WW5: Ah, Motherland!

I like both images..I know hanging from cieling is not really an option. I like the branches concept and may be letting branches act as an human body and drape clothing over them.

from current issue of ReadyMade magazine

Christine, I thought this might help you think about your collage. It made me think of you right away and then I saw that they suggest you use wine crates!

Hi ladys! so here are a couple of the pix from the reshoot i did of Claudette, the accountant. I have also attached the better of the first batch. I think the 2nd one works best but i would love your feedback.

These boards pitch to three products that narrate different facets of the Panamanian Soul:

1. Nationalistic Pride showed as a visual narrative of the history of the Panama Canal within McDonald’s Happy Meal.
2. Grotesque Exuberance demonstrate through an all while Diablo Rojo (public transportation buses) plus makers, stickers, and guide to paint.
3. Ritualistic Happiness.  Carnaval has many components: public showering of crowds during the hot days, parades and dances at night in the country’s small towns. This yearly ritual that last five days change panamanians and enhance their lives. Agua de Carnaval mixes unique components that bring carnavalistic happiness to anyone who drinks it.     

For better view open the image on a new window. You can get more details that way.

Now I am up to gathering the content for each design (especially for the McDonald one). For the final presentation I will be showing process of the incorporation of content within the design.

Headphone Splitter

Dress Form

Agnes, Let me know if you need this headphone splitter. I may even have one more around here somewhere.

Anjelika, this is the dress form I have. You are welcome to borrow it for the installation, but you may want to cover it with something. There is also an adjustment knob at the top of the neck that is pretty ugly, so you may want to cover the whole thing in some kind of knit fabric. The base is just black legs, pretty standard. Let me know if this will work and if you want me to bring it next week or for the installation.

A quick personal field trip for anyone who has time?: http://www.tenement.org/

The subject matter is obviously related to our current projects and my friend Laura knows someone who works there and plans on bringing her to the exhibit. Good exposure for the Wonder Women and _Gaia, yay!

United States has been my home since 1992 when my parents made the decision to move the entire family here form Poland.  The process was challenging for me being a 13 years old girl not speaking English to adapt to my new home.  Memories and traditions are a huge part of my life now.

Growing up my mom and her two older sisters, Krystyna and Zofia made decorative textiles and wall hanging.  The middle sister, Krystyna would provide designs for each sister to create.  One specific project stands out for me for its unique process.  The materials include:  flannel, yarn (elastic yarn) metal pen and candle.  The flannel is the base for the textile.  Yarn is being threaded thru the pen and applied to the flannel to attach it you melt the yarn with lit candle and cut the yarn to desired length.  This process creates decorative textiles called gobelin.

It’s been few weeks now since I started creating gobelin.  I have asked my mom to be part of the process. She called her sisters in Poland and asked them to send some yarn that was traditionally used to create the textiles.  Neither one was able to find a single store that carries this specific thread.  It has been discontinues, no one works with this process any longer.  Both of them turned their houses upside down, hoping to find the leftover yarn form years ago.  Nothing.

It’s been challenging to find yarn that I could use to create gobelin.  I have bought and returned numerous kinds and colors back to the store.  None of them would melt under fire to fuse to the flannel.  I was getting frustrated and though I would have to change my entire project do to lack of supplies.  How could I create something when supplies I need no longer exist?  I took few days to regroup and went yarn searching again, finally yarn that works.

My mom, Halina and I started the process.  Just how she uses to make this textile with her sisters, now she is creating one with me.  We took the design of the one that use to hang in our apartment in Poland to create the design.  We have been working together on separate section of the textile; sometimes we discuss the events of the day.  Sometimes we reminiscent about old time, and other we just talk about all and nothing at the same time.  Often there is silence when we work.  It feels good to have something in common with her.

The process of creating gobelin is time consuming.  We are using two kinds of yarn.  One is made of recyclable materials.  After a while of working with it you feel the smoke in your thought, it hurts.  The room becomes full of smoke; we continue working on it for a little longer before we end for the day.

I started recording our conversations to include sound for the exhibit as of suggestion of Wonder Women meetings.

Basic Circuit Schematic:

The solar cell is connected to a diode, switch to an LED with a capacitor to store the electricity.

Embedding solar cells by replacing the mirrors

Breaking up the mirrors

Hi girls!

i dont have any new pictures to show. but i’ve been scanning the polaroids in super high res and found out i can make them up to 40″x50″ big. and after seeing the post from chris, i still want to see them big.

anyway, all i have to share is this link to a poem i found that i thought was beautiful and relates a lot to our projects – liz’s, pam’s, willa’s and all of us because most of our mothers are from a different land.

Mother, Two Tongues

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