more womanly impression of the female form, i opted to to use mod rock and cast my friend. I think i will then use that as a template to experiment with different types materials to make the body shaoe with, which will hold the form for the woven pieces of notes.

 

Developing my idea

When i picture a stripper, one of power and knowing of her position over men; Standing tall and righteous looking down over her customers whilst their money slips away from their fingertips taking place firmly under the strap of her thong, i picture an almost magical scenario where unbeknown to the gaping men, their money floats up becoming intertwined mid air, forming strands of cotton wrapping around the stripper. Clothing her whilst stripping her onlookers. For a while i imagined how I could document this, if i could achieve this through stop-frame imagery, and film etc. However looking back to first year where my pieces included way more hands on practical, therapeutic repetitiveness of using my hands, i feel the need now to include this in my work again. I am thinking of combining the costume element of performance with fine art sculpture and maybe making a piece of a bodes type un-wearable garment, made up of my own printed money sheets twisted and woven, then formed using the ceramics workshop onto a body, then suspended in the air. When i picture the money becoming clothes, i remembered an artist that intertwined newspaper and scrap cloth etc as a medium to mimic material, creating aesthetic appeal and beauty. Her name is Nnenna Okore.

Here are some of examples of her work:

I am going to have to do some research on how i can print say a £20 note onto a material i can manipulate and weave into a boddess type garment. In an ideal world i would use real money but for obvious reasons cannot.