Clothing Prints
Reflection
After much thought about how to capture a persons essence, I discovered an Artist named Betty Goodwin, who produced prints from the clothing of her loved ones once they had passed away. I liked the concept of using an individuals belongings and physically using them to create prints. However I thought it would tie better into the concerns of my work to use clothing from unknown sources so that I could re-write the narrative created by them. To illustrate this point further, imagine if you took a sweater belong to a loved one, you might see them in this piece of clothing often and therefore the experiences you see them have whilst wearing it would become encased within this item. If they went out to the park one day and snagged the sleeve of the garment on a branch, you would be reminded of that event instantly on every further encounter with the garment. With a sweater taken from a unknown source your mind is invited to invent scenarios in which any damage of the garment would have occurred, as well as acting as a window into the owners taste, and life style. When printing with these items I felt like I was burying them and infusing their essence into the print. These ghostly forms are unsettling as they hang as though they are being worn. The imperfections in the printing plate add a sense of character to the work that is evocative of human nature as a whole. When choosing what items to print I tried to use fabrics that I knew would take the ink well, I found this process a bit of a learning curve as some of the fabrics I originally thought would be interesting to print, didn't leave as clear of an imprint as I was expecting to. Finally I found that cotton was the best material for printing, as it is stronger and more porous then some of the other synthetic material I experimented with.
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