little red cap

A2 art and design:

I wrote an essay which I found really interesting on Margaret Kilgallen and the influences of folk art. I'm a massive fan of the art documentary beautiful losers and this was merely an extension of this, Margaret was so fearless and held so much motivation even in the latter part of her life, her premature death makes me cry everytime and even made me well up whilst studying her work. Folk art is so interesting especially how global it is as an artform. I was engulfed by the poem- Little Red Cap by Carol Ann Duffy which led me to study Eric Carle, collaging and childrens books. Like Kilgallen, I encorperated found objects and parts of my room, scanning and manipulating. Little Red Cap looks at the traditional folk tale but subverts it, the female is not prey but striking, manipulative and more of a modern femme fatale character than a passive female role model. Duffy subverted her language where as I subverted the traditional sterotypes of textiles, which, would traditionally be work for 'women'. Using knitting, something that still seen as being feminine and using it in an untraditional setting subverts its meaning also. I helped at a craft club knit-a-thon at the local picturehouse cinema and I will always remember the grandmother and grandaughter I met. The grandaughter looked at  the man in the fronts long knitting and said "why is that man knitting? men aren't allowed to knit!" and her grandmother turned to her and said "knitting is not gender specific, anyone can enjoy it as with everything" that might not of meant anything to the young girl, she didnt think twice before aspiring to knit longer than the mans, but it will have taught her something very important.
(anyway) these are my outcomes-

initial planning:

image of development for portfolio

sketchbook manipulation

sketchbook manipulation

early days

i painted lots of tissue paper which make up each individually cut brick for every house you see above. All the textures, so the sheds, the caravan the foliage ect was individually cut and manipulated into shape from loads of film photographs I took. It took hours but it was so worth it to see it finished.

Final Product; in the form of a concertina book, I wanted the whole book to represent one journey that the protagonist takes through the forest and out the other side. The idea originally was that the first and last stanze (ish) would be represented by the cover image. In the poem she walks into the forest and at the end she leaves the forest, but constructing a concertina well was difficult without a GOOD printer and professional printing. I want to invest/pitch the final image to some companies because I am really proud of it, probably one of my favourite things i've made to date.

you can read the poem here