Wearable Art

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    First, Some of my garments from Art to Wear. All are shown on exhibition in

Sydney.

                             1.        2.        3.       

             1, 2, and 3. My 1996 contributions: Bloke I, Le Rouge et Le Noir, and Symphonic Variations

            respectively.

                             4.        5.        6.

            4. Torami, which, with Bloke III (the vest of which is shown in 7 below), made my 1998 contribution.

            5 and 6. Oread and Bloke IV, two of my contributions for 1999.

                    7. (a)   (b)   (c)   

                    8.        9.       10.

            Some cubist-inspired pieces.

               7 shows the vest for Bloke III with shoulder and side studs separated.

                I was making a tongue-in-cheek statement about Wearable Art: this piece took its stylistic

            inspiration from a school of art and it was in a Wearable Art exhibition. Therefore, I lined the back

            and fronts separately and assembled them with large, uncovered press studs. Studs were also used

            in the vests of Another Bloke and A Bloke in the Landscape, where I covered them with fabric.

            It means that the garments can be either worn or hung flat on the wall: Wearable Art!

                The right front shows a tabletop on which there is a comport of fruit and an aggressively

            cubist cup and saucer. On the left, there is a woman sitting in an upholstered chair. Her gloved

            hand forms the closure and it looks as if she is reaching for the cup: "Miss Toklas Takes Tea".

              8 and 9. These appear elsewhere, but I've put them here to keep the Bloke III vest company. As

           compensation, I've included the back yoke on the crossover/double-breasted vest. The hair forms

           the front neckline and continues over the shoulder to the back, where it is tied in a cubist bow.

                           11.       12.

          11 and 12. A piece of conceptual wearable art: Necessity (Who Became the Mother of

                Invention). This was made for an exhibition in 2000 entitled Outrageous Brides, which was

            curated by Helen Lancaster and held at the Fairfield Gallery in Sydney. She is shown on exhibition

            in the gallery. I have aimed for sumptuous raggedness: her outfit is made from strips of silk, mostly

            torn. Her bodice is embroidered with them, trimmed with needle lace made from them, and laced

            up the back with them. She has also been exhibited, along with Bloke I, in the Elemental

               exhibition (November, 2003; curated by Judith Trager at the Loveland Museum and Gallery,

            Loveland, Colorado).

                13.       14.

          13 and 14 show the vest from A Bloke in the Landscape, from Art to Wear, 2004. It's my take

            on the parti-coloured garment, except that it is divided into different landscapes (including aerial

            ones) rather than different colours.

             

 

                15.        16.       17.

            Two commissions

            15 and 16.  Commission for Roz - a jacket in black charmeuse and silver lamé covered in some

           places with two layers of hand-painted georgette, in others with one. It is extensively embroidered

           and lined in a hand-painted charmeuse which matches the georgette. There is a matching bag.

           17. Vest for Bubbles. The gold "Matisse" shapes across the yoke are nylon-organza-covered gold

          lamé reverse-appliquéd behind the faced edges of the silk negative shapes on either side. The red

          fabric is corduroy which the client wished to have included.

                18.

            A lamé-taming experiment

            This vest was made as a challenge. A student had given me a piece of cheap and vulgar pink lamé

printed with magenta, royal blue and emerald green flowers and leaves. It was rather startling. She wanted

to see what I'd do with it.

            I decided to use the back - much more subdued. I further toned it down by informally pleating some

shibori-dyed georgette in a combination of smoky greys and lilacs. Then, having laid it over the lamé, I

proceeded to embroider it with a variety of threads, including heavy threads. These were mostly metallic, to

bring the sparkle of the lamé to the surface on a more refined scale. I used a multiple meander-within-

meander, which gives the effect of interlocking leaves or seaweed. To finish, I embroidered a tiny meander

filling in a mid grey in the spaces between. There is a matching bag.

            Accessories are wearables, too

                19.

            Some embroidered bracelets/bangles, featuring open-work (including some worked off the outside

            edge), reverse appliqué and off-the-edge stitching as a finish. The closures are fabric-covered press

            studs.

               20. a         b         c         

 

                     d         e   

            Evening bags - a series of samples (though by no means the only ones!) for my workshop Sheer

                 Heaven.

    They illustrate just some of the creative things that can be done with sheer fabrics - including layering

them (cut or whole) and burning holes in them (see A and B). As these are all evening bags, I've used plenty

of glitz.  

                21. a      b

    21a shows the Left Front of my contribution to Art to Wear 2005: Bloke VII: a Man of Letters. The embroidery

 has been finished, and the piece cut back to the size of the pattern piece. It's double-layer bonded appliqué

 under a sheer. The first layer (big dark , blocky capitals) is under black nylon organza. The top layer (lower-case; Jokerman font elaborated) is

 under navy polyester organza. 21b shows the Bloke as exhibited at Art to Wear along with Kirry Toose's Wild Rose

 

                22.  a         b         c

        This is the vest for my Art to Wear exhibition contribution, 2006: Bloke VIII: Homage to Gerard Manley

Hopkins. The inspiration was his poem Pied Beauty, and is concerned with dappling, mottling and broken

colour.

 It's photographed after the red silk charmeuse facing was turned and before the navy habotai lining was

 hand-stitched in. Unfortunately, I don't have an image of the outfit on exhibition. The trousers were

mottled grey linen-look tussah. The shirt was navy habotai and featured collar and cuffs in the same fabric

as the lower front of the vest.

            23. a          b          c          d

    Bloke IX: After the Burn-off (Art to Wear, 2007; image a by courtesy of Virginia Koster). This was inspired by

seeing a stretch of countryside in the Northern Territory after it had been given its annual clearing by fire,

a practice which dates from time immemorial (from so long ago that many Australian plant species need to go through

fire before their seeds will germinate). Image b shows the back of the vest. Much of the stitchery is layered , and there are areas of manipulated fabric (c and d).   

           24. a          b         c   

    Art to Wear, 2009. The theme was Black and White. Image a (courtesy of Janine Hanes) shows the exhibition (held under the auspices of the Quilters' Guild) at set-up. Images b and c (courtesy of Virginia Koster) are front and back views respectively of Bloke XI: A Bit of a Dandy.

 

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