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September 24, 2007
september 24, 07
Had a critique with a visiting philosopher of aesthetics this afternoon; it was pretty good, neither a huge disappointment nor a huge barrel of insight. I think perhaps it could have been better had we had more time, as there's much surface to skim here and a lot beneath that which doesn't get reached. Spent part of the rest of the day finishing up a first draft of my statement of teaching philosophy, which I then forgot to turn in to the person I wrote it for, what with both of us being distracted with our visitor and all. Phooey. I also made the dress image on the wall over my right shoulder: it's an image that gets transferred onto my newsprint blotters after I've printed one side of a dress and then flipped it over onto a newly inked woodblock to print the other side, so that the area outside the dress is printed darkly from the wood and the dress itself is a ghost of ink that offsets off the newly printed dress. I scanned it in sections, reassembled it and then digitally printed it out on Rives BFK so that I can draw or print over it. I think I'll work offset printing like this into some of my large pieces on the kozo paper, perhaps folding the paper in three and offsetting three subsequent printings of the same garment in a row. For that I need to make the next several dresses shorter, because they fit onto the woodblocks better and thus will print better on the paper.
Posted by jodi at September 24, 2007 07:58 PM | categories: dress #05
Comments
HI Jody,
Ok, following the progression, I have a few questions...when you are making the dresses, are you less concerned with aesthetics than how they will exhibit later? (This is not a comment on how they look on you!) Just, you know, thinking, the dresses will probably spend a lot of time on view, perhaps on a pole, instead of a body, did this affect your design process? Do you have a plan for future viewing of the garments? How will they be exhibited? Following it all very closely, enjoying every day you post.
Posted by: chris at September 24, 2007 11:13 PM
I'm not really thinking about aesthetics or exhibition very much, actually, but more about wearability as this project is first and foremost a daily performance that it meant to mesh with my daily life. I chose the basic style of the dress because it looked utilitarian, sort of apron-y. I still haven't given much thought to how I'll exhibit them; at first I planned to build a closet and hang them up in there but now I'm not sure. I know that I definitely don't want them on mannequins, that's too much like fashion.
Posted by: jodi at September 25, 2007 07:35 AM
Such an interesting project, I'm so glad I found out about it. One question, and the answer may be in further than I've gotten to reading, but are you addressing at all your own personal fashion preferences? I'd imagine the prints come into it, but what about the actual pieces? i.e. were you always a dress girl?
Posted by: Emily at September 25, 2007 05:58 PM
Hm. Well, I do like to wear dresses, yes. But the habit of wearing dresses is something I had mostly fallen out of in art school. The decision to use dresses has little to do with fashion though, and more to do with the fact that they're one piece and can function as a single, large canvas for the printing, and that it's the easiest way to be "in" the work fully, rather than with the skirts I was wearing previously and mixing with store bought shirts. I also want to have a single, unifying shape that gets repeated, so the dress was the easiest way to achieve that.
Posted by: jodi at September 25, 2007 09:11 PM