Creepy Christmas

Over the last 2 weeks, I've been working mentally hard to get loads of stuff made for Pexmas festive market, which happens just outside our studio. I actually do the branding for the Pexmas Ltd company since it started 3 years ago, but never thought of having  stall before. Anyway - so all of a sudden I had to brainstorm how to make commercially viable products while running with the current ideas for my art stuff.

I made clothes and cards mainly. Clothes are all designed and handmade by me, using reclaimed fabrics and dyed with vegetable dyes from kitchen by-products (so NO food wastage in the process) - i used onion skins, avocado skins and stones, and the water from soaking black beans.

The cards are all printed (lino, woodcut, mono and screenprint) with toxin-free inks onto a special card (v.expensive!) that is made from an algae which grows in the Venice Lagoon - it has to be removed otherwise it pollutes and poisons the local ecosystem. Cool huh!? And i ordered 100% recycled envelopes. Unfortunately cellophane wrapping seems to be a harmful product, no matter how you look at it, so i didn't buy any. But i think for professional reasons - i ought to, otherwise people might not buy the cards. I'm gonna keep researching to see if i can find recycled cellophane wrapping pockets.

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Below are some studio shots from the mad making process... I did the stall with my friend Rachael who I share a studio with also, and i think we didn't sleep properly, or eat a proper meal for a week. Consequentially, I am now ill!

Black bean dyebath

This is a bedspread i'm making from reclaimed fabrics - linens and cottons. Some are naturally dyed, the others (the grey and brown) are already like that.

I'v realised I need to make an online shop and website for the clothes I make - I have at least 15 different garments i've designed and handmade and dyed with veg dyes.

Postcard Perfect

My dad (known as Papa to his daughters) was in North Carolina the other week for work (he works for a company that have the majority share of the world tailors dummy market!) He sent me this amazing postcard! Best colours and outfits - and these ladies are so accomplished! So I made a top to match them, it sort of happened coincedentally, but then on purpose. I dyed the fabric with onion skins, and printed it with paprika and blue acrylic paint. 

 

I took photos on photobooth and made my own 'postcards'. I'd never thought of it before, but photo-booth and postcards are a perfect medium for vicarious living and imagined memories. You can hear stories of others' adventures, and imagine them, and mentally and spiritually (or visually if you use photobooth) insert yourself into that location or situation.
-Visiting a place-choosing a postcard-writing your adventures-passing them on to someone who will look at and read them-to reappropriate the words and image into their own subconscious mix-form a perceived image-
This process is a step-by-step dislocation from the reality - it's an imagining of memory.
This idea appeals to the concept of my 'outback cinema' that i imagine is run by a lone cowgirl dreamer. As a reminder - this concept of the cinema in the outback, is that there is a site, or location for half-imagined/half-true/vicarious cerebral activity - for adopting far-away lives and inhabiting far-away places. This is an activity that film itself provides, but with my cinema scene I am actively manifesting this process.
And now with my photobooth 'postcards' too.

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And below - Sunday studio work & monoprinted greetings cards

And on Saturday night we unexpectedly ended up in the biggest geezer pub in Waterloo, that was very sparsely populated by old men drinking pints alone, an extremely enthusiastic karaoke contestant called Jamie (followed by some other contestants who were less enthusiastic and more drunk), and two old geezer-women who began the night  arm-in-arm swaying to the beat, and ended it with a huge screaming fight that went on alongside the karaoke for nearly an hour.