departure, or, wow i love being not a fine-artist.

so here are a couple things from fibers, the only really substantial things i made in that class. the other large projects were a weaving (in which i wove mostly yarn, but also blue painter's tape and vcr cassette tape) and a presentation on victorian crazy quilts, spawning the first image, my final for that class. the rest was just in-class putzing around. overall, i suppose i really enjoyed the techniques we learned in that class, that was basically every type of fibers manipulation ever, but the class was still steeped in the crazy fine-arts attitude that i had forgotten existed since i'd been in illustration. that part pretty much sucked beyond the telling of it, but other than that, i was okay with it.

so the crocheted crazy quilt is not so much a quilt at all, but a glorified blanket, essentially. there was a loose concept tied into the fact that crazy quilts were luxury icons of "look how much expensive scrap velvet and silk and time i have on my hands that i can afford to lavish the surface of this quilt with embellishments and stupid little butterflies, etc.", while crocheting was considered "low art" associated with prostitutes. there was a bit of research i found indicating that they were called 'hookers' for all the crocheting they did (though nichole gives a different version of generation of the nickname). the surface has my full name, "alissandra corinne kachidurian seelaus", and the year crocheted on the surface, as an "IN YOUR FACE" signature, claiming the supposedly low art piece emphatically as my own. plus it's, you know, prettier that way.

the bottom part is my screenprint, painstakingly cut out off contact paper leaf by leaf on three screens and printed. i printed about two yards, and each leaf is about the size of a quarter. it's printed with dye, so it's embedded in the fibers of the cotton, not a surface treatment.

the end. i like the idea of making things (scarves, blankets, etc.), but fibers doesn't like being commodified. which is too damn bad, because i did it anyway. having these non-illustration classes is pretty okay in that regard, getting to make actual tactile objects (last semester, i made a book in photo.) next semester, the non-illustration elective will be ceramics. tea and coffee and such abound.