Ahh back to work. After a restful break I will be focusing my next few days on writing my thesis draft and continuing to create nests through the exploration of various materials.
Over the break I began creating another nest, out of metal again, but put it down half-way through because it was becoming too much of a jewelry piece. Luckily winter break came at the right time because I really needed to just allow myself to move away from metal working for a while to explore other options and materials.
I had the chance to do so Thursday morning and this weekend. Thursday I gathered up a ton of different materials including fabrics, wood pieces, glass pieces, plates, forks, knifes, hair from my brushes, clothes, ect.
The first nest I constructed was out of my own hair from my hair brushes. Due to a health issue I have recently undergone, my hair has been falling out quite a bit more than usual, therefore, I have a lot of it left in my brushes. Once I took all the hair from my mated brushes, I was able to easily shape a nest form that stands on its own, no glue/structure necessary. I found this fascinating and was very happy with it. However, I still would like to continue adding more hair over time to decrease the transparency of the form. This may take a couple weeks to do.
This weekend I dove into the beginnings of another nest, however, I am finding myself running into some problems. I plan to construct a large scale nest out of bed sheets, representing the comfort of home and being able to sleep in one's own bed. However, the issue I run into is that I want the sheets to ultimately be hard, or uncomfortable rather, to sit in. This is because I always reach home with the notion that I am in a place of comfort, refuge, but within a short time of actually being there, I often feel uncomfortable and want to leave again.
To achieve this "hardened" effect I began first experimenting with plaster. I covered this bowl shaped fabric chair in plaster for the underlying base of the nest, however, I moved away from this medium when it came to the sheets because of its color and obviousness to its material.
So I tried dipping the sheets in expoy resin to mold them over the base to harden. I found this technique done by an artist, Muriel Castanis, who draps epoxy soaked sheets over mannequins, and then removes the mannequins when dry to create these holy-like beings. I must further investigate this process because:
a) Even with a bucket of epoxy, it was not nearly enough for the sheets... so they are currently blotchy with epoxy spots
b) the epoxy is highly toxic with a strong smell, making it impossible to work in doors, which leads to
c) drying time is very long, especially in the cold I have noticed the sheets haven't hardened yet and its been 24 hours.
So going off of that, I am searching for a better solution or material to use to harden the sheets without making them unrecognizable as sheets.
The process of trial and error...
Anyways, after this nest I would like to move onto creating a nest that hangs (large scale), but haven't exactly decided the materials yet. I like the bed sheets as a medium, so possibly those again, but this time I don't think I want them to be hard... rather I want something inside the nest that cannot be seen from the outside, exploring the concept of discovery. I haven't figured out what yet though.
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