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Gauze Poetry

November 26, 2009 in Events, Featured, Inspiration by wendren | 4 comments

Hesere Gildenhuys ‘Gauze Poetry’ was the highlight of the CPUT exhibition for me. She is a B.TEch Surface Design student that I feel produced something truly beautiful, interesting, engaging and strong with meaning.

Hesere Gauze Poetry 1

To give you some insight into the art pieces I will drop few key words: phenomenology

Three torsos

embodiment

Body blisters

perception and representation

Gauze Poetry NEck

self reflection

Up Close

They are inspired by traditional body adornment of African women in tribes such as the Kaleri, Ga’anda, Nuba, Maro, Mbaye and Zaire. Geisha’s from the Japanese culture with their blank white faces and painted red lips were also very inspirational. Overall, I think Hesere has produced something very special.

Helen Musselwhite’s fabulous Art

July 8, 2008 in Featured by wendren | 4 comments

I’m always on the look out for inspiring artists and Helen Musselwhite is one of those that instantly drew me.

Helen uses bold colors, strong graphic lines and familiar images and creates fictional almost fantasy scenes. She describes her work has having a distinctive hand crafted quality with hints of mid century design, folk and ethnic art. I also think it has a fantastic contemporary feel as fairy-tale land is a definite fashion and design trend. …and if it was not, who wouldn’t like to live with unicorns, rainbows, bunnies and all other lovely, harmless and good things.

These artworks are hand cut, folded and scored using a wide range of papers and cards and then further worked to create patterned and textured surfaces. Helen then uses this to build scenes in box frames.  To visit her etsy shop click here.

What is it about Monet’s Art?

July 3, 2008 in Featured, Inspiration by wendren | 2 comments

Last year I went to the Orangerie Museum (Monet’s Water Lilies Museum) in Paris and it completely changed my perspective of Claude Monet. I always knew his art was beautiful and serene but seeing them in real life, and in a museum designed with oval rooms and light ceilings to compliment the artworks … it completely took my breath away and I spent a long time just absorbing the mood and marveling at the power and calm of his huge paintings.

I found this excerpt a while ago from Monet Refuses the Operation and it gave me a deeper understanding of his works. He’s works are not in the style they are becuase he wanted them to be ‘blurred’ for a hundred deeper meanings that could be ascribed to it but because that was simply how he saw them. Here is the excerpt:

“I tell you it has taken me all my life
to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,
to soften and blur and finally banish
the edges you regret I don’t see,
to learn that the line I called the horizon
does not exist and sky and water,
so long apart, are the same state of being.”

What I love most about this excerpt is that it made me realise that it is how you ’see’ things that makes the biggest difference. Not literally with your eyes, but with your heart. I love the way he transcends the boundaries of the physical.

What a great artist.

Wendren’s Art

June 6, 2008 in Me by wendren | 5 comments

I really enjoying drawing and sketching. A few weeks back I picked up a charcoal stick after a long absence and sketched away at my cat Mischief. I really liked these rough sketches and realized that I still had the ability and the passion for drawing animals. This reminded me that when I was studying I advertised to do pet portraits which resulted in several commissioned pastel artworks that I thoroughly enjoyed doing…

How they work is: the commissioner sends me several photographs of their dog/cat. I then choose one but if I do not think any of the photos will work, this step takes a little longer. Once the photo is chosen I ask for the owner to write me a short story about the pet. This allows me to ‘know’ the dog or cat.

My aim for a pet portrait is not to make the picture a mirror image of the animal in a different medium (Photoshop can do that) but rather that the personality of the animal must come through. You must be able to look at the picture and like when you look in the face of a dog and you just know he is naughty, you must be able to look at the portrait and know the same. This is my favourite part becuase when I finish an artwork I feel as though I have made a new friend. It is also wonderful when you hand it over and the commissioner is more often than not, happy to the point of tears.

I grew up in Botswana and I think this is where my love for animals grew roots. (I always wanted to be vet but my biology marks did not agree). When I find a wonderful picture of an animal that I admire, such as the endangered Mountain Zebra that I think is beautiful with his brown lines and softer silhouette, I just have to draw it. Artworks such as the the Hippo I have sold at local galleries.

I have also done some oil and gouache artworks. This oil painting of Kalk Bay Harbour (below) is about 1m x 0.5m. It was the first oil piece I ever did.

