Regarding my hair I have been collecting, I was thinking about what I can actually do with it all. Thinking about my work and what is actually working for me, I am finding that when I create a piece using my collections they become more appealing I feel due to the collection representing me. With my collections being used to make a piece makes more use of the collection transforming them into something else more exciting. This remind me of Subodh Gupta transforming old pots and pans into mass sculptures.
I have been gathering quite a vast amount of hair with the amount I seem to lose. I therefore decided that I would actually use my hair in my work. Thinking about different ways to approach this idea I thought of the idea of using it to sew with due to its thin consistency.
In my house back home, we had some spare net curtain so linking to the idea of my work portraying me I felt this would be quite appropriate.
As my initial idea was to use my hair to sew with, this is what I began to do with this net curtain. However due to the really fine thickness of the pieces of hair it became more of a challenge to use it in this way than I first had thought.
To overcome this I thought it might be more successful if the hair was gathered together more so you could actually see the texture of the hair. I planned on using hair to sew the hair to the net, however I wasn’t sure how strong the hair would be at attaching due to the fine consistency.
I then decided to use white thread to sew the hair on to match the colour of the curtain. I decided to sew around some of the patterns on the curtain to enhance these patterns, allowing the hair to stand out. I wasn’t sure how well this was going to work with white cotton threaded through the hair. However due to the texture of the curtain it actually blended in really well. It is not that obvious until the viewer gets close which I really like. Drawing the viewer in until they notice the abject materiality of it. I like the way in which this collection of hair has been turned into something and sewed through the curtain to leave a trace of me. I also like how some pieces of the hair are contained neatly through the thread, while some pieces of hair appear to be escaping from the boundaries of the thread which gives it more of an abject feeling. That a piece could escape and land itself upon the viewer…
These two images show Damien Hirst’s regimental and organised approach to his display with his collections and Josiah Mc Elheny’s use of mirrors, resulting in an illusion of how many items are actually in the cabinet. These are both elements which from experimentingwith my cabinet are becoming more prominent in my work.
I next decided to experiment with my empty contact lenscases. I hadn’t really done much with them since I began collecting them due to the fact of not knowing what to do with them. However I think my problem was the fact of not actually trying things out and being experimental. Obviously some ideas are going to be better than others I just need to experiment with them to work out what does and doesn’t work. I decided to scatter all the contact lense cases in the cabinet similar to what I did with my actual lenses. This gave the appearance of a lot of cases but didn’t really work as a whole I felt, it just looked ‘too messy.’ Therefore I decided to take a more organised approach like many artists have done with regimental style ordering such as Hirst.
I decided that on each shelf I would place the contact cases a similar distance apart and do this on every row on each shelf. This I felt gave a more aesthetically pleasing arrangement due to the systematic approach taken creating pattern throughout the cabinet. I think the contrast between the black cases and the white cabinet really works well, especially with the reflections in the mirror making the cabinet appear larger inside. This is similar to Josiah McElheny’s work with his use of mirrors and glass objects to create this spacious appearance. Even creating the illusion of a larger collection than there actually is.
After beginning to play around with the arrangement of collections in my cabinet, I decided to start taking my collections out of their containers to see how they would work out of these barriers in the cabinet.
I therefore spread out all of my dried up lenses over the top shelf and my hair across the next one. The last shelf I left empty due to the fact of not being able to re-collect up my eyelashes perhaps and not really being able to see them, therefore losing them, which I didn’t want to do.
I feel that these collections work better spread out like this, with them actually being in contact with the cabinet and being able to see every invidual hair and lens. Whereas when in the containers the items are not as visual I feel. It’s more about the pots in a way. Whereas when left to in a way intrude in on the cabinet’s space it gives the abject feeling that the material is actually in contact with the cabinet and the space around it, which I feel is a bit more abject.
I decided to begin experimenting more with the cabinet now as it has been painted white. This now makes the cabinet less of a focus point and allows me to work better with the objects im using in the cabinet as I feel as I’m focusing more on the items inside rather than getting distracted so much by the dark frame.
Using my bottles where I have began collecting hair, contacts and eyelashes. I decided to arrange them all on the top shelve and then rearrange them with one on each shelf. I did this to see how these smaller collections would work in my cabinet. It gave it a different look, it was now more about what was inside the cabinet and how I explored the material in it. I don’t feel this arrangement really works, mainly due to the fact you cann not actually see the collections in the pots that well … Perhaps the material is too contained now.
