Friday 7 November 2008

Had a welding induction yesterday thought I might make a tree from twisted metal rods for my final piece to hang the prayer flags from. But Frank was saying that metal has tripled in price this last year so may do it in aluminum instead. Think that's a better idea as it will be much lighter & more portable.


Here is another picture in the dye room of the lovely Viv my muse for the prayer flags project. Viv has just come back from the school MSB educational institute Kolkata. She was teaching them printing and dying. This is one of the schools I plan to involve with the prayer flag project. http://www.artqualifications.co.uk/gallery_details.php?gal_id=138


This is the location for my mash-up 'Of Mice and Men' & 'Midnight Cowboy'. At first I was going to do it on an imaginary island but after talking to the tutor about making a model box I've changed the location, he said it would be better if we used a actual location. This is at Cannon Hill park it is a man made lake/pond. This will be an amalgamation of both dreams that the characters have in the stories, their farm and a Californian beach. So most of the props are already present just have to add a few things thus keeping the budget at a minimum.


This image is in my front yard also gave me some inspiration for the prayer flags.

We were in the dye room a couple of weeks ago and Viv had just made some new dye samples and was hanging them up. It reminded me of the prayer bundles that the North American Natives tie to the ceremonial tree during the Sun Dance ceremony that I had the privilege to be involved in during my BA. Also the Tibetans do the same thing with prayer flags. Stringing them along lakes and mountains. Gave me the idea of doing a similar thing here at the college. I want students to pick square of coloured fabric & write ,print, paint, sew what ever takes their fancy about pearls of wisdom they have for the future or what feelings they have at the moment. Then hang them onto a tree or some kind of lines, what can be set up at each venue. Then after I will create a mural with the fabric. At the moment I am thinking maybe a circle of life or tree of life using the flags from uni & nunnery at the base and working way up to different branches representing different schools. This will highlight the diversity between social groups,age groups and different social classes. After pondering for awhile I decided to do it at different education centres so am in the process of contacting other schools. I have arranged with local primary schools,a school in Kalcutta, a Native school in Canada.(Yet to contact them) and maybe at the Nunnery I'm thinking of ways to document it, seeing I'm a novice at film,photos etc. I thought would use a pinhole camera start from the very beginning, also doing a long exposure of the activity & filming as well, not all will be appropriate for each venue. The venues I can't be present at will probably only be photographed and videoed.