My work tends to be derived from my fascination with the inside. The inside of machines, the inside of the human body, the inside of our thoughts; these are all things that are generally hidden, intentionally or otherwise. The necessity or possibility of destruction frightens us away from ever really being able to see these things. Some deep sea creatures, such as jellyfish, break this convention by exposing their insides through a transparent body, inspiring me to do the same through my outfit.

This piece consists of imagery influenced by internal biological elements of deep sea life and human anatomy. The lights mimic bioluminescent (emission of light by a living organism) sea creatures and their natural defence system. The ropes on the dress represent a jellyfish’s tentacles. The dress’s texture depicts muscle tissue. The flexing on the upper body of the dress suggests breathing.

Many different textile processes were utilized to assemble this outfit. Through felting, knitting, crocheting, dying and machine stitching, I have created the appearance of internal imagery. These materials were dyed with a combination of powdered drink mix and acid dyes, giving the fabric its vibrant colors.

Interwoven into the outfit are many conductive threads and wires. These wires provide energy to the LEDs (light emitting diodes) and nitinol (shape memory alloy). The nitnol and LEDs are both powered by a Lilypad Arduino (microcontroller), which also controls the flexing of the nitinol. Another Arduino, as well as a motion sensor, tells the lights on the skirt when to turn on.

There are more photos available on my flickr page. This piece will be shown at the Lennox Contemporary Gallery from April 30th-May 10th 2009. More information available in this post.

Here’s some information about the show:

Human Forum: Sheridan Furniture and Textiles

April 2 – May 2, 2009

The historical relationship between textiles and furniture has always been close, both being primary elements of domestic interiors for centuries. Clothing the body, and the interior, textiles are the original structure; crossed fibres support each other, stronger than the constituent parts and infinitely versatile. In its negative quotation of the human form, furniture evokes the user, just as textiles exhibit the imprint of the designer and the culture that contains them both.

This exhibition of selected works by graduating students from the Sheridan Craft and Design Textiles and Furniture studios demonstrates an inquiring spirit, an exceptional level of craft, and a desire on the part of the students to become part of the historical continuum relating the body to the interior, and the interior to the contemporary world around us.

Link to the Exhibition Page

I just updated the Textiles section of the main site. The things added were the Ribcage Bag, the Crumple Shirt (which I couldn’t think of a name for, I’m so bad at this), and the Cyborg Scarf (new, better photos).

I’ve finally gotten access to a studio and a really nice DSLR camera. I still have about 2 more major things to shoot, but I’ll get around to that later, one of them requires a model.

The Brampton Art Fair is coming up really soon, I’m pretty much set, I just have to tag a few items and take a few photos. I’ve made a few less expensive items that will make good gifts, like tea towels, placemats and cards.

This was the theme:

New Atlantide: Be inspired by the legend of Atlantis and it’s women, highlighting the charm of classical elegance where the art of draping and Greco-Roman jewels reign supreme. Raised and padded bas-relief embroideries, iridescent mother-of-pearl, delicate minerals, laminated silks and metal and bronze accessories ornate this modern-day goddess. Tones of grey, aluminium, silver, pistachio, jade and Parma violet.

The theme was definitely not something that I was too excited about to begin with. The overall theme was supposed to be Modern Goddess. I ended up taking this idea and went in a different direction, I tried to stay as close to it as possible though.

I decided to make the fabrics seems like they’ve been underwater for a while, with things growing off them. This is Atlantis after it’s already sunk to the bottom of the ocean.

This project was supposed to be mainly about embroidery, so there is a bit of embroidery on my samples. I used glow-in-the-dark embroidery thread and I also machine stitched some glow-in-the-dark sewing thread onto pieces. Some of the pieces also have glow-in-the-dark pigment added to them. Again, I wanted an underwater feeling. I was thinking of bioluminescent algae and sea creatures. The pieces take a completely different look once they’re placed in the dark.

All of the photography is done by Angel Rivera. I felt ridiculous posing for these photos, especially when I fell over into the water after stepping on a rock covered in algae. I love how they turned out though.

I’ve added these images to the main portfolio page as well. I was messing around with how the images on the portfolio pages are displayed, so if something looks off, it should be fixed by tomorrow afternoon.

I finished this project a few days ago. It’s knitted and crocheted, with electrical wire and normal wool yarn. I’ve uploaded some finished pictures, and some pictures from the making of it as well. I called it the Cyborg Scarf because I wanted it to look like a really elegant scarf from first glance, but when you look closer, you see ‘holes’ that peer into the inner machinery.

The inside wires are hidden by a piece of felt that I made. The scarf is powered through two 3v batteries and the light sequence is programmed on a Lilypad Arduino. It cycles through several blinking and fading lights, which I wanted to seem erradic, like a failing piece of machinery.

I plan to take better pictures of this when I have access to a proper photography studio.

Did a workshop today with Jill Harrop at school. We used men’s dress shirts and transformed them into new clothing. It was a ton of fun to do, and I really enjoyed working this way. I worked on these with a classmate. The above photos are my favorite. I’m going to be sewing this into an actual dress.
The ones below are some more that I really enjoyed making.

Working on a project!

Hope to have it done in a few days, hooray!

Here’s some of the scarves I’ve been making this week. I’m still working on olive, light blue, orange, black and red ones. I’ll probably just add them to the shop when I’m done.

They’re made with wool and silk, and dyed with kool aid. I’ve had a ton of fun making them. I love the texture.

How It Works
The skirt is turned on by a conductive velcro switch. When the velcro is fastened, the white lights on the skirt turn on. There’s a switch inside the left shoe. When you step with your left foot, it puts pressure on the switch and activates a wireless transmitter that sends a signal to the skirt to turn on red LEDs. Below is a video of the red LEDs turning on.

Artist Statement
There are several actions that typically signify anger, including clenched fists, yelling, and stomping. Ariela and Tashi’s character used the power of natural elements to defeat her enemies. The idea was that when she would stomp her feet, her wand would activate her elemental powers. As for Blake’s character, his tattered garb inspired the burned and worn aesthetic in the piece. Both of the students’ characters were superheroes ultimately fueled, to some degree, by anger. Working with the concept of stomping, I incorporated elements of the students’ work to create an outfit as dark and disparaging as anger itself.

My project will be up at the Textile Museum of Canada until the beginning of June :)

To the left is an invite for the Super Wired exhibition at the the Textile Museum of Canada. The opening reception is tomorrow night from 6-7:30pm and my piece will be on display until the beginning of June.

Last year, I was chosen to participate in a project called ‘Digital Threads’. In October 2007, I attended a workshop at the Interaccess Media Centre in Toronto about electronics and textiles. I was given a group of grade 10 high school students to work with, and I helped them to create a small electronic textile piece. The students were given an assignment to create Superheros. My project was to work from their images to create a textile-based artifact.

I didn’t snap any photos of it at the time because I was extremely rushed, but I hope to get photos of it at the museum tomorrow night. I’ll post them then, along with the artist statement I wrote up.