I am now getting back into work and beginning to embroider words onto garments for Wordbespokeelement of my Wigtown words project. I am working with friend and photograper Ali Bell to document the project so I will be posting images and information over the next while. There have been many elements to the Wigtown word project and over the next while i hope to develop ways to show the work at The Book Shopin Wigtown at Spring Fling 28th - 30th May 2011
I have an exciting year ahead with work being developed from my Cove park residency summer 2010 to be exhibited in London and Sydney. I am also developing work for an exhibition 'Modern Languages' curated by Katy West with Crafts Council of Ireland and am researching Irish textiles and economy for this . Further details of whats happening next can be foundHERE
wigtown wordsadorn the Scottish Poetry Library christmas tree in Edinburgh . The words are spreading their way around through donation to a variety of places. In 2011 they will be donated to first year visual communication students at Glasgow School of Art and I look forward to seeing what becomes of them.
The word bespoke itself is derived from the verb to bespeak, to "speak for something", in the specialized meaning "to give order for it to be made"
wordbespoke
the word is out and i have a few takers willing to have their favourite word embroidered onto a garment! each contributer is deciding on the garment and the placement of the text so watch this space for further news ....
'squiwiff' has landed inside my coat sleeve
sarah : pants
jo: beret
emma: wedding dress
rebecca : wedding dress
christos: shirt
roy:jacket
wearing your words
wearing your favourite word... a badge ?....though i have been thinking of ways to carry favourite words around. Instead of producing more new STUFF i have been wondering about stitching onto existing clothes . This would add a new dimension to an existing garment with a word which has a special connection to the owner. The work would have an element of co-creation with the word donator.
what to call the project ?
wearing your words on your sleeve ? bespoke words ? wordbespoke ? offthepegwords?
favourite word
garment
location of embroidery
size of words
Spring Fling 2011 preparations are under way and we are thinking of where to show my work in Wigtown . I loved The Book shop there and had an idea to develop work which would be placed inside the bookshop amongst the books. Thanks to Shaun at the book shop the idea is all systems go in May 2011 so i had better get planning and developing ideas further.
Wordcount is an interactive presentation of the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked and scaled in order of commonness, and arranged side by side as one very long sentence. Each word's size reflects its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. The larger the word, the more we use it. The smaller the word, the more uncommon it is'.
'These typographic maps byaxis maps take locating a destination to a whole new level. Each map accurately shows the location of streets and highways, parks, neighborhoods, coastlines, and other features of each city using only words. To create these impressive maps, every single letter and word was manually placed, taking hundreds of hours to complete each map.'
I have just discovered the work of Stephanie Posavec and am really interested in how she visualises words.her project 'writing without words' is a project that explores methods of visually representing text and visualises the differences of writing styles of different authors. take a look at this project and her website HERE
discovering a piece of work by roman ondak has made me think of the varied age groups who were involved with the wigtown word project . in the participatory installation by the Slovakian artist every visitor is encouraged to mark their height on the wall and after several months a dark band encircles the gallery.
Progressive decoration for your walls. Start with a grid of printed letters, and add circles around words as you find them. This wordsearch-inspired wallcovering is created by 5.5 designers.
g u s s e t s h a m b o l i c g e r r y m a n d e r i n g s e r e n d i p i t y s k e l l y f u s i o n l e s s f a n k l e s l i t h e r i n g p u g n a c i o u s p h l e g m m e g a b e r t l o q u a c i o u s b a n t e r p r o p i t i o u s s w i t h e r i n g p u g n a c i o u s p h l e g m m e g a b e r t l o q u a c i o u s b a n t e r p r o p i t i o u s s w i t h e r h u n k y d o r y f l e e k c a l i p i g i o u s d r e i c h c o o l m e g a i d i o t j a y b o b b e a s t m e n t a l h a r d t a t t i e s c r a z y m a g p i e d o o d o o w e i r d d u m d e e d o g l o o l o o s c r e a m p o o f a n c a t l e a v e b a c k f l i p f l u f f y c r o p z a n g o o m p a l u m p a c o l l e c t o r O M G r i b e n a s h i n g !!! s p e c t a c u l a r b r i l l i a n t a m a z i n g s q u i d g y s p o r t h o r s e c r a z y g r e a t z i p p y g u i t a r b e a u t i f u l believe sheep fun chocolate hey fansheeptastic sup awesome sausages cheese hightops singer muppet water clootie friend weird mam weeble gruesome scrubdub bong princess cake love football ozzy scribble serendipity clipclop hello tara africa clarty binbag wahoo oliver food zap wicked chumchumadoo lettuce fandabydosey blob free kaboombay
balloons over wigtown
look HERE letters made of foam flying above heads at IFA Berlin. How they're made? A foam printer...
A
Amazing atlantean ambit adrenalin area aubergine armpit apple awesome annual-leave assume apricot alleviate akimbo autumnal anguish aardvark alabaster
B
Banter backerties bigjessie bibliophile buarach bailar brother bumptious beast bob beautiful believe bong blob bosom baboon boomboom bleather blowin bananna bakedbeans bus basketball burger bed ban bird bat bahookie bum bowl book blab bubble burble boanthropy bamba balmy bombastic bumfluff buddies burny bun bin but booze buoyancyaid bananna
As artist in residence at Wigtown, I spent some time asking visitors and writers at the festival for ideas of what to do next with the collected words. Robert Twigger , a fan of kites suggested making word kites and setting them to flight over Wigtown.
a wall of fridge doors stacked: giant words and a ladder to reach them ...now there's an interactive / active idea??!
there is a great interactive work by Berlin artists TheGreenEyl
'A surface is covered by a large number of coloured stickers, positioned in a grid. People can remove stickers, leaving white spots in the layout, as a result individually and collectively changing the walls appearance. These stickers then take on a life of their own, as they spread, extending beyond the installation itself, infiltrating private space and merging the boundaries of public and private space.'
fridges, their doors and fridge magnet words. It would be interesting to make work which is interactive and could have a life beyond the exhibition or residency so i am trying to come up with ideas which consider this.
