six months on

hi guys

I was going to post more or less constantly about the trials and tribs of doing Warp and Weft stuff, but then I got caught up in actually doing it, and then I had a bit of a blip mental-health wise, and then it was Christmas and now it's now and I've actually more or less finished all 8 masks. There is more info about the project on our blog.

I don't want to give too much away but here are some secretive photies.

looking good, although not really in these pictures because my camera isn't working all that well any more.

So that's exciting. Here's the flyer for the show, in case you haven't seen it 5,000 other times on twitter and wherever.

do feel free to pass it around. We would really love you to come along and see all the masks in situ. It will mean a lot to us and it will blow your fucking mind.

I thought here I would say some stuff about the inspiration for the masks, crafts-wise. I had a murky idea about how I wanted them to look, and I have to say I've been heavily influenced by Jo Hamilton's crazily accurate crocheted portraits:

If you look on her website there are some mannequin masks which are a bit like my crochet ladymasks, which I hadn't seen before I started the project honest guv. Anyway she's a super talented needlewoman and I praise her highly. skill.

what else. this is Blanka Amezkua. She makes embroideries based on the way women are depicted in comic books, they're pretty cool. Embroidery not crochet, but what the hey, we're all craftswomen aren't we?

I'm also well into yarnbombing, if it's done creatively (none of this wet-scarf-round-a-lamppost eyesore-osity). I live on knithacker (they featured us last year! and my Ron Swanson monster a bit earlier which resulted in a possible meeting with the man himself) and there's loads of amazing cool ideas for getting knitting/crochet into the public realm.

finally I am in super love with Olek. You'll have seen pictures of her work on craft blogs and the internet generally: she makes crochet fabric in bright coloured camouflage patterns and uses it to yarnbomb tanks, bikes, people. She's a total dude and she dresses like she's crocheted herself every morning. Once she crocheted an entire flat, including all the people in it, and covered the walls with crocheted drunken sexts.

my favourite thing she ever did though, is this amazing installation 'The End is Far'. It's pink and glittery and the walls are covered in fussy, girly scrawled affirmations. There's CROCHETED GOLD SKELETONS in this piece. 

That'll do for now, not least because I can't think of anything else to say at the moment. Please come to the show if you can! and tweet about it and make me and Jenny famous! I want to do another post soon about the Art Party conference but realistically I will probably do it in June

xx

warp and weft and masks and women

Hi guys

this is a new thing about a new project i'm doing with my mate Jenny, it is to do with feminism, yay! The town hall is full of statues and busts that look like this

and are big ol whiskery men. The thing is, as Jenny found out, in the golden olden days people who could afford to get statues done of themselves did - and there aren't ANY women in the Sculpture Hall, surprise!

Sooo we're doing a little proj whereby we celebrate notable Manc women throughout history, by temporarily covering up the men's faces and hiding them, behind massive badass crochet womanface masks. I'm doing the crocheting and Jen's boning up on her history and learning about some seriously astonishing women doing their bits for a better world. The official blog and info about our women etc, is at wearewarpandweft.wordpress.com but I'm going to post here now and again, so I can talk about my feelings and complain and swear and things.

Right so first off can I just say it is EXTREMELY difficult to make a mask which a) looks like a person's face, b) looks like an actual, real, specific person's face, c) fits over the completely different face of a manstatue with a stupid massive nose (and in one case a stupid massive BEARD) and d) isn't completely dreadful in every possible way. I'm not going to lie to you, it's very hard. At the moment I've given up on a) and b) and am focussing on c), after which I will attempt to do features and whatnot.

As for d) well time will tell won't it!

Here's some photos of eyes I have done so far.

this is Elizabeth Gaskell

this is Sylvia Pankhurst

this is Sunny Lowry (she looks angry)

I'm having most trouble with noses so that's why I've stopped at the 'masquerade ball' stage here. It's going okay now, I've got a few wonky noses sorted out. 

Another thing which is bothersome, is that I don't really have terribly great photos to work from, so I'm sort of guessing what they look like anyway. It's pretty hard and my motivation keeps wandering off and falling down the nearest drain. I am enjoying the process though, it's fun to try new things even when they are impossible. 

Some half-finished masks will be in PS Mirabel's Artifice exhibition curated by Aziza Mills at the end of August, so keep an eye out for that.

Ohh I'm sure it'll be fine. Join me next week for more worries and general chitchat!

xxxxxxxx