WIP: wig hats

It's deadlines out the wazoo here in Stephie Lou land. But, as my recently departed and sorely missed friend Stella would have reminded me, it beats the hell out of having nothing going on at all. Right now I'm working on some art for the upcoming Small Works show at Proximity Cleveland (where I've currently got two art quilts hanging), as well as the FESTIVUS show at Wall Eye Gallery (where I am one of seven co-owners). Here's a peek at what I've got going on so far.

So what the hell are you looking at, you might ask. You are looking at a vintage wig ad printed on an equally vintage silk scarf. I am a process junkie, and this is my first time using this process on this scale (having tried it only once before), and I must say that I'm quite pleased with myself as this is a method born of my own brain and not extensive googling.

I started with a sheer scarf that had water damage and was beginning to shatter in some spots, but I figured the irregularity would add a nice texture to the work. (Turned out not to make any difference at all in the finished product.) I ironed the scarf onto a piece of freezer paper cut to roughly 8.5" x 11". This stabilized the silk enough to go through the printer, in theory. I don't know if this is a universal thing, but my printer does not like anything thinner than regular printer paper, a lesson I've learned the hard way. So, I then used a glue stick to adhere the papery side of the freezer paper to a piece of scrap letter sized paper. After trimming the freezer paper and silk to the size of the paper, I fed it through my Epson inkjet printer. On the right side of the above image you can see the ghost image left on the freezer paper after I peeled off the scarf. I'm going to hang on to this for future process experiements (processperiments?) I've cut apart each cell of the ad and plan to use each in its own micro miniature quilt to be hung as a group but sold separately, the left side of the pic shows the background fabric I plan to use. Did I mention that I had hoped to deliver these to the gallery TOMORROW? We'll see...

Now to get all artsy fartsy intellectual-like and ramble on about what I'm trying to say in this piece, and my artwork in general. Many of the themes portrayed in my work relate to women's issues, primarily gender roles, standards of beauty, and domesticity. I am particularly interested in the relationship between artifice, femininity, and self image. Annnnnd.... add vanity to that list.

This wig ad really struck a chord with me. You can't see it in the pics here, but almost every wig advertised includes a tag line that emphasizes the importance of appearance and/or male attention. "Be attractive to men," "instant glamour," and my favorite, "instant love, instant success, new beauty in seconds." I loved that last one so much that I used it as the title of a piece I did in March that used the same source image. Here's a peek at that one.

 

For this one, I used completely different materials. The ad is inkjet printed on Lutradur treated with Golden Digital Ground. The Lutradur is somewhat translucent, but much more opaque than the silk scarf. The wild paisley printed stuff is vintage wallpaper. Our tiny 5' x 5' full bathroom was covered in this stuff - walls AND ceiling - when we bought our house, and the previous owner was kind enough to leave us the leftover roll. I had initially thought I'd use the wallpaper for the current series, but since the silk is so sheer, it obscured the printed image too much.

TTFN... Back to work!