I have decided to open an etsy shop called ‘Wendren’s Art’ where I can showcase my sketches, drawings and artworks and advertise to do pet portraits.

I have taken the Mischief sketches that I did early last month and had them mounted. These are now for sale in my etsy art shop.

Colour: Travels Through the Paintbox

May 30, 2008 in Inspiration, Me by wendren | 3 comments

My most treasured book in my bookshelf is ‘Colour: Travels Through The Paint Box’ by Victoria Finlay. (Note, the book has various covers).

This book is one of the few books I cannot read enough times. The first time I read it it took me two years to finish. I re-read pages, chapters, highlighted sections, underlined key phrases…..I studied it. It is a book of such value and wealth … I can go on and on but I think you get the picture.

Victoria Finlay fell in love with colour as a little girl growing up in India. Her fascination with colour has lead her all over the world. She tells stories about the history of colours, how they came to be discovered, used and what they meant. It is not a book about chemical process or industrial science, or even fashion. It is about the people behind the paints and pigments that have been used for centuries.

‘Colour: Travels Through the Painbox’ is broken down into colour chapters: ochre, black and brown, white, red, orange, yellow, green blue, indigo and violet. Each chapter is full of stories…my favourite story is probably in the Red chapter about how a young explorer travel led through South America searching for the secret of the Spanish Red. He found it in the Cochineal beetle and managed to steal a few which he brought back to Europe. Nobody believed that the little white beetles were the source of the rich red and he died before Europe discovered he was telling the truth. Another fantastic story is the search for Indian Yellow. It was believed to be obtained by collecting the urine from a holy cow after it gorged on mango leaves! The book is absolutely wonderful!

The Art in Knitting

May 23, 2008 in Featured by wendren | 2 comments

I am not much of a knitter – in fact, I don’t and can’t knit at all! However, that does not prevent me from admiring Sandra Backlund’s heavy wool collage kniting. She is unlike any other ‘knitter’ I have come across – she is an artist and sculptor whose medium is wool and whose paint brush is in the form of two knitting needles.

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She has an amazing understanding of form and structure. When designing she starts with the human body – “I am really fascinated by all the ways you can highlight, distort and transform the natural silhouette with clothes and accessories.”

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The thing she loves most about her knitting is “the freedom to make your own fabric while working. For me it is the absolute challenge. All the levels of skills you have to pass before you can even think about starting to improvise. It is the real thing and everything that the modern fashion industry is not.”

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Her work is truly amazing!

‘Wool’ Exhibition

April 24, 2008 in Events by wendren | No comments

I’ve just heard about a really exciting exhibition that is happening soon in the town right next to mine. Lino, a coffee-shop-come-gallery, is hosting their first exhibition of art and handmade goods all to do with wool. It will feature and sell the work of local artists Jesse Breytenbach, Karen Suskin, Liezl Trautman, Hanna Morris, Sandy Mitchell and Hilda Gertze.

This can only be a fantastic event with so many of South Africa’s top handmade artists – I’ve already got the date, May 2 at 6pm in Kalk Bay, highlighted with bright flouresnt yellow marker. Can’t wait…

P.S. lino is in colyn rd, kalk bay, up the road from the ice cafe (opposite the station).

Linn Olofsdotter

April 18, 2008 in Featured by wendren | 1 comment

Linn Olofsdotter is one of my all-time favourite illustrators. She is from Sweden but resides and works in Boston. I first came across her work in the front of a magazine that I had bought for next to nothing and I thought the drawings were too beautiful to tear out – so I still have the magazine! Several times I have used her illustrations as inspiration for many project front-covers. Now that I have discovered her website I wish I had more projects I needed to develop front covers for.

Linn’s creative process starts usually with drawing, either with good old fashion Bic pencils or MICRON ink pens. She doodles and these drawings often, together with background textures (either photographed or painted) create the illustration. In this way her work can be thought of as a collage. Only once this process is done does she open up Photoshop. She says she works with between 200-300 layers and I cannot wait to tell all the people who always scream that I am using too many layers in my documents with a mere 30!!!

When asked in an interview by the Art & Illustration Community what advice she would give to an aspiring illustrator she answered: “stay away from Photoshop filters”. I think, as a textile designer, I need to take this advice to heart too – filters are always such an easy option when designing for a client. But NO, I must remind myself to be true to talent and resist the temptation to take the easy road. True rewards only come after a rugged journey…and if my rewards one day look as wonderful as Linn’s, then it will be worth all the extra hours.

