Strawberries, Cookie Dough, and Bird Shit… Oh My?!

pillow with wire coming out

(Sorry to post late!- I didn't have access to internet until today due to two days of traveling)

Blog Post for Friday, Feb 25

This past weekend and week was spent split between working on the sheets nest (8 hours) and the mirror nest (16 hours). All was going well with both nests until Thursday. I was just about to put the final touches on the mirror nest, while I did something very thoughtless. I had reminded myself over and over that because the nest was so heavy from the glass, I would have to find a sturdy support to carry it on from the bottom. However, while I presume I was still half asleep, picked the nest up by the handles of the bowl (which were towards the top of the nest) and carried it all the way down stairs….. and then literally 2 inches from the table…. The weight of the glass gave out and the whole thing went crashing to the floor.

Heartbroken and down, my roommate took me to get ice cream to cheer me up after seeing so many hours work fall apart from a silly mistake. The ice cream was delicious, but what came to follow was not quite as appetizing. As we were walking back to my house, I felt something wet plop on my face while I was mid spoonful with cookie dough and strawberries. I looked up and saw nothing but clear skies above me only to realize I had just been shit on by a bird… on the face.

Oh the irony, broken nest- getting shit on by a bird. Part of me wonders if I should take this as a sign for something, but I can’t figure out what. I could only laugh about it all. I mean really… who does this happen to. If anything, it just made me wanna get my butt moving and really start focusing on the details in both my nests. Luckily, some of the stacked pieces remained in chunks, so I thought this would be easier to put the nest back together… but in a way it makes it more confusing now that it is somewhat puzzle-like. I am about half way done again, this time only gluing the mirror pieces to each other, and not the bowl as well so I don’t make the same mistake of lifting it that way again. To my surprise, as I moved the bowl from inside the nest just to see what it would look like, I was pleased to see what the form of the inside of the stacked pieces. This kind of made me think maybe I don’t want the bowl in there anymore, and that I could just use it to continue building the structure around until it is at the top. This will leave me more room to play with what I want to place on the inside.

Also, like I said before, you can’t see your reflection from the outside of the nest, however, once the bowl is removed, you can see your reflection on the inside from how the pieces are stacked. I was happy about this aspect as well, and I feel like it gives more of a distortion in reflection.

As far as the inside goes, a fellow classmate suggested knots or tightened thread. I had been picturing knitting something and stretching bits and pieces of it over the sides to get caught on the sharp pieces before. But I really like the knots idea! I am imagining a series of threads or yarn knotted and mingled together and in layers, lining the inside. Also, now that I can remove the bowl, I can stick thread through some of the open gaps and crevices in between the shattered pieces.

For the sheets nest, things are going a bit better finally. I was a little unsure about it for a while as I was getting the base layers on. It looked too plane and neat. But finally Thursday I was able to start adding in shredded pieces of sheets, along with pillows and the stuffing and really began to manipulate things. I think its finally heading in the direction I like, the tiny details of tattering and distress.

Both professors and GSIs came by to see it (before I got started on adding the things I mentioned above) and made a few good suggestions I would like to give a try. They all agreed that I needed some heavier material that signified stress/danger, and more of it, which I totally agree. The wire right now is too thin against the mass of the fabrics. Erica suggested mattress springs, which I think would be really cool to try out, so hopefully I can bring that in right after break.

I am still struggling on what to put in the middle. I keep returning to feathers for some reason, but I am not quite sure they will say what I want… or I am afraid they will look too much like a bird had once lived there and has flown away- which is, in some way, how I do feel about home… I go home to see all these things in my room that used to mean so much to me, but now that I don’t have them with me everyday at school, I don’t think about them.

My room is an empty nest, uninhabited, but still arranged and decorated, as if it were waiting for me to come back to live in it once more.

My room is also one little piece that fits into a house, a house I have constantly changing thoughts about. They bounce back and forth between the good and the bad, the sad and the comforting. It’s a chaotic mass of feelings and thoughts, encompassed by a man-made two-story structure.

Its funny how we manipulate these structures to fit our idea of comfort, yet we can’t always achieve that feeling no matter how hard we try. I wonder if the birds experience this when nest making. Or are things always as sweet and simple as cookie dough and strawberry ice cream.

1 fish, 2 fish, red fish, blue fish

Wire peaking out of sheets

Under wire structure

Sheet nest

Stacked mirror pieces

Post for Feb 17,

Since we are using these posts as group crits, it may be helpful to read/skim my last one or 2 posts :)

So I took a break from the sheets nest for a few days and have begun my mirror nest. I was able to find a really large mirror that I've slowly been breaking pieces off of. I was suprised to find the mirror wont actually shatter (it must be tempered) but this is kind of nice because it breaks into bigger pieces when I hammer the edges and gives me a little bit more control on the size they break into. I am using a large mixing bowl as the inner structure of the nest. I originally had begun by gluing the mirror pieces all around the bowl at various angles.... however this began to look like mosaic. So i started again this time stacking the mirror pieces. This provides a very cool texture look on the outside... however the reflect quality is lost on the sides. At first I was apprehensive about this, but as i began placing the mirror pieces on the top edge i liked the idea of only truly being able to view myself from one angle and that it plays into the idea of the mirror being a deceitful (see last post for more explanation).

