Meeting and Molesting fellow WOW designers

In honour of WOW opening this week for it's 33rd? show after a two-year hiatus, I present a memory of meeting and sometimes molesting fellow designers over the eleven years I participated. Designer Days and the shows grew into a really fun experience as more and more of us became repeat offenders - you can almost track this in the photos as they get blurrier and fuzzier towards the end! Wishing all the designers a fabulous WOW experience this year, from Svenja &Matt.

 

Paracosm Exhibition Opening

On the Friday before the exhibition week I started choosing and hauling out the mannequins from the storeroom, then placing them, beginning with the easiest – those that definitely needed space to be seen from all angles, and what should be the most visible from the doorway. 

I decided that one would be Spike, better known as Cordycephila. I began with a male mannequin, but after wrestling most of the bodysuit on, found I couldn’t complete it because of his stance. I tried again with a mannequin with straight legs, wrangling the bodysuit and the main torso piece on, only to find that I couldn’t slide the leg pieces over the giant flat feet! I undressed him, and resorted to a female mannequin who had slimmer, pointed feet. Mostly dressed, I tried to put him on a stand, but couldn’t get it to sit straight. By now it was nearing 5 o’clock, and I had spent several hours on this one work, and I was tempted to leave him on the ground – but I just couldn’t let it beat me. So I rustled up a nice straight, solid stand to hold the substantial weight of Spike and mannequin combined, and voila – I was done. Boy, was I done.

The next week was one of intense labour as I started each day with my powerlifting training before coming straight in to college to work on the exhibition. Mannequins are definitely harder to deal with than humans when it comes to dressing. Their unnatural proportions are challenging when it comes to fitting leggings and bodysuits, and the broad torso of the male mannequin meant I had to stretch out Trophy’s wire hook to secure it. I tried to get as many bottom halves on first as possible! For Fenghuang, Matt had to modify the mannequin by fitting steel rods with the same size knob that slots into the armhole, so they could support the outstretched leather wings. Without Matt doing that, he wouldn’t have looked very good.

I did have to refer to my dressing instructions for a few of them, but remembered most ok. Having got mannequins in place I just had to dress them – I was very eager to see them done. A couple of pieces required a lot of steaming – Fimbria Figura and Fenghuang, who both contained a lot of silk organza. This certainly brought them right back to life. By Wednesday I was pretty done, and got Craig in to position the lights. Although designed as a gallery, the lighting system is um, unusual to say the least. We eventually worked out what colours to use for each quadrant of the space, and how to dim the fluoros to a nice backlight. (However, turns out that you can’t over-ride the automatic movement sensor in them, and when they go to sleep, they come back on at full intensity – goodbye mood lighting!)

I think on Thursday I placed all the signage I could, having finally finished placing all the QR Logos on each one, which when scanned takes you to the webpage with more information, sketches, process photos and videos on the work. These pages remain live on the website, now under Links. I also started to make some serious noises about getting the screens working for the videos and the Artist Statement. Funnily enough, not as easy as some people thought, which is why I always want to get the tech sorted ASAP! By Friday it was all done, and, desperately tired, I had time to go home and eat, and sit on the couch for half an hour before getting ready to return.

Helen had put on a wonderful spread of food and mocktails (sigh, a bubbles-free event) as a fundraiser for her area, the TAFE Foundation, which provides scholarships for students. There was a good amount of people there, including many of the TAFE teachers, and my friends - even a surprise appearance by high-school friend Jodie and daughter!

Janet and Peter arrived early for a studio tour and the application of false eyelashes before speechifying began, and we had to be summonsed to appear at the gallery. Janet’s speech was a wonderful way to provide some context to many people who don’t really know me or my work, and she was of course entertaining as ever. 

Photo above and those below by Charlene Z.

The nine-monitor screen playing videos of my work in performance on the World of WearableArt stage (and one from Wearable Art Mandurah) created a wonderful presence, and I am absolutely thrilled that the videos were provided. For the audience to see the work moving was a wonderful dynamic to the exhibition.

I spoke to as many people as I could – I think my family was probably the most ignored! Then it was home for a sit down and a well deserved drink!