I’m NOT a little teapot

March 12, 2008 in Inspiration, Me by wendren | No comments

Living in the South Peninsula I get to see some rather strange and wonderful things. Like yesterday….

I was driving home from a really interesting day spent with the Btech Fashion and Textile Designers from CPUT, (who I hope to include in this blog soon), and came across this HUGE teapot sitting on the wall of one of the old brick ‘n brack shops in Kalk Bay.
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I had to stop and take a photograph of it. It reminds me of ‘Alice in wonderland’. I wonder if I could climb inside and get lost in another world…..

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Silhouette Art

March 11, 2008 in Inspiration, Me by wendren | 10 comments

Silhouettes have an amazingly calming effect. I have two silhouettes pasted on my bedroom walls.

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I came across this poor cat silhouette, all tattered and torn sorting through my mom’s old school stuff (she was a Grade 2/Sub b teacher) and became transfixed with it. It was so beautiful I couldn’t let it be thrown away. So…I got hold of some charcoal card, traced the shape and cut it out. It now sits on my skirting board and every time I see it, it’s simple beauty calms me.

The other cut-out I have are three swallows.

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I have a fascination with maps and I hate the way that old maps, artworks, just get chucked away. My first idea to ‘rescue’ them was to create paper bags out of them. But this never materialized and I still have a stack of old maps under my bed. At the same time as this was going on I was busy doing a textile design with birds and loved the shapes I was coming across. I choose the swallow silhouette, worked on it a bit and cut it out of the maps. They now fly above my bed and fill a wall that would ordinarily be quite boring and plain. I love the correlation created by the swallow and the map. I have gotten a lot of compliments about them and really all they were was an experiment to fill a space when I had no money and little time. I have grown to love them and think I will keep them when I move one day.

Inspired Lingerie

March 10, 2008 in Interesting Finds by wendren | No comments

I have a bit of a thing for really good underwear, or if you wish, lingerie. My Btech Surface Design thesis was a combination of undergarments, organic fabrics, rich natural dyes and feminism. It might seem strange that I now design bags…but in a way they are similar. They are both accessories, they act to beautify oneself and like good underwear can make you feel more confident, so can having a beautiful bag slung over your shoulder. If you have a bag you do not really like, or is old and grubby you kind of hide it away under the table or under your jacket….if you are wearing old underwear, well like my mom has always said: “You better wear good underwear just in case something happens and you land up in hospital and everybody gets to see it”. :)

Anyway, I came across this post titled ‘Competitive undies’ in Style Bubble the other day and just have to share it with you. Although the lingerie, (a term I am never quite comfortable with, as it implies black lace and suspenders…but underwear is such a dull term…), is completely unpractical I love the way it has made ‘lingerie’ artworks. They are not showing off the female figure as advertising today does but celebrates the items of clothing as art.

The ‘Triumph Inspiration Award’ competition challenges talented young design students from 60 design schools in 31 countries to bring their very own inspiration to the most personal of garments. The Gala Finale is in Beijing in July where the winner will receive 15,000 Euro and her/his bra and brief set will be manufactured and sold as a limited run of 10,000 sets.

Here are some of the my favourite finalists:

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From left to right: Guo Jian Aloysius Liew’s design called ‘Curious’ inspired by childhood and toys; Arnold with ‘Sir Hoodie’ inspired by underwear in motion; and Amy Drumm with ‘Le Bateau’ inspired by oil tankers.

And the three winning designs in the UK were:

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From left to right: 1st place went to Valerie Cn Kittlitz’s design called ‘Velocity’ based upon the notion of speed with a ‘road map’ leotard and leggings; 2nd place went to Rachel Hewitt, who based her ‘Botticelli” design on an updating of the couture techniques used in making crinolines and corsets; and 3rd prize went to Gregory Lewis’s ‘Staci’, who used a women’s 5-a-side football team as inspiration.

I’m quite a naturalist at heart and for this reason I have to say that I have two FAVOURITE’s. I absolutely love the structure and texture created by Rachel Hewit’s Boticelli. It is feminine without being overpowering. Arnold’s ‘Sir Hoodie’ is a favourite because the way in which he has represented motion using twists in the fabric and exaggerated lines and shapes has brought out a really strong feeling of flow that I just love.