20th c Folk Photos: A Lost Medium

I found this exhibition on the Washburn Gallery ( New York) Archive, which happened in 2008..150 Anonymous photos collected from anitque shops, shows and flea markets acrross North America..The exhibition eplores the modernist tradition of the ready-made in everyday photographs, primarily snapshots, taken by amateurs with easy-to-use cameras.., The Title Plays an important role in the significance of the exhibition. The Word Folk was preferred over the word Found. "Folk in the purest sense of the word is defined as: originating within the general population of a culture; which is an indisputable aspect and the source of this original and engaging imagery.".. " it plays homage to the material being presented"

Press Release:

Photographic imagery is far from becoming an endangered species. As it morphs and changes with the latest technology, it is even more omnipresent, permeating all aspects of our lives with a speed unheard of in the twentieth century. We now post and share our everyday photographs online seconds after they are taken, and often never bother with printing them out. The processed print recording images on roles of film that limited the number of exposures from 24 to 36 images at a time, slowly returned the images back to us on freshly minted deckled squares and rectangles, and preserved moments in time, as tactile objects that are emblematic of the past century. Hence, the concept of the lost medium”

The truth of this passage makes me feel really sad, technology is winning over tactile, soon there won't be anything real left to touch or keep hold of. The annoymyouty of these photographs represents a sense of loss. They are memories of people, cars, skies, family, events..but have been lost along the way,and somehow ended up in markets or shops. This journey of loss,reinforces the reference that over time we have lost these tactile memories of photographs with scratches, fades, and paint blotches, to a digital dazee of techonology, photoshop and "memory cards" Its quite ironic. It makes me want to buy a chunky camera, take photo's of everything around me and keep them, printed and real!!

http://www.washburngallery.com/

Manuel Bolano Autumn 2010

This barcelona born designer, Manuel Bolano has managed to hold my attention for Autumn/Winter 2010 with pastels and teddybears as well as gorgeous knits of the CHUNK variety ( my favourite). I'm sort of lost for words of how to describe the overall look..its definatly a fantasy, childhood daydreams mixed with what looks to me like 18th C inspired royal wear.. Some sort of mish mashed memory from his past? I love..! He has no website which was annoying, but in trying to find out what inspired him this season i found this gem:

For Fall 2010, Manuel Bolano wrote a short poem to describe it:

I remember a little bear.
A little teddy bear in camel colour.
A cold, gray winter morning in a trip to the “Castros Gallegos”.
My mother, dressed in wool and silk in pink, was holding my hand, and I wondered…
Why does everything has to be pink?


















Source: Fashionwindows.net

Im still adoring..

Whilst i'm at it, T.B.A's A/W collection (the one i was daydreaming about quite recently) Is also out in urban outfitters



I want the pom pom dress (bottom left corner) So much..so, that i think i might save some pennys and purchase this beauty over christmas.. It can be a reward, for all the work that i WILL have achieved by then..yes.

Peter Jensen A/W Urban Outfitters

Urban outfitters online are promoting their autumn/winter stock, and i noticed that Peter Jensens A/W stuff was on sale there. I just found it really strange, because this is all the stuff that i was helping to quality control, label sew, and pack up ready to be sent to urban outfitters/dover street market and a few places abroad.. I could very well have touched them! haha. It feels quite satisfying seeing them on sale online and in shops, knowing that i was a part of the process, and interesting to see the process complete..It takes so many months for it all to be sorted out, to think he was designing these in spring time, and we were all packing them in june..and now they are in the shops!


This is some of the new stock with plenty more to come.. if i remember correctly!

This is a smock dress zoomed in, I also have a picture which i sneakily took whilst in the studio, packing about 40/50 of these dresses in cream,mustard yellow and navy blue. It was extremely tedious.. especially because they are hugeeee dresses, One size, so packing was a trick! but It's cool to see how it looks on highstreet.

Kent Rogowski

"Bears, is a series of portraits of the most unusual sort: ordinary teddy bears that have been turned inside out and restuffed. Each animal's appearance is determined by the necessities of the manufacturing process. Simple patterns and devices never meant to be seen are now prominent physical characteristics, giving each one a distinctly quirky personality: their fasteners become eyes, their seams become scars, and their stuffing creeps out in the most unexpected places. Together these images form a topology of strange yet oddly familiar creatures. They are at once hideous yet cuddly, disturbing yet endearing, absurd yet adorable, while offering a metaphor for us all to consider. These bears, which have lived and loved and lost as much as their owners, have suffered and endured through it all. It is by virtue of revealing their inner core might we better understand our own."