Design Atelier Window

 The last few weeks at TAFE have been full-on, and I haven't had a moment to update things, so I am putting that to rights, starting with installing the Design Atelier display window. Probably about a metre wide and twelve long, it had to be filled from one end to the other. With a collection of work from my nuno felt wedding party, to Morphology exhibition works and even my wedding bouquet, it was a disparate collection, so I decided to create a colour wash. Beginning with the bright pinks and purples, I travelled to deep turquoise and green, through lavender-gold into botanicals. The palette then deepened and continued into dark purples and pinks with black, and silver and black. 

I was able to use the hanging track I had requested to use felted boas to physically link works and create another visual plane, as well as using various boxes at different heights as plinths, and the wall rails to hang background dyed fabrics. Overall I was pleased with it, especially once the screens with a cycling presentation of my work were working - they also added a bit of light into the somewhat dim space.

Moving into the studio itself, I quickly found my place, making a little nook against the wall near a GPO to plug in Betty Bernina, and placing a design wall behind me and in front of the washing machines. Luckily I was already working on several new pieces, so that guided me on what to bring in. It didn't take me long to fill one table then move to another - I could easily fill this whole place! My growing occupation ceased as my attention turned to the exhibition, and I began moving all the works into a storeroom behind the gallery, and repairing and ironing. All the works were in very good condition, with very little needing attention. 

Anthozoa needed a few stitches and her gold paint refreshed - she spent many years over in Perth being used as a promotional model for Wearable Arts Mandurah - although she looks quite delicate, she is on a solid base of upholstery fabric, so that probably helped. My first WOW piece, Beyond Chrysalis from 2008, returned on loan from Fashion Fantasia in Tasmania, and for a very delicate, wired work, she was amazingly intact. A few wire repairs and a good steam, and she was looking herself again.

Below is a video of the storeroom housing the work for the gallery - next time I'll fill you in on all the mannequin wrangling it took to create the space with 25 mannequins, all by myself....

Artist in Residence at the TAFE QLD Design Atelier

 After months of talks and legal wrangling, the deed has indeed been done, and signed this past Friday, in the Design Atelier which I am to call home for the next six months.

It was straight after gym, so I was not very glamorous for the occasion! Nor will I look any better this week as I lug in my boxes, baskets and bags of garments to create a display in the large window gallery opposite the studio - it's going to be a lot of hard work. 

Then there's the process of moving all my gear into the studio itself, with all the projects I am currently working on. I could easily fill the whole room myself, but there are supposed to be Alumni students coming in to use it as well.... so I will have to restrain myself.

After that, there's some more hard work as I bring in the 20+ wearable art works I will be exhibiting in the Gallery in just a few weeks - there will be more information on this shortly. It's a great big space which has so far only been used as a meeting facility - watch out folks - I'm taking over.

We had a play around last week and discovered that the fluoros can be dimmed right down and the spotlights can be coloured, so I think we'll be able to create something magical. When I say we, I mean Craig - my new best friend on campus. The go-to man with the ladders and the tools and the keys.

The mass exodus of work from home and studio also creates the opportunity for a giant, long overdue tidy up. Perhaps I will find the two felted hats that I found were missing today.

So it's very busy days here at StudioSvenja. Look out for my next post about the Wearable Art exhibition, and information about the workshops I will be offering from the Atelier during my residency. If you're super-keen, send me an email and I'll put you on my mailing list.

Ballarat Bunnehs 2022

 Finally! Three years after our last SvenJen adventure in Ballarat, with one attempt to go to Evocative Arts workshops in South Australia, one to return to Ballarat, and I think a year in the middle of just giving up, we returned to FibreArts Ballarat!

Not only a return - but to newly renovated digs - the squeals of delight as the Bunnehs found they had rooms with an adjoining bathroom would have been heard campus-wide. We dealt with the bathroom during the week by sliding the doors across and either saying 'Closed for Business' or 'Open for Business'!

It had been a pretty smooth journey down, the only glitch being myself (of course) requiring a shoes-off, full pat down after going through the scanner - no longer annoyed with metal and such, it is now disturbed if your clothing is asymmetrical. Just when I thought I had mastered it by wearing slippers and reduced jewellery! Once on board, the Bunnehs cracked us up with a golden version of the safety speech - see snippet below - even the crew appreciated it.

