Experimentation

I was toying with the idea of making 3 small, really small, canvases & on them showing this progression of legacies & the role of women, down the line of women in my family, from my great-grandma to me. The first canvas would posses the legacy and heirlooms of my grandma. The second canvas would show my mummy's legacy. And the final canvas will be me, showing how their have shaped me & maybe what legacy i wish to create. Each canvas will have rhizomes, showing our connection though the generations.

Rhizomes

In philosophy, the term rhizome has been used a both a metaphor & a concept, & refers to the botanical rhizome, which is the roots of plants that grow underground in long strands.

Carl Jung used the word 'Rhizome' to emphasize the invisible & underground nature of life. Rhizomes were a concept we explored in Year 10 in our Serendipity unit. I want to use Rhizomes in some of my body of work to show the connection of my family generations, I want to use them to show that although through each generation of the women in my family there have been progressions in values & their roles & the legacies, that they all all connected underneath. I want to show that some values or roles run constant through the generations, also showing that the latest generation is the product of the past.

Christo

& the late Jeanne-Claude
"Wrapped Coast, Little Bat, One Million Square Feet, Sydney, Australia, 1968-69"

Here are their first sketches of the idea, i would like this kind of look to come through in my sketches. i like how delicate they look. I also like this sketch with the blue in it, i want only small bits of colour in my sketches.


Here are the photos of the finished work.

Sharon Green

I was rather drawn to these photographs of Green's. Although i wouldn't say that the concept of her work relates very closely to my ideas, i do think they relate on some level. She explores the hobby of hunting & in the image 'Never Hunting' she shows the hunted deer head on the natal piece showcased as a prize. The deer head is put up on the mantelpiece as an object of value, showcasing the effort that was put behind it being there. i think that this relates to the ideas i want to explore, as we work out whole lives, evolving, gaining knowledge, changing our values & beliefs, & our legacies are the only remaining aspect of that work in our lives when we pass on. Our legacies are kind of like the deer head on the mantelpiece.

Alice Lang

" I was interested in redefining he relationship/border between traditional wearable objects & the body, through the creation of fleshy wearable pieces (reminiscent of period clothing) that integrate & interact with the subject. Bonnets and bustles mutate, grow tendrils & attach themselves to their host like a strangler fig, overtaking their body to form a new decorative flesh." Alice Lang

Lang's practice explores the possibilities for sewn sculpture to explore, & complicate, the relationships between concepts of the decorative & the grotesque, particularly their association with depictions of femininity. To so this she uses traditional sewing technique known as the Suffolk Puff to reference the use of old techniques in the creation of t new objects/organisms that are a hybrid of the craft.

I am so intrigued by the way that by altering the materials with which Alice Lang constructs the typically feminine clothing articles, she is able to change the meaning of the clothing pieces.

Legacy

"A legacy or legacies, is what someone or something is remembered for or what they have left behind that is remembered, revered or has impacted current events and the present day."

We are now at a time when we are leaving school & are trying to decide what we want to do when we enter in to the big, wide world. Something to consider is what mark we want to leave on this school & on the world during our adult life. When I ponder this, I think about what the legacy was of my Ninny (my great grandmother), what my Nana's would be & what mine will be. When looking at this, you can see clearly the change of the role of women within our family & in society. You can also see the change in values, & the consistency of values within the family. I would like to explore this changing role of women in my body of work.

History: Exploring the Past & the Present

I would, with this first body of work. like to explore working in a bit of a historical context. I like delving into the past, particularly my families pasty. I would like me body of work to act as a kind of window to the past. I want to look at the idea of family heirlooms, particularly down the female side of the family. Heirlooms can be very telltale of the life of the personal who first possessed them. The items that my grandmother is passing down are things like recipes of the family, dancing items, 'ancient' music sheets and precious jewellery. This allows you very easily to denote that her role in life was firstly a mother, & that creativity was also large in her life, which is true. When given an heirloom, someones legacy in this world, it makes you think of what legacy you want to leave behind, & what role you want to be know for.