these were some of the nests I was looking at for inspiration and technique
here is the nest in progress with redoing the clothing.
Any thoughts?
I want it to look messy, but in a structured way.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Home Run
clothing nest before removing the outside layers
wearable nests??? just kidding!
My beautiful armoire!
stuffed big nest
3 small stuffed nests
This past weekend and week were spent finishing up my crocheted nests by stuffing them with sticks, gathering furniture, starting my labels nest, continuing my clothing nest and continuing on my sheets nest.
I was very please to find last weekend at the ReUse Center, a beautiful armoire and set of cabinets. The center is letting me borrow the armoire for the show, which is awesome because thats a huge money saver! (Even though I'd love to keep it anyways) It was definitely a large task though getting it into the studios, but with the help of some stronger art school boys we were able to mingle the piece inside. I had borrowed the art school's university vans to pick the piece up and it fit just perfectly. It is definitely useful to have those as a resource for us students, however, I don't think many people know about them so they should definitely advertise them more.
For my crochet nests, I have 5 completely stuffed (which took about an hour of stick and nature collecting, and then 5 hours stuffing them all), and I really love the way they are turning out. I collected more than just sticks to put inside, like pin needs, pin-cones, leaves, etc., but I think I am going to stick with mainly the sticks because I like skeletal structure they give in contrast to the soft yarn. I want to use some lose pin needles though to fill the bottoms of some, especially the big one I have done, to give it a more comfortable feel, like something could have lived in there. I still have one more small one to stuff and the biggest one.
My clothing nest was going well... I got it to sit nicely on my wall, in the corner of my room and I really love the way the nails on the inside are turning out. I began to layer the outside with strips of clothing, however, I felt like it wasn't saying quite what I wanted. After talking to Seth and Amanda about it, we felt that the clothing reminded us too much off clothes stacked in a laundry pile. So I removed all the clothing from the outside and am starting over. I have started to shred the clothing even more, into smaller strips and chunks, and am trying to just use only the clothing pieces to attach themselves to the structure, rather than sewing them on like I did before. I got a few inches done on the top so far, and I like the way it is going. It is much messier, but gives a much more natural look at the same time. I think the key is not to think about how it is going to look, but rather, what is going to provide the best nesting structure, getting the clothes to look like they are what's holding the nest together. I still want opinions though before I go too much farther so I will post pictures a.s.a.p. Overall I spent about 14 hours between last weekend until now on the piece.
The sheets nest is going well... slow, but well. Erica brought in some wonderful stuffing and bed springs I plan to incorporate into the piece. I still need to get feathers to place on the inside, but I am confident finally in the direction it is going and just need to keep working on making the whole thing consistent with the areas I love already (the areas with the pillows and sheets shredded and mingled together).
This next week is going to be insane, I have lots to do in terms of finishing up all the nests and photographing them... but I have a plan for each day so i just need to stick with it all :)
Friday, March 18, 2011
nails in walls, nails in nests
Post for Friday, March 18:
This past weekend and week was spent finishing up my mirror nest (10 hours), crocheting one last larger nest (4 hours so far), adding more to the sheets nest (3 hours) and building the structure, filling it with nails and installing the clothing nest (11 hours). I also made a schedule for myself for the rest of the semester to have completed specific nests by certain dates, along with getting materials and supplies and photographing some of the nests.
By this coming Tuesday, March 22 I plan to have finished the clothing nest and installed on my wall (i've been experimenting with how to install it non-permanently, but am running into a few problems with trying to cover how i installed it because it is so heavy, ~4 lbs). I want to have it stay installed in place before i cover it all the way with clothing. I also want to have the mirror nest finished (I only have about 3 more pieces to glue down and then I need to find a scale to place it on-- from there I will decide if i want to place anything in the middle or leave it open for the scale to show through), and complete the last crocheted nest and fill them with sticks.
I also am going to the ReUse Center, Salvo, the PTO and other places to look for furniture this weekend. I want to have the furniture in my studio by Tuesday if possible. I really want someone to come with me to help me pick out the furniture. I wanted my roommate to come, however, she's been really busy studying for 3 exams next week, so I may be by myself after all.
well my weekend is pretty full ahead of me!
This past weekend and week was spent finishing up my mirror nest (10 hours), crocheting one last larger nest (4 hours so far), adding more to the sheets nest (3 hours) and building the structure, filling it with nails and installing the clothing nest (11 hours). I also made a schedule for myself for the rest of the semester to have completed specific nests by certain dates, along with getting materials and supplies and photographing some of the nests.
By this coming Tuesday, March 22 I plan to have finished the clothing nest and installed on my wall (i've been experimenting with how to install it non-permanently, but am running into a few problems with trying to cover how i installed it because it is so heavy, ~4 lbs). I want to have it stay installed in place before i cover it all the way with clothing. I also want to have the mirror nest finished (I only have about 3 more pieces to glue down and then I need to find a scale to place it on-- from there I will decide if i want to place anything in the middle or leave it open for the scale to show through), and complete the last crocheted nest and fill them with sticks.
