Next weaving project

On a much more lighthearted note…I’ve started planning my next weaving project. This will be another look at bipolar disorder, but a more humorous one. It’s based on this sketchbook entry from March:

The working title is “I’m Fine. How are you?”, and of course it’s all about trying to look normal when you’re really falling apart inside. On the other hand, the way it’s sketched and the title have a good deal of humor in them (we’ve all had days like that), so it’s not nearly as dark as “Bipolar Prison”.

It does, however, pose quite a few design challenges, not least of which is that I want to make the face three-dimensional. My plan is to weave two layers – one red/blue and one skin-colored – and cut away part of the skin-colored layer to reveal the colored chaos underneath. I’d really like to glue the “skin” over a papier mache mask, then cut away parts of the mask – that would give me parts of a three-dimensional face, which I think would be really cool (and fun to explore).

Just to make things more complicated, I’d also like to have some crinkling in the colored layer beneath the face, but not elsewhere. This means doing some complex and fairly technical stuff to get just one section to collapse – which I think is going to be interesting. (And require lots of samples.) It will be a fun technical as well as artistic exploration. And it will be good to see what Amazing Grace can do, when sufficiently challenged. She’s one heck of a loom. 🙂