Rebecca Leivers 3rd year Fine Art

I liked how the artist picked out the architectural details. I'm looking at church architecture so this made me think about pulling out the details and making lino prints, I thought these looked great set out across the wall of the exhibition  

  Playing the songs live is a different experience to writing ad a different experience to recording. Coveting the 3 stages of the song and how it feels to play live being mindful how other people may perceive the songs and mindful of how the songs change meaning to me as time moves on.  Thinking about performance.  I'm mainly introverted and despite loads of performance experience I'm not entirely at ease with it. I feel most exposed singing my own songs and most vulnerable but most myself. Something to think about for the meaning of the project and the songs and its ok to not be a performance artist. I wanted to do art to make physical things so maybe this cross over with the music is not a good idea. Or it is its just becoming complicated uncomfortable at times. Moods and feelings are in constant flux so seeing things though means seeing things change. 

   working with animal heads on humans, similar to my folk costumes and to the paintings of Kevin Foote too, again using muted tones and a realist approach. The animal heads are clearly masks. unlike Sophie Ryders sculptures where the animal and human forms are integrated. My work is costume and designed to look like a costume on a human.

  Last term I learned a little how to gather natural vines and stalks for weaving and I made cordage with dandelion stalks. This time I'm using wheat, as its very in keeping with Lammas / harvest festivals, thinking about corn dollies and these old crafts that are full of superstation's. thinking about the straw boys of Ireland and the straw bears ,of corn crowns and numerus rural folk costume that utilise this readily available resource. v Process of weaving wheat stalks together- the waste from my wheat crown used to make cordage- utilise as much as you can. Also thinking about contemporary artist using organic materials and craft techniques such as Alice fox. ive been interested in her work for a while now, she exhibits in fine art spaces as well as teaching and workshopping her finely honed skills. the process of gathering and making from plants is a seasonal one that requires knowledge and patience. its seasonal work that connects to the wheel of the year and gives a deepe...

 I've been accepted as a voulenteer at the justice museum and today I went for an induction which also included a tour. I am fascinated by this museum. The building is a mesh of many years of progress. The oldest parts being the caves under ground that were used in medevil times as cells and then its been added to and built upon through to victorian times.  It was great to get the guided tour. So much history and objects. I love the victorian matron characters. I thinkits great how they bring the museum to life with character actors and court room re ancmnts. I've been signed up to the learning voulenteer, I will assist with facilitating workshops for school children and older students I wanted to be more involved with the curation and gallery side but there is more demand for help with education visits. It's still a way to spend time in the building and gain workshop experience. The current free exhibition is great. I'll talk about that in a separate post. In regards t...

Visual step by step of a hand weave sample using cardboard template, sewing pins and silk embroidery threads The set up for a small hand weave craft sample. I just really like this as an image.  

 

 Savage Beauty was an retrospective exhibition of the work of fashion designer Alexander Mc Queen. First  shown at the metropolitan in New York in 2011, a year after his death and then went on to show at the V&A in 2015. I've always been familiar with his name but not his work, during our joint lectures with fashion students I became aware of this exhibition, and in regards to my costume research this is really inspiring as it has lots of folkish and Victorian elements, styles I'm trying to  employ in my mask and costumes. Holland Cotter  of  The New York Times  wrote that the show "is a button-pushing marvel: ethereal and gross, graceful and utterly manipulative, and poised on a line where fashion turns into something else", but also noted that the exhibit steers clear of addressing questions about the contradictions in his work (taken from Wikipedia ) I investigated further and watched a few documentaries on you tube one by th...