Mint and Chocolate

My new year's resolution was to be more creative and complete more personal projects over the up coming year, this is a project Jake and I both worked on just before uni started so I never quite had the time to compile all the photos and write about it. But I digress, When we moved into our new flat we did a lot of second hand shopping for furniture and we picked up this little gem of a dresser for about $60, it was all scratched with paint wearing and it was the perfect little fixer upper for us. 

Both of us enjoy mint chocolate ice-cream, biscuits, candy etc etc, also the combination of colours is just so perfect and so before we stated sanding and dismantling the dressing table we decided on the perfect colour combo.

Fixing it up took about two weeks because we had to do it outside we had to wait for sunny days, we started with sanding all the paint off by hand and going through four rolls of sand paper. before buying paint and choosing how we would paint the drawers (we decided on mint drawers and a chocolate table. 

The dresser came with gorgeous little handles that had been painted white in places so we just changed the white to mint and hopefully with time the paint will wear and have a cool vintage-y vibe.

Because it was an old set of drawers and I scrubbed the insides with all sorts of house-y chemicals to rid them of whatever bacteria may have been lurking we brought some delicious vanilla flavored draw inserts so now our clothes always smell super yummy.

We're trying to create a vibe in our house that represents us and as we're students this vibe has to be portable and possible to move to another flat when we eventually move and being in a flatting situation and students it is impossible for us to make dramatic, expensive changes. I think that the drawers are a good start as they feel like us, possibly helped by the amount of work that we put into them. What do you think? Do you like our ice-cream colour scheme? (oooh that rhymed!)

Lot's of Love

Audrey Megan

New York, I miss you.... (Part 2)

So I love, love, love where art is going but I also love where it's been, and for this there's MoMA, The Met and the Guggenheim. One of my all time favorite art movement's is Futurism, and MoMA has quite a nice collection of Futurist pieces, one of which I was quite excited to see; Umberto Boccioni's 'Unique Forms of Continuity in Space', 1913. I'm not going to pretend that I know absolutely everything about this piece but it is such a beautiful work and I can never figure out how such beautiful flowing and smooth shapes can be created out of a metal and manipulated. I think I also prefer not to know as it adds a certain mystique to the sculpture for me.

Now although I have just gushed over futurism but for me the only piece of work that can move me beyond anything is Monet's "Bridge Over a Pool of Water Lilies". The Met has one from his extensive series on display and quite honestly I think I stood there for about fifteen minuets just looking in wonder at his dream-like perfection of the scene. Of course he had a lot of practice with this scene before but the power of the work is quite astonishing when your actually standing in the grand rooms of The Met in front of it. This painting was definitely a highlight of the New York trip for me.

Ahhh the Guggenheim! My favorite piece here is actually the building it's self designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is a continuous gentle spiral going upwards with small rooms off to the side as you go up that display the art, as walk around/ up you can see right down into the entrance hall and up the glass roof/ window at the very top. While we were visiting they had hanging in the void a collection of works or one whole work, I'm not too sure of Maurizio Cattelan hanging from the celling and the higher you got the more you saw as there was ton's of stuff all hanging at different heights. The Guggenheim is possibly the absolute perfect size as you don't get too exposed to too much stuff you can easily do it in 3 hours while The Met was just far too big to do in a day and you begin to become numb to it all after 4 hours of walking around, as much as I enjoyed it.

Also while we in New York we were fortunate enough to be able to visit the studio's of great artist's, one who stands out clearly to me is Nina Katchadourian who does fantastic photography and at the moment all of it is taken on her IPhone while she is on a plane the concept behind the work is pretty cool. It all about being constructive while your travelling instead of wishing it could all just be over. She uses the materials around her to create her costume and set's so quite a lot of it is toilet seat covers and plastic cups. She also uses images from magazines and mixes them with other material's to create new pictures. You can check out her work here.

Oh you can see pictures from our trip on Jake's Flickr.

Lot's  of Love

                         Audrey Megan

New York, I miss you.... (Part 1)

View from the Empire State

So as mentioned way, way back Jake and I were lucky enough to go to New York for a study trip that lasted around 19 days. The city is simply stunning and I feel like we definitely left far too soon. Because it was majority an Art's trip we spent ALOT of time visiting museums and artist's, amongst the list of many that we visited I think that the art museums that had the biggest impact on me were, PS1, The Met and The Guggenheim. 

If you haven’t heard of PS1 it's part of MoMA, which we also visited however I found the work at PS1 much more interesting as the artist's are less well known than those at MoMA. Also the work I found was generally more interesting. This is not to say that I dislike MoMA because they had some very good futurist pieces there. However that's beside the point. At PS1 the work is very diverse, socially challenging and epic. Diverse obviously as there were many different medium's and style's used, socially challenging as one artist's work who I will go on to talk about confronted the viewer with explicit sexual references and talked about male dominance. And epic, now don't take that as how the word is usually used i.e.: "last night was epic!" but actually so astounding as the work took over your senses and surrounded you, transporting you to somewhere else, this refers to an installation piece.

