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Sunday, June 29, 2014

"Not to be Taken"

Before I went on to do some resolved samples for Module 5, I thought I'd use my bottle designs as a basis for a larger piece I would be exhibiting with ATASDA in August.  The link back to my pharmacy works well with the exhibition theme: Future....Past and demonstrates the influence of my past on my textile practice present and future.  Ok, that's a bit deep, but you get the idea...

A little bit on my thought process:

Rough planning of design true to scale
Selection of dyed nuno prefelts
Placement of prefelts and resists ready for felting
Once it was fully felted and dried the fun part of stitching back into it followed.
The yellow bottle looked a little unrelated to the rest so I stitched in yellow and couched cords to emphasize some shapes.


This changed the focus of the arrangement to the central vertical band area of the hanging I felt, which helped to balance the little white bottle inclusions on the left.  Contrasts between shapes tend to change in the felting process and those inclusions had become a bit more obvious than I had intended.  More stitching in darker threads gave more depth and layering to certain areas.  So those were my thoughts which may not be to everyone's interpretation of the design but I'm pleased with the result.

"Not to be taken"
felted hanging (65x100cm)
 and details of the piece


And why the title?
Aside from being a well used labelling instruction for external medication, it reminds us that we all made up of layers of past experiences and abilities and not just what appears on the surface.  Our first impression is "not to be taken" as the whole story.
But hey, that's only my interpretation...

Come make your own mind up at "Future....Past" exhibition at Palm House, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney 14 - 26 August.


5 comments:

Max the Lobster said...

Super work Helen, great that you have actually used part of the course work inspiration and such wonderful shapes.

Kaylene said...

Absolutely brilliant, well done.

ferinn said...

Brilliant idea,you have made it your own.Hope it does well.

Catherine said...

Gorgeous work Helen and it works on different levels. Beautiful purely visually but the symbolism and personal meaning to you add depth to it.

epocktextiles said...

really looking forward to seeing this in the flesh (glass, felt?).