The Swan Bandwagon

 

Finally found these photos in a dusty corner of my hard-drive.

A paper wedding dress I made for Kate's Paperie in New York.

 I was working right up to the button and unfortunately my photos were not very good 

and neither were theirs! 

These are the best of them.

Let me know if you want one for your wedding.

pros : unique, can get big volume without using too much paper, so you can look like my big fat gypsy wedding for less, you can snip it up afterwards and write your thank you letters on it.

cons: flammable, kind of awkward to sit down, people might tear off bits to write eachothers phone numbers on, you know what cattle markets weddings can be.

The back of the Bolero

The Dress and Close-up of the Train

Mardi Gras! The most evident utensil

 

7 oclock Mardi Gras morning after getting to sleep at 5.30 am. My god adrenaline is an amazing thing. Thank god being as pale as a ghost only enforced the concept of my costume.

 

Photo - Caitlin Hansen

Can you guess what I am? Neither could anyone else! The thing is, I was so convinced of the clarity of this costume and now when I look at this picture I wonder what I was actually thinking, why I had such clear confidence that I was almost an exact replica. I can see that I could make some minor improvements and it will be much clearer, longer wig, gold bit and pink bit actually part of the dress.... Next time.

So I did make it and cut my own pattern for it and it is doublesided and turns into a kind of multi-from avant guarde evening gown on the other side. I am proud of these things. 

So I will give you some clues: 

First clue - it was inspired by this song, the brainwave hit me like a lightening bolt in the head. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lWYBzpPZBA

Second clue - you can't actually see it, and I shall take a picture and ammend this post, but my cape is in the style of a piece of lined paper.

Third clue - the people seemed to really like my dance when I wrote their names with my hat and my other dance specifically entitled the 'Rubbing man'.

Yep you guessed it.

 

 And another costume made from the wallpaper of Dominic Crinson. We are propellor boy, jelly fish and cabin boy respectively, all dolled up for the Maritime Ball at the Spellcaster Lodge. It felt great, though I needed to take an assistant to the loo and some rather rough looking gaffa tape repairs were made through the evening, since I was completley unable to control my dance moves when the 'Thee Oh See's' began to play.

 Photo - Caitlin Hansen

Photo - Caitlin Hansen                              

Destruction Inspires Creation

Was thinking of renting out some desk space....anyone? ;-)

Harmonious soundwaves from the loophole of infinity. 

Visual onomatpoeia, you know looks like the sound it would make.

 Coming out of their shell

We are all born in a barn

Retired lightening bolts of passion

Crystals and coffee cups

 

unintentional sculpture

I know, I know, what I am about to tell you is bad. I have been so hooked on this book, 'Fountainhead'. I found myself reading it at the oddest hours, living the sleep of having a new born baby, though maybe i was the baby, being fed by the rich plateau of conversation it created, the thoughts it provoked, the anger and debates it created, the nodding understanding of being on the same page. So I was reading it in the bath at four in the morning....and I woke up at 6 in a cold bath with my book floating in the waves.

and when it came out it looked like this and i cursed that the best sculpture i ever made was so unintentional. This is exactly how I feel about the content of the book, well actually it isn't how \i feel this is the content of the book, it became more of itself than it could be.

New Drawings

Tableauscape

Lucy in the Skyscape

Dreamscape

Sleepscape

I have been doing some drawing recently, multi layered drawings that develop slowly after much rearranging, a collage of lots of drawings from past, present and a created future, creating and unearthing at the same time. It is quite difficult for me to believe that a drawing is the end result, so used to things going from drawing into the sewing phase, but since this process mimics the layered net embroidery I did over the summer, I feel as though these are informed from some new dimmension and that these are the product of a much longer journey, not the first time that my drawing have been influenced by sewing. I am curious to hear your thoughts.

Converting Converse

Dear People,

I embroidered these for a darling of mine. It was based on some wonderful shared experiences. It was such an interesting canvas to work on and I want to do it again and again. So here's the deal. I can do yours, or a gift for a loved one, you tell me what special secrets you want to unfold over them, or of course you can let me surprise you. You either give me a pair you already have, or you order a pair and have them sent to my address.

The standard price is £200 for the sewing, any post and packaging costs will be added on top of that.
if you have a simple idea or want real rubies on them, I will adjust the price accordingly.

If you are interested email me at louise.riley@gmail.com we can discuss, maybe even have a skype over a cup of tea regarding designs.

xx Louise