I also am going to the ReUse Center, Salvo, the PTO and other places to look for furniture this weekend. I want to have the furniture in my studio by Tuesday if possible. I really want someone to come with me to help me pick out the furniture. I wanted my roommate to come, however, she's been really busy studying for 3 exams next week, so I may be by myself after all.
well my weekend is pretty full ahead of me!
inprogress photos
nests mid-week progress photos:
underneath structure for clothing nest
beginning of inside filled with nails
position to be installed on my wall
mirror nest from aboveSunday, March 13, 2011
Traveling nests
Post for week of 3/11:
This past week along with over break was spent reworking my second draft of my thesis (4 hours) and crocheting nests ( about 36+ hours). I crocheted approximately 7 nests so far that rang in size and shape, and experimented with 3 different yarns. Initially starting I was trying to vary the size, but I wasn't seeing a large difference between the first three so then I started to add holes and play with the form until I got one really massive (about 3.5 ft in height) nest. I wanted to play with the difference in materials and how the crochet knots looked from each yarn. Two of the yarns are furry and organic looking, but colorfully striped (with greens and the other beige-blue). The third one was a much thicker yarn that is more rope like, but a natural off white-cream color with very thin and tiny dark strands mixed in. I thought that I was going to only use one of the colors, but I like them all so much that I think I will use all of them, and possibly add one more yarn type (but not totally decided).
Right now the nest kind of just hang, but I plan to use sticks to fill them, stretch them, and manipulate their forms. Janie suggested that I think of other things that I could fill the nests with. I made these nests as a representation of comfort and joy. I used the yarn as a symbol for my love of knitting and crocheting - I find comfort in that repetitive action and the texture of the yarn flowing through my fingers.
When I think of other things to fill them with, I think of possibly books, or tea bags, drawing materials, or clothing... things that remind me of sitting in my bed where my own little space is. I think the reason I initially imagined sticks though was because of the comfort I feel being in the woods, walking through trails. When I first envisioned these nest, they were hanging from the tree branches of the woods behind my old house. I liked the way that although they are all crocheted in similar forms of the weaver bird's nest, they all seemed to have their own character from the way the sticks poked out of them and stretched them. I definitely want to play with what to put in them, but I am still currently leaning towards the sticks.
As far as the other nests go, I ordered more yarn and want to create another large crocheted nest out of the blue-beige yarn (the big one now is green). I also am continuing to work on three other nests simultaneously- the sheets one, the mirror one, and a new one with clothing. This one speaks to how I feel about a relationship I just ended. I am using the clothing of the boy I was seeing for about two years to layer the outside. I plan to shred and rip the clothing into strips to create a layered ruffle texture on the outside (or perhaps braid the strips). I think this will help break up the colors of the clothes rather than just laying them on the outside as a whole. The inside however, will be filled with nails all pointing inwards. I will do this by creating the structure first and then poking the nails through the structure.
This nest will hang in the corner crevasse of my wall near the head of my bed. I will need to probably build some sort of two walled right angel structure though to build this onto for transportation purposes. If anyone has any suggestions... I am highly open to some! :)
I will add pictures very soon! This is all probably hard to imagine via written text.
This past week along with over break was spent reworking my second draft of my thesis (4 hours) and crocheting nests ( about 36+ hours). I crocheted approximately 7 nests so far that rang in size and shape, and experimented with 3 different yarns. Initially starting I was trying to vary the size, but I wasn't seeing a large difference between the first three so then I started to add holes and play with the form until I got one really massive (about 3.5 ft in height) nest. I wanted to play with the difference in materials and how the crochet knots looked from each yarn. Two of the yarns are furry and organic looking, but colorfully striped (with greens and the other beige-blue). The third one was a much thicker yarn that is more rope like, but a natural off white-cream color with very thin and tiny dark strands mixed in. I thought that I was going to only use one of the colors, but I like them all so much that I think I will use all of them, and possibly add one more yarn type (but not totally decided).
Right now the nest kind of just hang, but I plan to use sticks to fill them, stretch them, and manipulate their forms. Janie suggested that I think of other things that I could fill the nests with. I made these nests as a representation of comfort and joy. I used the yarn as a symbol for my love of knitting and crocheting - I find comfort in that repetitive action and the texture of the yarn flowing through my fingers.
When I think of other things to fill them with, I think of possibly books, or tea bags, drawing materials, or clothing... things that remind me of sitting in my bed where my own little space is. I think the reason I initially imagined sticks though was because of the comfort I feel being in the woods, walking through trails. When I first envisioned these nest, they were hanging from the tree branches of the woods behind my old house. I liked the way that although they are all crocheted in similar forms of the weaver bird's nest, they all seemed to have their own character from the way the sticks poked out of them and stretched them. I definitely want to play with what to put in them, but I am still currently leaning towards the sticks.
As far as the other nests go, I ordered more yarn and want to create another large crocheted nest out of the blue-beige yarn (the big one now is green). I also am continuing to work on three other nests simultaneously- the sheets one, the mirror one, and a new one with clothing. This one speaks to how I feel about a relationship I just ended. I am using the clothing of the boy I was seeing for about two years to layer the outside. I plan to shred and rip the clothing into strips to create a layered ruffle texture on the outside (or perhaps braid the strips). I think this will help break up the colors of the clothes rather than just laying them on the outside as a whole. The inside however, will be filled with nails all pointing inwards. I will do this by creating the structure first and then poking the nails through the structure.
This nest will hang in the corner crevasse of my wall near the head of my bed. I will need to probably build some sort of two walled right angel structure though to build this onto for transportation purposes. If anyone has any suggestions... I am highly open to some! :)
I will add pictures very soon! This is all probably hard to imagine via written text.
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