Fractured Elegance

Jessica here! Hope I did not keep you waiting too long.  I have finished my project since I posted TubulARTastic and In this last blog I would like to share with you my results and plans.  Here is a photo of the piece:

                                                                                 Top View

Bottom View

With this finished piece I decided how to move forward with my final project which was to create another tube within a tube but on a larger scale.  I planned to weave it tighter and I planned to cut the bottom of the outer tube.  The wire lights proved difficult to weave into my smaller tube by hand and somewhat disturbed the weaving. I am still working on this aspect if anyone has any advice for me that would be great! I played around with one of my first tube samplers to see what it would do when I cut the bottom.  I plan to use hem lock as a way to secure the threads that I cut

  I was then introduced to the idea of lace weaving.  I began doing some research and decided to give it a shot here is a link for a PDF about lace weaving that I found helpful ( www.weavingindiana.org/PDFs/EleanorBest/LaceByHand.pdf‎ and here are the results:

The sections of the warp I twisted together by hand and then slid a piece of my copper wire through it to secure it in place.  I did this to the back and the front layers so that the lace weaving wraps all the way around my tube.

I have done a lot of running around lately looking for inspiration to help me with this project. I have just been snapping pictures of things I think might be useful to me like the following:

These simple lamp structures I found at Lowe’s home improvement really gave me a lot of insight and ideas of how to put my final piece together. The lighting techniques used for these lamps gave me some ideas about how I might light my pieces in the future. I plan to use the same hanging devices as I used in my first project, but the tighter weaving will help the threads to be more stable.

I tried to find a way to pull all of these ideas together but struggled until one day I was sitting in my History of Crafts I class with Dr. Carol Ventura. She was lecturing on weaving that day.  I heard her say something about how she thought that human muscles resemble a weaving.  At first I found that idea kinda disturbing, and even gross, but as I began doing my lace weaving I saw what she was talking about! The way that the threads overlap and twist really do display muscular qualities.  Then I came up with my title, Fractured Elegance. I began thinking about other aspects of the human body and the way a fractured bone looks and how that broken quality at the bottom instead of it being so rounded would mimic the strong points created in my lace weaving which will hopefully tie it all together.

I have finished weaving my Final piece and here it is!

I am going to make a paper template before cutting the outer tube to the shape I want this will help me plan out my design easier. Then, I will begin constructing and putting final touches on the piece. Check back at this same post in a couple weeks I will add a photo of my finished piece.

Thanks for the love

 

The Finished Piece!

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