Last weekend I had a busy time installing for two local arts festivals. 'Glittering Fall' at The White Gallery in Bollington took 7 hours to install but hopefully the time spent 'tweaking' has paid off! The piece consists of hundreds of embroidered and embellished plastic bottle necks, cascading down the steps in the gallery's Secret Sculpture Garden. In this piece the reference to water became more central:
Water is the most precious commodity for human beings. The clay water vessel:a symbol of rural India is being replaced by the plastic bottle. As tourists we amass many bottles, lining them up in hotel rooms like toy soldiers, leaving them behind. Embellishing these empty shells as if they were fine silk, using traditional folk embroidery to make them glitter and shine, I hope to imbue them with a sense of preciousness.
I'm really pleased with how it looks in the natural surrounding, though acid bright in colour, the bottles somehow nestle in the space appearing like flowers: surprise bursts of colour. Elsewhere, my hanging bottle garlands dangle from the trees.On Sunday I took my Mirrorball Spheres to The Arison Gallery in Chorlton to create 'Shine': a window installation as part of the Chorlton Arts Festival. The process was extremely fiddly with lengths of pink monofilament stretched between the spheres. Hopefully they give them impression of shafts of light being refracted through the mirrored spheres. I feel a bit proud of myself now the pieces are installed after months of making! The Bollington Festival runs until 25th May and The Chorlton Festival until 23rd May. Come along to Chorlton Library next Sunday (17th May 1-5pm) to join in with my Plastic Fantastic workshop.
