Nesting

Post for January 14:

So now that it has been a few days since I have begun my nest out of sheets, I have realized that the materials I used are not conducive to my piece... or to the environment for that matter. The epoxy resin still has a very strong toxic smell, making it hard to bring indoors, let alone keep working with it. Although this is disappointing, I'm almost kind of glad that it is making me start my nest out of sheets over. Now I can use this piece to keep testing on and then rebuild one that is bigger, stronger, and most of all, non toxic. I have found some products that are water-based fabric hardeners. I am hoping to have more luck with these and will be testing them this weekend. If they prove faithful, I will then start constructing a larger, more solid structure to make my nest out of sheets. I want to experiment with using both white, plain sheets, and with flowered, patterned sheets. I feel the two types speak very differently to an audience, however, I am not sure what they will say until they are constructed in the nest form.

In the mean time I am also working on constructing smaller nests out of food labels that will sit on plates. I plan to create one that consists of only the nutrition facts, one that consists out of the things that I eat now since I have a strict diet for health purposes (food labels, facts, peels, stems, seeds, etc.), one that is made out of the labels and facts of things that I was once scared to eat (comfort foods), and one that is made out of the labels from my supplemental nutrition/weight gainer drinks that I have to take every night.

I have already started on the last one I mentioned. I am about half way through. I cut all the labels and nutrition facts into strips and have been weaving them together for some time. However, it is not exactly turning out how I would like it. The walls are still very thin, even though they are layered with paper, but since paper is so flat, there is no dimension. And it also looks like it was constructed by a person, that there was too much thought put into the way it is woven like a basket. So I think what I am going to do is deconstruct it a bit, add some tissue paper, or any light-weight paper to line the inside, then spray adhesive the piece, cover it in more label strips and then from there, once it is about the proportions I want, weave and sew pieces on in certain area to give it more natural look.

As I have been making this piece, one thing that occurred to me was the possibility of using the actual powder from the weight-gain supplements to make a nest. There are some species of birds that make there nests out of mud and sand, as borrows in the ground. With the use of a liquid glue mixed in with the powder, I plan to try and mimic these borrow-nests. I think they will turn out pretty cool and am excited about the medium.