Migration – working title

The lotus dress is complete at last. Hooray. I found it much harder to make than the map clothes I made a few years ago. Not sure why. More complex design? Fear of spoiling pristine white paper, whereas old maps are already fairly filthy? How time consuming it is to fold paper; the maths and the practicalities? Is it a really a bonus to work on a model rather than make the clothes flat on the table? I certainly allowed myself to be distracted from working in my studio rather too often. Walking with Wolves on Newton Fell in August for example.

Only 7 more clothes to go, and I hope I can speed up. I have decided to work on the marigold dress next. The marigold is the state flower of Gujurat. Many Gujuratis went to Kenya and Uganda and then had to leave in 1968-73. So I will be using the Kenyan and Ugandan maps for the marigolds – though I may use some of a Gujurat map if I run out of Kenya and Uganda.
The fabric design is somewhat driven by the size of map. I decided to make a halterneck shiftdress. So I made a rough design on the model (not Jolene anymore) and placed 4cm circles on it. That is as many circles as I can make from the map – (times 2 for the other side). As a result of that test I decided to use 2cm circles on the bodice which gives me a few more.

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What could a marigold look like for a swinging 60s dress? Time for a free scribble. Then I had to weigh up what I liked against what I could achieve by either paper stencil or lino cut. The lino cut flowers will be printed on the map and then cut out. The paper stencil will be used for the leaves – and instead of making screenprints (as I do not have a screen and Artlab has closed) I will use a decorator’s roller, acrylic paint and a paper stencil. That experiment worked and the painted paper still folds.

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Colours are go – I can’t stand the terror of working with white anymore. The late 60s and early 70s used a lot of bright colours, but just look at the map! I will have choose something a bit more subtle, and opt for unrealistic colours, which is also OK for the period – mid blue back ground and navy blue leaves perhaps.

I visited some artist friends who suggested that I look into using tyvek paper and think carefully about the lighting in the Storey Gallery.
A quick cruise through tyvek installation images on google was stunning. I especially liked the   Tyvek dress designs from Hila Martuzana.

http://www.ecouterre.com/hila-martuzana-translates-cycles-of-nature-into-stunning-tyvek-dresses/hila-martuzana-2/?extend=1

However getting hold of soft structure tyvek paper is not so easy in the UK, though I could get a small roll in the US.
I wonder if I should create some dresses to wear myself while I invigilate? I have a large collection of maps which relate to my family history, and have always had a personal map-clothes project in the back of my mind.
I have been suffering from cutting and gluing block, but have managed to get over it at last so the first dress is now on its way, but I need a lot of patience for creating pleats, and rather more ease with maths for the calculations.

Jolene, model for motorbike wear, is currently on loan to artist Catriona Stamp. Though initially excited by this new opportunity, Jolene is now expressing doubt and concern. ‘I thought an artist would have more appreciation for my face and figure, and help me get more interesting work, but the first thing she said to me was that I was too fat to fit into a picture frame, and she was going to have to make me slimmer! Well, as I am sure you can see, I am one of the slimmest models around, so that was a bit of a shock.’

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‘I am not sure about her first piece of work which I am currently modelling. She says it’s a singlet, and she will be cutting it down to form a base for further work, but I don’t think much of it.’

‘She has offered to give me a make-over, if she has time and my employers approve. As if she thought I needed one! It’s true they don’t handle me too carefully in the motorbike shop, but I do my best to cover up the scratches on my arms  and damage to my lip and buttocks, and I think she was very rude to refer to it. I am worried about accepting the offer in case she does something too contemporary, and then I couldn’t work in motorbike wear anymore. I can tell you she has some pretty weird stuff in her studio.’

When asked for comment Stamp said, ‘This is all a terrible misunderstanding. I would never make derogatory comments about someone’s body shape. I was only trying to explain what I needed for my next project. I think it is fair to say that nobody would be flat enough to fit into a picture frame. And as for the make-over – if she doesn’t want it, no one is going to force her to have it. I was just so sorry for the way she has been treated in the past which has left her with a lot of scarring, and I thought I might be able to help.’

So readers, what’s your advice for Jolene?

It is a long time since I did a print run – I have either made a collection of one-offs for prints in a suitcase for Holocaust Memorial Day 2014, or made digital prints – mainly due to body problems. But it is a particular pleasure to make a whole lot the same. I remember how delighted I was with my first ever print experience at Laurieston Hall of making 100 flower screenprints from a paper stencil – I didn’t know that was thought impossible, so I just did it.
I learnt to make lino prints from Mike Pemsel at a class run by Mid Pennine Arts way back in the 80s, but did some more when I belonged to Artlab, UCLan – sometime in the 2000s.
This week I set up a tiny print space with plastic sheet to protect the other stuff eg the sewing machine. Today it was a challenge to relearn old skills. First of all I forgot my colour mixing principles and squeezed out too much black in proportion to the green, so I have a lot of ink left on the board. Then I had to remind myself to get into a meditative space, as it is the only way to avoid mistakes.
It is a bit bad to blame the tools, but I began to wonder if the roller was slightly warped due to age, as inking up took me ages. But the plate is pretty good – there is only one small area of background that sometimes catches. And it is so hard to keep my fingers clean.

I can’t apply enough pressure to the press with my arms, so I have it on the floor and use my foot on the handle. I am much better pleased with these prints than the test ones I rubbed with a spoon, and I am glad to say that I can’t see the place where I had to glue a piece of the lino back on after a mistaken cut (lack of meditation clearly.)
I made the 20 prints of the whole lotus design that I needed for the dress, (it was another challenge to find enough drying space) then it was time for a break – coffee and burritos were on offer in the Forgebank Cohousing Common House for brunch, so I was very grateful for that.

Back to the studio to make 60 prints of flowers onto maps of Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Gujurat which used up 3 maps. The ink takes very differently on the map paper – which I should have foreseen. I am not sure that all the flower prints will be usable. Although all the maps are by the same map company, one map seems to have a different finish, which is causing problems. I was getting very hot and stripped off my T shirt and just wore my overalls.

Still lots of ink left, so I made 7 more prints and 21 more flower prints using other parts of the map of India, but I was beginning to make more and more mistakes, so I decided to clean up, using vegetable oil and an old toothbrush, and took the rags straight out to the bin to reduce fire risk.

We had fire awareness training last week at Halton Mill, which is where I have my studio. I was pretty useless and decided I would only start the alarm and then run away if there was a fire, and not try to use the extinguishers.

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I realised that some areas of the dress will have lots of folds and will probably not take glued sections of thicker map paper. In the first lino cut I left the flowers as a simple overall shape, just to mark the position of the glued flower. I decided to cut more detail into the flower areas of the original lino cut, so the print can stand alone in heavily pleated areas.
I also cut some flower shapes in lino so I can print directly onto the maps, as I need the outlines of the petals to make the map pieces look like flowers.
I think I need 10 printed pieces to make the front of the dress, but I will make a few extra.
I wondered how to link the printed sections together and thought of water ripple lines. Were they to be printed too? Hard to do that to match up across glued edges. So I think using the blue areas of the maps will work better, and also indicate migration routes from India to England.