I found this artist who works on various interdisciplinary projects including working with neon lights,puzzles,drawing etc. This particular project appealed to me for its meaning. The bears have all been ripped apart and sewn back together and they have such a creepy look yet an undoubtably familiar and comfortable appeal..I really love the description given about the project and the intention it is expected to have to the viewers.. Each bear has such a sense of nostalgia and endurance through life, its really sweet to think about the bears having their own personality and having lived through their own lives, to think of all the owners they have had play with them, or shove them in a cupboard, being passed on to younger siblings and sold in car boot sales. You wouldnt think, but the project has an underlying meaning whereby it provokes us to think about our own vanity, personality, whats hidden and whats on show. I find it really interesting! ( and the bears are although quite disturbing, still so cute and podgy)

http://www.kentrogowski.com/bears.html

POM POM

Sonia Rykiel autum/winter 2010 RTW Is so perfect, I have to blog it so I don't forget the effect these over side bobbled pom pom's had on me! Aside from the beautiful colour palette and clothes.. it's all about the pom. When working at Peter Jenesn I had to help unload a massive box of knitted turban shaped hats of grey browns blues and peach and sewn on at the front of these were again...a big ball of pom pom ( very similar style to rykiels) so it must be trend this autumn, HOW EXCITING, I love pom poms they remind me of being at brownies ( the afterschool club) and of being little again..which is always best!

Shona Heath

I CANNOT BELIEVE I WORKED IN THE SAME BUILDING, ON THE SAME FLOOR, IN THE SAME DEPARMENT AS SHONA HEATH AND I DIDN'T EVEN REALISE WHO SHE WAS AND THE WORK SHE DOES... I'm so sad, I walked past her studio everyday in the corridor as the floor of Peter Jensen's studio was in a small department with similar artists, Emma Cook and Shona Heath were some of them. I Knew i recognised the name Shona Heath from somewhere but it didn't come to me then. I just stumbled accross some of her work on a blog,realised I actually worked next to her and also realised i love her work. She's a stylist and set designer and has only gone and worked with TIM WALKER, probably my favourite fashion photographer.. I'm so sad that I could have met her and had chats! well..probably tried to chat and fail due to pure intimidation.. Oh well..!
This is some work from her portfolio










Source: http://www.clmus.com/set-design/shona-heath/portfolio-3

Fantasy: Dissertation Research..

This is a copy of my HCC3 proposal in which I outlined the ideas I am considering writing my disseration on:



The idea is extremely general at the moment and I obviously need to get on with finding initial research and texts which will provoke a few questions that I could possibly entitle the essay with.. I've been reading The essay mentioned in the proposal, JRR tolkiens " On Fairy Stories" which i'm finding really interesting which is a relief!
The essay is in quite a simple format to follow, where he has created sub-categories within the category of discussing " Fairy Stories" which consist of
Fairy Story- What is a fairy story?
Origins
Children
Fantasy
Recovery, Escape,Consolation
The sections of Fantasy, Escape,Recovery and consilation were most interesting to me and are the sections I have been reading and re-reading in order to soak up all his words and try and make some sense of them! His old english talk is a challenge!
He covers alot of interesting points, and sometimes it feels as though he seems to be defending the "right" or "proper" distinctions or values of Fantasy and challenges other peoples notions of them, with his own. but at the same time its clear he isnt placing his ideas or opinions on top of others.
These are some of the quotes that I picked out either because I just like or because I want to look at a bit more.

“Art,the operative link between Imagination and the final result”

“venture to think the verbal distinction philologically inappropriate, and the analysis inaccurate. The mental power of image-making is one thing, or aspect; and it should appropriately be called Imagination. The perception of the image, the grasp of its implications, and the control, which are necessary to a successful expression, may vary in vividness and strength: but this is a difference of degree in Imagination, not a difference in Kind.”

"..Many people stupidly and even maliciously confound fantasy with Dreaming, in which there is no Art, and with mental disorders, in which there is not even control,with delusion or halucination" - I really like the way he aggresivly argues his own distinction between dreaming and fantasy, and it's true that people often merge the two into the same category, I know I do! His ideas of control and Art are intriguing.

