Sunday 17 April 2011

Tara Donavan

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Last weekend we managed to catch the last showing of Tara Donavan's exhibition at the Pace Gallery. The gallery space was completely dedicated to her large-scale installation called 'Untitled', 2011.

The Brooklyn artist is known for transforming everyday objects such as Styrofoam cups, scotch tape, pins and drinking straws into huge bio-organic sculptures, and this one was no exception.

'Untitled' consisted of varying sizes of stacked metallic balls, created by folded sheets of mylar and hot glue, to form organic almost molecular structures. Some areas of the sculpture reach 11 feet high. Donovan says of her work, "It is not like I'm trying to simulate nature. It's more of a mimicking of the way of nature, the way things actually grow."

The enormous glimmering balls, that encompassed the whole room, reminded me of Christmas baubles or even one of my cat's toys but on a grander scale of course! The reflective quality of the mylar is important to the visual balance it maintains within the white space, made more apparent when you walk around the piece. Stepping back from it, it was just stunning and so graphic. I have to say I had to resist all temptation to scrunch the balls.

Sunday 3 April 2011

Handmade zipper bag

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Fueled by my enjoyment of making the tote bag's from my Purl Soho class, I decided to get more adventurous and try a project from Amy Butler's Style Stitches book. The bag I decided on was the zipper Origami bag in small. This was my first project using zips, so I was a little nervous. However I really enjoyed this project, so much so that I made a few bags (they make great gifts!).

The materials I used here were: Ikea's SNÖA FLINGA fabric for the outer fabric - 100% cotton by designer S. Edholm/L. Ullenius; the lining was a striped fabric from Mood Fabrics and the zip was from Purl - a nylon coil 12" zip in Medium Grey #340. I really liked the way this one and my others turned out, however I would like to try them with a thin waterproof liner as I think they will make great make-up bags.

If you know of any good waterproof linings please let me know.