Assignment Week 3: Materiality Machine Sewing

Preliminary research

General Sense

Soft sculpture is a unique art form that blurs the lines between traditional sculpture and textiles, using soft and pliable materials to create three-dimensional artworks. It gained prominence in the 1960s and has since evolved into a diverse and expressive medium.

Historical Context: Soft sculpture emerged as a response to the rigidity of traditional sculpture materials like stone and metal. Artists sought to challenge traditional notions of art by using softer, more malleable materials.

Materials and Techniques: Soft sculpture artists often work with materials such as fabric, textiles, foam, rubber, and even found objects. These materials are manipulated, sewn, stuffed, or combined to create sculptural forms. Techniques like sewing, knitting, crocheting, and molding are commonly used.

Notable Artists: Natsuko Hattori is an artist using fabric to create sculptures. ​ Fabric is her medium of choice because people everywhere can relate more easily to this material, which conveys warmth, natural softness and the intimate human touch. The act of wrapping is essential to her sculptures. Her artwork begins with choosing and cutting fabric to make cotton filled balls. These vibrant, sometimes flamboyant colored balls are bounded together to make each masterpiece unique and extraordinary. Each ball represents the inner state of Mankind. The gesture of wrapping around each round ball, is an act of transformation that converts pain, sadness and despair into positive energy such as love or a prayer for comfort. She hopes her work conveys a sense of happiness and celebrates the human spirit.  

Impact and Influence: Soft sculpture has had a significant impact on the art world by challenging conventional norms. It has influenced various art movements, including Pop Art and feminist art, and continues to inspire contemporary artists working across diverse media.

Challenges and Preservation: Preserving soft sculptures can be challenging due to the organic nature of the materials used. Museums and conservators continually work on developing techniques for the long-term preservation of these artworks.

My experience working with soft materials (2022 Fall)

The form of my avatar aimed at being expressive of the five keywords: Sensitive, creative, introvert, logical, and curiosity. I went bold with my design to make it funny and abstract; while gathering stretchy knit fabrics that allow the fillers to make it bouncy and puffy. My design is based on the shape of the stomach, our digesting system. I am sensitive to the way other people perceive me and always overthink. Hence, I use the stomach shape to symbolise how I spend time “digesting” the outside pieces of information. Whereas the eye shape on the stomach indicate my sensitivity and curiosity towards the outside world. It shows how I am always looking and observing.

Why would I make this doll? (concept)

Global warming and the resulting climate change have had profound effects on the Arctic ecosystem, with significant consequences for polar bears. One of the most significant impacts of global warming on polar bears is the rapid loss of their sea ice habitat. Rising temperatures lead to reduced sea ice extent and thickness, shortening the time polar bears have access to their primary hunting grounds. The loss of sea ice means that polar bears have fewer opportunities to hunt seals, which are vital for their survival. This can result in malnutrition and even starvation among polar bear populations, particularly cubs and lactating females.

Human waste in the Arctic, including plastic pollution and contaminants like persistent organic pollutants (POPs), can enter the food chain and accumulate in the tissues of seals, polar bears, and other Arctic wildlife. These pollutants can have adverse effects on polar bear health and reproduction. Thus, my character is a polar bear with ‘fever,’ aiming to satirize the rising temperatures in polar bear’s habitat. I also designed its right hand tangled with strands, implying that human waste is preventing these animals from escaping and finding a better place to survive.”

Sketches

Progress Documentation

Prototypes and machine test: I redraw the patterns at least 6 times to achieve the perfect dimension. However, the fabric skunk enormously when turning the whole piece around, it is so time consuming that i even felt angry at on e moment. unfortunately I did not took a picture of the failed prototypes, I would certainly take some documentation before I feel too bad and throw them away. I did not forget to text the machine with a piece of unwanted fabric, just to ensure the machine is operating in a safe manner with desirable effects.

I enjoyed the process mostly, but parts of it were challenging. The sewing experiences from the last project made me more familiar and confident with sewing. After making the prototypes in muslin, I started by cutting out patterns from my knit fabrics and connecting them with the plain stitch machine. The most challenging part was sewing all the components inside the body and flipping them inside out, because I have many circular shapes and curvy edges, it was extra hard with the overlocking machine. Hence, I started with it and changed back to plain stitch as I processing. I left the opening too small, so I had to open it up again. When I finally flipped my avatar around, another difficulty was closing it up. I try to topstitch the edge at first. but it turns out looking unfinished. Hence, I decided to hand-sew using the invisible stitch taught in class, which worked a lot better than I expected.

Conceptualization: I started by envisioning the shape, size, and overall design of my sculpture. “Portraits” is the theme I decided to go with, and the ideal outcome is either an abstract or surrealistic representation of myself.