Settled into our digs, it was time for to drop our gear at the class and meet tutor Julie Ryder and fellow students. It was only a group of six, which ended up working really well, and we all got on - we were kind of disappointed there was no-one crazy for giggles! Many sads were had when we were informed that not only that there was no coffee van, but no massage therapist! Dinner and drinks was most welcome at the end of this long day as we celebrated the successful return to Ballarat.

The next morning we went for our usual lake walk, but being ultra-cautious of my damaged knee, we only did a section. This ended up being for the best, as it was the most striking morning of the week for sunrise sky photos, taken in the magical section called Fairyland. Perhaps swamp-land would be more accurate - to Jenelle's horror we saw a water-snake and several water-rats during the week.

We were happy to see our favourite bridge with 'No Dancing' sign (Well, that's our interpretation of it) and each year we like to get a photo Doing The Wrong Thing.

On return to the school we were sad to find there were no eggs, but I was then able to discover the joy of protein powder in porridge - most dericious!! It was an easy-paced start to the workshop, with no major braining required - good. It did not always stay this way. Later on it got quite mathematical, quite the challenge for the Art Bunneh, but not for the Accounting Bunneh! Quite a few of us owned up to being a bit slap-dash in our approach to dyeing - Julie countered this by teaching us the very correct way of doing it for even coverage. 

NB - I won't be going into much detail about the workshop itself, as I have just written an article about it for my regular Situation Svenja gig with TEXTILE Fibre Forum.

With tutor Julie Ryder

Amazingly, I got Jenelle to the tutor slideshow that night - I think there might have been one more during the week that she made?! Afterwards we chilled in the common room and she came up with a pretty fabulous idea for a workshop for me to teach....

By the end of Tuesday, Blonde Bunneh had decided that she no longer wanted to do the workshop - standard behaviour in the timeline of The Nine Stages of Jenelle. Unfortunately she made it all the way around this spectrum and back to here before the end of the workshop! I had kind of said that she would be able to make some beautiful pillowcases out of the samples, but it didn't quite work out that way. However on Tuesday, I just drowned her out with my lovely Wakachangi beers!

Quite Nice Beer indeed, with hilarious packaging

Wednesday brought a freezing walk around the lake, where we seriously questioned our sanity in doing so. It also required me to nudge Jenelle along in class to get some more groundwork done, or as I

Brrrr. Wearing all the warmz.

termed it, 'bunging another few out'! After chucking a serious sad at the giant sausage roll offered for lunch, it became the perfect opportunity to go and get our beloved kebab! It was our free afternoon so we wandered along to the op-shop but soon froze in the arctic blasts, so returned to the warmth of the common room.

Jenelle at work

On Thursday I flat-out refused to walk around the lake, so we slept in and only went as far as Macca's to get our coffees. After class, the slideshow was the 2023 tutor release which I stayed for whilst Jenelle trotted around the lake. I saw a few possibilities, but nothing that I super wanted to do. It was sparkles and fascinators night, so we put on our glitzy duds and sashayed into the dining hall. I don't have a good photo of the two of us - I wore my new necklace from the op-shop as a fascinator!

By now we also had a mini-Covid outbreak at the school, with some attendees opting to leave, and the rest of us having to go back to mask wearing. I madly dashed around to some classes to take photos of things I had seen and would would now not get the chance to see again at the end of the week exhibition of workshop samples - one being this beautiful bark-like piece created in metal in Alysn Midgelow Marsden's class.

Friday was another pretty chilled day as we finished our remaining samples then packed up. We set off to visit the botanic gardens but never made it as we discovered several more op-shops, where Jenelle had a field day, picking up some stunning bargains which she later modelled for us in the common room!

We thought that with the early departures that the final night dinner would be a pretty sad affair, but the Fibrearts Team made sure it was cheery with lovely table decorations and bottles of wine for all on the tables.

All in all it was a great week relaxing but learning, and many, many laughs. Bring on SvenJen 2023 - wherever it may be.