Matador Jacket Completed

Yesterday I picked up the completed matador jacket from the framers. They did a great job attaching the wire piece to the black matting. After seeing the piece in the frame I though I needed a few more gold elements to tie the piece visually to the gold frame. Here is the piece with the added gold elements. I will hopefully have a professional photographer take a picture of it before I deliver it to Armando.

Media: wire, produce netting, Filipino rice flour bags, organza, Mexican food packaging labels and beads.























This is the first piece in which I started using a drill to twist wire with. It has taken me four years to complete as I have been working on it off and on. Lesson learned: Make a hard and fast deadline or all my other projects will push the one without a deadline aside. I learned a lot on this piece and applied techniques to 0ther projects.

This piece was also what let me to meeting my friend, Charlotte Kruk, an artist who uses food wrappers in her work as well. She was working on a matador outfit when I met her years ago and I was beginning this piece. Time flies!

Art Opening at Bill Gould Art and Architecture

My friend Charlotte Kruk was part of a group show art opening at Bill Gould Art and Architecture on Thursday night and it was really a blast. Wonderful music and food (well, I got there too late for the food) and all the art was really interesting. The works will be up for six months.
Below: Charlotte's wearable art made of food wrappers


























Below: Several of Charlotte's dresses dramatically hung. I have never seen them hung this way and really liked seeing them floating like this.































































A few of Charlotte's dress form sculptures.













































Below: Charlotte at the opening and Charlotte with photographer friend, David.


















































Some works in progress on display on in the shop area of Bill Gould Studio

Matador Jacket

I have been working on a wire matador jacket for (I am embarrassed to say) maybe four years now. It is one of those projects that I just haven't seemed able to complete. But now I am so close to finishing it and I am happy for all that I learned in the long journey to make it. The saga of this has led me to using a different technique for twisting my wire. I now use a drill. I was in a jewelery maker critique group that really encouraged me to start using this method. There was also a precursor to this piece and here it is below.
FIRST ATTEMPT. This was set aside and saved only for reference.



















Sometimes, no matter how hard you rework a piece you need to set it aside and just start over. That is what I did with this project. I took a deep breath and started over. Good lesson there. Sometimes something I give up on is so amazingly frustrating and horrible that I just need to save it to show my students how we all need to start over sometimes. I haven't been able to show this lesson yet as I haven't completed my second attempt yet! But I am looking forward to making the comparison as I feel the second attempt is much better.

SECOND ATTEMPT in progress. In this piece the view is from the back of the jacket. All the wire is twisted with a drill. The proportions and form are more accurate.


















In the process of researching Traje de Luces (suit of lights) I met my friend Charlotte Kruk who was also making a matador jacket. In addition to the jacket, she made a cape, hat and pants...all from from M&M wrappers. You can see her jacket here:
http://artshiftsanjose.com/?p=10

Detail of my matador jacket:

































































































Above: beads I will incorporate into the piece.

This jacket's owner has been patiently waiting for its completion. He is an amazing hair and make up artist who created the looks for the de Young Museum fashion show reception I had in December 2008. You can see some of the hair and make up he created for this event here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/loriphotocom/sets/72157611429758897/?page=2
His name is Armando and here is his site, Get Your Do Up:
http://www.getyourdoup.com/























Above and below: Some shots I took of Armando working on a fashion shot in photographer George R. Young's studio last Fall. Model is the lovely artist Stacie Tamaki. http://www.stacietamaki.com/
























Below: Hair design Armando created for fashion shoot.
























The final images were used in postcards for the de Young Museum. Note: the hat band was redesign after this shoot as I realized it was hurting Stacie's forehead. I created a much better design and am glad I did as now my hats can be worn by dancers as well. Stacie was so patient to sit for hours and hour. She and Armando arrived at my house to create hair and make up before 6:00 am. The photo shoot ended at noon. They were amazing! I hope to complete Armando's jacket in the next month. It will need a bit more wirework, the beads added and a black velvet backed frame, I think.

High School Recycled Materails workshop

I conducted two days of workshops at Lynnbrook High School in Cupertino last week. These workshops were in the sculpture classes of Charlotte Kruk, an amazing teacher and artist. She and I are kindred spirits as we both use recycled food wrappers in our art and when we met we were both working on matador jackets (she has since completed hers and I am still working on mine). Here is her artist site: http://www.kruktart.com/ Anyway, I had a blast in her seven classes.

Charlotte had asked the students to bring in their own recycled wrappers, but being a seasoned teacher, knew that many would forget so she bought big bags of Dum Dum lollypops. I also brought in some of my manga comics, Asian food wrappers and a big container full of produce netting (the colorful mesh bags onions come in).

It was a dramatic and fun opener to the project when Charlotte passed out the candy while insisting that not a single wrapper could go into the trash cans. Charlotte had also created these wonderful floral centerpieces for each work table. They were made of real and silk flowers. I was so impressed by her enthusiasm and creative set up. I will certainly take a lot of cues from her in my future workshops. She was just great.

I started the workshop with a 15 minute Powerpoint presentation about the inspiration for my work and the step-by-step process I use. Then I demonstrated how I shape and twist the wire to create a flower and attach the paper. My step-by-step board helped some students when I was at other tables assisting. At first I was struck by the students' attentiveness and then realized that they were quietly content because of the tasty lollypops in all their mouths! Some determined boys ate nine or so lollypops for the wrappers and weren't feeling so good. I told them that was truly suffering for your art!









































Below: Wire orchid covered in chocolate wrapper. The student really looked at the flower form.
































Anime flower below.































It was fascinating to see the different creations. Many students made cleverly original flowers that I never would have dreamed up, like this one below. Very inspiring.
















































Another idea Charlotte had that I thought was great was to deconstruct some of the silk orchid flowers and place them on each work table. This helped the students look with a clearer eye at the different forms and layers of the flowers. I will be going back on Thursday to take pictures of the completed projects. This was a really fun experience and I hope to do more workshops like these in the future.