I am still unsure what I will make the inside of the nest out of. I am still thinking of the weight gain paste like i talked about in my last post... or possibly more of the mirror, but shattered into much smaller pieces and displayed facing up so you can see your reflection, but more distorted.... Ahhh i donno!

I think i need to finish the outside first before I'll know, but I am totally open to suggestions :)



This weekend I plan to keep working on the mirror nest and sheets nest this weekend.

For the sheets nest (its in 12C if you wanna peak), I definitely still have many layers I plan to put on. I am leaving the inside as is for now (still fairly comforting-- reasons see last post). I want to continue adding more sheets, wire and even some pillows. I want them all to have a distressed quality.

Here are my questions:

-I am having trouble deciding how much wire I want to incorporate though. Right now there is a lot on the nest because I wanted to use it in part to add volume. I like the areas of sheets that are ripped open with the wire just barely poking through. I also like the areas where I layer sheet, wire, and sheet again. I don't know if it works better with more wire exposed, or just some.

- Should I incorporate other materials?
I want to keep it strictly to bed items, but someone mentioned that the wire alone might not have been enough to display the message, but they liked the wire where it was minimal because it reminded them of bed springs. I was considering trying wood pieces from a bed frame. Thoughts?


ThAnK yOu!

Works in Progess

Post for Friday, Feb 10

This week was more of a work in progress week. I continued working on the sheets next (6 hours), but still have a ways to go. My goal is to have this next done by the end of next week. I am still toying with whether or not I want to destroy the inside padding (which resembles a mattress) or leave it soft and "comforting." I spoke with Janie about it on Tuesday and we decided it best to finish the nest with out doing anything to the pad and then decide based on intuition afterward.

Also this week I spent time toying with images I already had of some of my nests for postcards (3 hours), however, I want to continue working on them. Today I took some more photos (1 hour) I want to try on the cards before I post a final few to pick from.

This weekend I plan to start another nest as a mini break from my sheets nest and use a broken/shattered mirror. This nest will be medium size to start closing the gap between differences in size I currently have.

Next stages...

Blog post for Friday, Feb 4

As of right now I am kind of feeling all over the place again. I really like what I have created so far, but I have made enough to start sorting out the message I am trying to portray through the nests. I think I have a few different ideas floating around and I would like to find a way to unify them into one concrete concept. I do like the idea of refining my current pieces, such as the pins and pillow stuffing one.

Over the weekend I started a large nest out of sheets, pillows, fabric stiffener, and chicken wire (5 hours). The piece is in process still and is requiring many more sheet than I had anticipated, but I think this will only add to the idea I am going for. I want the pillows, sheets, stuffing (from inside the chair I used as the base) to be mangled around and tron through by the chicken wire. Yet, I still want to be able to sit in the piece... so I am struggling with just how uncomfortable I want to make it. Do I want the outer layers to appear soft with the inner resting area to be destroyed by the chicken wire? Or do I want to have the whole look stressed, but keep the inside less stressed so I can lay inside an feel some comfort. I am thinking to myself and seeing both happen because I feel both ways about home at times. I may just have to let this one play out on its own while I create.

I also bought materials to start some more medium sized ones. I bought a large glass mirror that I want to shatter it to create a protective outter layer of the nest and use some soft material inside. I was almost thinking the weight gain power as paste again. I want to use the mirror because for a while during my illness, the mirror was very deceitful to me, and me not having known this, relied on it to reassure myself I looked the same way I always had. Once my perception of myself as still normal sized was shattered, the weight gain came into my life as a source of life, sustaining myself, and a comfort on the way to recovery.
I've also considered using my old clothing in this nest, the pieces I don't fit into anymore, however, I still want to keep thinking things over.


At this point now, I think I really need to sit down though and think about the materials I am using. Like I said, I want to find a way to unify or have consistence with the nests, making them a whole. I don't know if this will be through context, materials, scale, etc., but I am at the point where it is a good time to figure this out.

Dreaming

Post for January 28th:

I have this space inside my head. I see it everything while I am laying in bed. I can't seem to get away from it. It is an older house, and I am walking through it. The furniture is minimal and everything is shaded gray and gloomy. There is no one home, but there is the feeling of recent inhabitants. As I continuously walk throughout the house I realize that inhabitant is me. Although this is a home I have never lived in, the remnants of my past and current life surface throughout the house in the form of nests. There are some in the cupboard, in the fridge, some are on the mantel, on the windows, the closet, the shower drain, or tucked in a corner underneath my bed. Some nests are repeated out of the same material, but in different forms, providing an overwhelming realness to my experiences. Others are singular in their make-up, but just as powerful when I encounter them. Some are large, that I can fit into, while others range to be as small as the palm of my hand. This home, this giant nest made for man, is using my history to provide a home for another species.