“Fantasy (in this sense) is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.”


“Enchantment produces a Secondary World into which both designer and spectator can enter, to the satisfaction of their senses while they are inside; but in its purity it is artistic in desire and purpose.”

“Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity.”

" To many, Fantasy, this subcreative art which plays strange tricks with the world and all that is in it,has seemed suspect if not illegitamate.To some it has seemed at least a childish folly, a thing only for peoples or for persons in their youth"
illegitamate,lies?!

“Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done. It can be put to evil uses. It may even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true? Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshipped them, even worshipped those most deformed by their authors' own evil. But they have made false gods out of other materials: their notions, their banners, their monies; even their sciences and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice.
Abusus non tollit usum. Fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”Gods-God-Religion " delude the minds" " imagined gods" " worshipped"- This is probably an extract that most interested me as i'm someone who has never understood the real origin of religion or reason for it being so significant.. It's quite a contraversial subject to bring up in this essay but of course, when I think about it, it's so obvious. People will disagree- but religion could definatly be seen as escape,fantasy and recovery to soothe their doubts of our world. It's actually really sad!

“But the true road of escape from such weariness is not to be found in the wilfully
awkward, clumsy, or misshapen, not in making all things dark or unremittingly violent; nor in the mixing of colours on through subtlety to drabness, and the fantastical complication of shapes to the point of silliness and on towards delirium”

“Though fairy-stories are of course by no means the only medium of Escape, they
are today one of the most obvious and (to some) outrageous forms of “escapist” literature; and it is thus reasonable to attach to a consideration of them some considerations of this term “escape” in criticism generally.”

"If men were ever in a state which they did not want to know or could not percieve truth (facts of evidence) then fantasy would languish until they were cured." - I like the connotations here that we are ignorant to our reality and to truth and seek other means to distract them or calm them, it sounds really intense but I think its something we all do subconsciouly every day.

" This recovery fairy stories help us to make, In that sense only a taste for them may make us, or keep us, childish"

" Recovery- Re-gaining a clear view, Seeing things as we are ( or were) meant to see them"

" I have claimed that escape is one of the main functions of fairy-stories, and since i do not dissaprove of them, it is a plain that i do not accept the tone of scorn or pity with which escape is now so often used."

" Fairy stories may invent monsters that fly the air or dwell in the deep, but at least they do not try to escape from heaven or the sea"-references to religion again, promoting ideas of Heaven and Hell

"producing the desire to escape, not indeed from life,but from our present time and self made misery"


I think this was a good essay to start with, as i consider JRR tolkien a genius of fantasy although I think I need to be careful though not to get wrapped up in this essay and his ideas only, and think about ways that I can relate this idea to practical Art, or to Fashion more specifically, and how I can insert 3d artists (aswell as story writers) who use notions of fantasy in some form to express themselves.

Essay source: http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf

Dreamy...

From: http://www.lulamag.com/scrapbook/

To Be Adored...Lookbook aw2010

I discovered To Be Adored by complete fluke, rummaging around in Urban Outfitters when i spotted their summer collection which was just a mass of 60's inspired mini dresses with peter Pan collars and golden beads/studs/sequins on an array of silks in navy cream and peach. I fell inlust instantly and just wanted to find out more about the label..this research lead me to base a 2nd year project called DIRECTIONS on them. The brief was split into 2 parts: to create an outfit based on anything we wish...and then to find a company specific to the outfit we had created, a company in which our outfits could relate to in aesthetics, style and overall look. I chose to focus on the concession garments from T.B.A in Urban Outfitters stores, i felt the playful,chic and more specifically 60s style really fitted the latest T.B.A collection.

BinBin McNiven ( T.B.A designer) Has done it again and earlier on in the year released a magical AW 2010 Lookbook which IS Adorable and makes me so excited for Autumn..my favourite time of year! The collection compliments autumn/Winter perfectly with black polkadot lace,golden tints,peach and emerald crushed velvets and crisp white. I think its a lovely follow on from the Spring Summer collection which was very feminine, chic yet still playful, but would be significally attracted to a certain type of sophisticated woman.. whereas this collection lookbook is shot with a young woman and has much more obvious childlike references with blown out balloon dresses and small details like, bows,little peter pan collars and hanging bobbles..















LOVE!