In previous weeks, we were working on our second bridge project, which was a peer to peer gift, in studio class. Each of us was assigned to our own partner and had to design something personal that our partner is the only user to have in mind. We also had to choose a favorite art piece from our visit to the Museum of Modern Art in order to connect with our designs.
After having interview and conversations with Grace, I decided to produce a creative dreamcatcher for her because she told me that she was afraid of ghost and sometimes had nightmares about terrible things while she was sleeping. In this case, I did some researches about the meaning and the uses of a dreamcatcher. Dreamcatcher was originally created by Native Americans and regarded as a symbol of protection. In some Native American cultures, a dreamcatcher was handmade hoop with a woven net in the middle and included certain feathers or beads. Most Native Americans believed a dreamcatcher would allow good dreams to pass through the web and enter into individuals’ dreams by those feathers or fabric, and prevented nightmares. I thought a dreamcatcher was something powerful that it could give people positive energy to live a wonderful life. It was a great gift for Grace to give her the best luck and deflect those bad dreams away.
Due to the respect for Native American Culture, I used typical materials from traditional dreamcatchers, such as feathers, threads, fabrics, beads, and leather. Then I combined them with some abstract colors and shapes from the art piece Grace chose at the MoMA, which was named Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and produced by Pablo Picasso. I planned to make three small dreamcatchers in different colors and combine them together in order to tie to Grace’s favorite piece. At first, I made three hoops and they were wrapped in white, red, and blue wools on the frame of each of them, because it was a common material for people to use to strength the good spirit. Then, I utilized a great number of types of fabrics and feathers, which were in the similar abstract colors to the piece, hanging on the hoop to follow the traditional making process of a dreamcatcher. Because different colors on the dreamcatcher represented different meanings, the combination of these three dreamcatchers might lead people to have a pleasant and dreamful life.