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This week I spent messing around with quite a few different materials. I have continued to collect nutrition labels and have been cutting them up into small strips, following the dividing lines on the label for each piece of information (i.e. total calories, fat grams, carbohydrates, etc.) (3 hours cutting). This is proving to be kind of a long collection process, but this is good because it is really allowing me time to think about placement or combining the labels with other materials. I want to show an element of constraint, so I've narrowed the nest construction down to either a messy-crochet wire mesh that I've been working on (3 hours so far) that I would use to weave the label strips into, or just simply using the labels alone but placing them someplace hidden (like a kitchen cabinet)... but in this case I would want an overwhelming amount to create larger nest trying to pour out of the cabinet.

I also made two other nests while breaking from the cutting, out of the stuffing from small pillow that held a bracelet my mother gave to me for Christmas (6 hours for both). This piece of jewelry was something that I wanted very badly because it symbolizes an important concern in my family; my mother has one, my sister now does too, along with other women in my family. However, as much as I initially wanted the bracelet, I have a hard time bringing myself to wear it due to the current state of my relationship with my mother. So I decided to take the pillow that held it gently in place and rip it apart. I took the inside stuffing and molded nest forms and then used pins to hold the form in place. The pins cover mostly the outside only, leaving the appearance of the soft material as the inside. However, most of the pins are placed inwards, making the nest dangerous for an animal to actually sit in.

I also... for no rhyme or reason really, just pure intuition, played around with making nests inspired by the construction methods of the Chimney Swift (4 hours). The swift attaches their nest to a vertical surface using small twigs and their glue-like spit to hold the twigs together. These birds also tend to make their nests in common areas together (multiples in one chimney) although they are said to be not that social. These nests are really unique and amazing that they can hold onto the surface under the weight of the bird. I tried to mimic these nests by pining branches onto my wall, using some metal wire as extra support, and then pouring plaster over them to harden them into place. I really like these nests in their minimal make up and fragility. I plan to make about six of these (one for each person in my family) and then smash one on the ground to see how the material and branches break after hardening. I don't have pictures of these yet, but they in my studio if you want to sneak a peak :)


This weekend I will continue to collect nutrition labels, tea bags, and other things, but also want to test out materials like wax and food peels, skins, and cores to test how to preserve perishable items.

Post for January 21:

Last weekend and this past week was spent making nests out of a "weight gain" (supplement) labels and powder. Like I mentioned in my last post, after experimenting with the labels, I thought using the actual powder as a medium could be interesting too. I mixed the powder with just a bit of water, liquitex gel medium, and Elmer's glue. This produced a nice, but very sticky, paste that I was able to work with you form shapes out of. I found that layering the paste worked best to build up the structures. However, this meant I had to wait a few hours for the paste to start hardening before I could add the next layer. But this waiting gave me a chance to make multiple nest forms with the medium. I just kept switching from nest to nest as it was ready for the next layer. I tested different amounts of water and glue that I was adding, and even tried adding yest, but that didn't really do much. I found that although the paste hardened nicely, it was hard to make some of the forms that domed upwards. For this, I used tinfoil, plastic wrap, or other materials to prop up the paste until it hardened. I also tried baking one to speed up the drying process, which worked... but it now relates too much to food and has kind of a golden brown tone to it. I like the forms the best when they dry out on their own.

Overall, I am very happy with how the nests turned out. Most are finished, however, there were two that got quit messed up from a roommates coming home late at night... so I'll have to fix or remake those two. The total time all of this took was about 7 hours, or at least I know I spent all Saturday working on them.

Tuesday I went back to the label nest and completely took it apart and started over again (3 hours). I made an inside structure, then spray glued it and started covering it with the biggest labels. The spray glue wasn't holding as well as I had hoped and was just overall very messy. I even tried sewing some of the labels on, which worked for the big ones, but then I noticed it would start messing too much with the form where the string would pull against it. So I stuck with the spray glue but used it sparingly and super glue. It looks like a nest..... but like a hand-crafted nest. It is not messy enough for my liking and looks too arts-and-craftsy. I think the problem is that the labels are so big that they aren't giving me enough room to shape the nest like I had imagined.

I need the paper/plastic pieces to be longer and skinnier... however, then I have to give up on the legibility of the labels. But I think that I am okay with that. A friend who I spoke with about the piece mentioned that I need to demonstrate "readability," but not necessarily "legibility." So I think I will try again once more for this type of nest, but use strictly nutrition facts only of the food products I eat and shred them very skinny. Thursday morning I spent about 3 hours browsing the internet on bird nests, construction, and sculpture, and came across this artist, Fiona Hall, who made various bird's nests out of shredded dollar bills... exactly how I pictured mine to look!

Anyways, I want to remake that piece this weekend, and then continue on ward to hopefully find materials to reconstruct my sheets nest and then I have been itching to make one out of tea bags and one out of pins with pulled cotton.

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.