I am still collecting my daily materials, and placing them on the wall for now. I moved the hair from the bottom of the arrangement to the side now. I feel for when I mount it on the squares the hair will look better contained on the board, also with it at the side it represents the way hair naturally falls. I am not sure whether I should leave the nail varnish cotton wool off the arrangement as they’re not as consistent as my other items like contacts and cotton wool, or is this differentiation important?
I was sat in my studio earlier once I had put up some more of my collections and thought that perhaps my contact cases are relevant anymore. They don’t contain the remains of me like the hair, Cotton wool balls etc. Whether they are important or not I’m not sure I don’t feel they’re quite as strong as the other collections of me. Not in this sense anyway with the boards.
I’m planning on using the wood the display these, but before I finally decide the arrangement I need to experiment with arranging the various pieces on the board to see which way is most aesthetically pleasing. I think once they’re glued on they’ll be more pleasing to the eye.
Next I am going to experiment with the boards to see what works and what doesn’t before deciding on the final arrangement.
Jenine Shereos is an aritst who sews with hair to create delicate leaf sculptures. I tried sewing with my hair and it was really frustrating. I kept losing the end and it really didn’t work for me, no wonder it takes her months to create one sculpture. I found a quote by her on the Los Angeles Times website,
“I love the idea of working with an everyday material that you would think of as maybe even kind of gross and transforming that into something completely different than what it was before,”
I felt this quote in a way relates to my work as I have used watse everyday material and used them in another way such as the wipes for my dress. However my work isn’t beauitful looking in the end like her fragile leaves. Her work is subtle like mine. It is only once you get right up close and personal with her work that you see one wisp of hair that extends past the points of each leaf which is the only clue we are given that is actually hair creating this leaf frame.
Lion, L. (2013) Jenine Shereos’ ‘Leaves,’ stitched with human hair. [Online]. Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times. Available at: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/01/news/la-lh-jenine-shereos-leaves-stitched-with-human-hair-20120731 (Accessed: 23 May 2013).
With the help of Mel again, she re-filmed me putting in my contact lenses and then taking them out with a close up frame. It took quite a few takes as, as soon as one lensgot in one eye it wouldn’t go in the other or it would get creased and then just pop out of my eye. I perhaps could have used these failed attempts in the piece to prolong the touching of my eye and hope the viewer find it uncormfortable. However I couldn’t really as every time the lens fell out my eye I kept laughing and you could tell in the video I was laughing, which obviously ruined what I was trying to do with the piece. Not sure why I found it so funny but it amused me.
After several attempts we finally got it filmed. I think it shows what I want it to; this abject feeling through the touching of my eye which is done on a daily basis through the insertion and removal of my lenses. Hopefully it will get the reaction from the viewer which I hope for, with them feeling uncomfortable with watching me ‘play’ with my eyes. Whether or not I will use it in the degree show I am still yet to decide. If I were I would probably re-film it due to the fact of me laughing.
Emma Bowles, ‘Eyeballs’, Performance, Film. May 2013. Filmed by Melissa McGinniss
As my performance piece of me removing my make-up went better than I expected I decided to try another piece this time putting on my make-up. I decided to do this to show the process of part of my routine in the morning. It shows the repetitiveness of me applying this make-up, then in the evening all that time spent putting it on that morning it is just wiped away.
I think the video does show this long boring process, but I think it is too long as I seem to be very slow at doing it! I feel this might lose the viewers interest and might not be as successful as the removing make-up one. I don’t feel this one is as strong because I already start out with no make-up on so nothing is really gained by the end of the piece. Unlike my previous video where you seem me becoming more and more uncomfortable.
One thing I did notice when watching this video back for the first time was how much my eyes flicker whilst putting in my contact lenses. For all the years I have used them I have never noticed this before. I think it is because you do not know you are doing it unless someones watches you and tells you, or you are recorded doing it. Considering they’re my own eyes it made me squirm a bit by how creepy my eyes did look. I know a lot of people do get squeamish about touching eyes so this is something I want to explore, carrying out this abject feeling again.
I discussed it with Jane in my tutorial and we spoke about how about if I was re-filmed with the camera up close to my eyes to highlight this contact with my eyes more and hopefully disgust the viewer further. So this is the next plan.
My pieces which I have collected from each day containing, a used make-up wipe, contact cases and lenses, hair and eyelashes, I do feel could work well in my degree show. They show collection, my daily routine, repetitiveness and pattern.
In my tutorial Tuesday I spoke to Jane about them. While I do feel they could be effective I need to keep collecting them and displaying them in my space to see how they work. I think I was struggling with not knowing what to do with them as I had only two days worth at this point. Because of the fragile state of the eyelashes and how hard they are to spot and easy to lose, I didn’t really know how to attach them onto my wall, so the viewer could still see the eyelashes but also attached securely. I also would need remove them nearer the time for the degree show if used without damaging them. The only thing of which I had on hand was masking tape. It did the job of attaching the eyelashes with ease. However it’s not exactly the nicest looking think to be stuck to the wall.
Jane and I spoke about how about if I attached them to a frame or another material so they were contained in one. This would therefore mean I could superglue the eyelashes and hair on and I wouldn’t need blue tac and masking tape, which would hopefully make it looker more aesthetically pleasing too.
Also was the date important? Does the viewer need to know a particular day of collections was in fact the 28th April? Or was it more about the pieces instead of the dates?
After my tutorial I sat there thinking about these collections. My only option really if I wanted them to look better for the viewer was to mount them onto something so I would no longer need this masking tape. Therefore that afternoon I took a trip to Jewsons and ordered 30 pieces of 300mm by 300mm MDF. Once it is ready to collect I begin making my frames and mounting my collections onto them.