Socially challenging: Clifford Owens

Clifford Owens spent his summer at PS1 working with video, photography and lives performance. When we got to PS1 his live performance pieces has stopped as it was November but they had video's of his performance's playing. In his work he played a lot with our idea's surrounding sex in one prominent piece I remember him using his hand's on vegetables, especially a halved artichoke as if it was a girl's clitoris as well as using a egg plant as a ghetto flesh light. Another one of his performance pieces that sticks out to me was one where he had a room lined with people and would slowly chose a person (male or female) and then go up to them and decide to kiss them or not. The experience of being in that room must have been bizarre the awkwardness of being both chosen and not would have been crazy. 

Epic: Janet Cardiff

I've heard that sometimes art can be so beautiful you cry, and until this trip I had no idea what it really meant, I mean who cry's for beauty? This trip took me to two pieces where I found exactly how true this statement can be. Ok I didn’t actually cry but I definitely got teary. One of these mentioned pieces is by Janet Cardiff and her sound installation 'Forty Part Montet'. The installation is in a huge, more hall, than room space in PS1 and features a huge circle of free standing speaker's all facing in, two benches sit in the middle and you can chose to sit on these to listen to what can only be described as epic. The sound that emits is 40 human voices all singing in close harmony, the piece is "Spem in Alium" a Latin Renaissance motet composed by Thomas Tallis. Composed in 1573 it was to be sung by 40 people split into five groups of eight arranged into a horseshoe across the floor and balconies in a cathedral so that the music bounced off the walls and windows, undulating around the worshipper's below. It has been thought to have been written for Queen Elizabeth's birthday and WOW it would have been the most amazing birthday present ever. Jake and I were very lucky arriving at PS1 on a very empty day and had the whole hall to ourselves when we got this piece we just sat in the middle, shut our eyes and let the music wash over us. It was the most amazing sound, it reaches every part of you and I felt like I was up in the clouds, angel's and all the experience is un-writeable you really have to experience it yourself. 

And now I've got a load of washing and cleaning to finish grrrrr! So wait for Part 2, perhaps tomorrow.

Lot's of Love

                    Audrey Megan

Lace Knickers Zine

So with uni officially finished I now how four month's in which to work, sleep and..... do nothing.  

GREAT!? 

No, no not really not at all, it's third day in and all ready I’m biting at the bit. Yesterday we went down to the public library that has quite a large (in my opinion) Zine collection. I have noticed these before and had a brief flick though but I've never taken much notice until now. I've found that I'm one of those people that hate's not having anything to do, I feel fat, lazy and ignorant when I sit about browsing the web for the millionth time. Not that I don't love it, but ooooh I get frustrated sitting down with no aim. So I have decided to create my own Zine, there's a chance it won't follow the traditional format with lots of hand-rendered content because I love the crisp, clean feel of a magazine. But it will be a random assortment of photo's, art, fashion, stories, love and what ever else pour's out of my head and onto the screen/ page.

I've done a few draft pages’ pages already and due to printing costs the whole lot will be black and white. I'm thinking standard envelope size so longish and not very wide. But I'll have it all worked out soon enough. I hope to have the Zine finished by the time I leave for New York, that way I can scatter a few around when I get there, and a few around Wellington and in all the in-between place's. I'm so excited now, that I can hardly wait. 

The Zine will be called Lace Knickers, because in a way it'll be an extension of my blog, and who knows if there's enough interest I might make it a quarterly affair, but I must calm down and stay on track. Here's a few picture's of my draft page's. But they'll most likely change with time.

Anyway, lots to do!

Lots of Love

                    Audrey Megan

Time for tea

The last week of university is finally here and so this weekend it's been go, go, go with homework. God, I am so happy that I study art rather than science because the homework is so less tedious, for me anyway. So this weekend Jake and I shot the final series for my Art and Design with the modeling help of my friend Ellie. The shoot was done in our makeshift studio, i.e. A1 paper taped together and it worked better than you'd think. The whole series is loosely commenting on vegetarianism and the over sexualizing of female's. Give it a look and tell me what you think.

Lot's of Love

          Audrey Megan

A Bloody Narrative

View photo's on my Flickr.

For my Art and Design paper we have to create a "Narrative of Self", However taking a leaf out of Coco's (Chanel) book I have decided to create my my own narrative and so in some weird twist of thought, as a devoted vegetarian I have chosen blood, intestines and cannibalism. 

Bizarre...

Lots of Love

                      Audrey Megan

Ps. It's a mixture of candy floss and water

Clouds of Marshmallows

I love freebies, and so when I saw that the French Art Shop had a colouring competition, being 19 years of age, but a three year old at heart I couldn't resist! Especially when I saw the prizes! For first prize they had a complete set of veeeery expensive felt pens, that many people use in fashion design and for second prize a huge wooden box of deluxe pencils!  

Now before I go on any further and you think, "You weirdo! Trying to get one over all the kids!” Let me just explain the majority of the French Art shop's clientele are university design students and the prizes are not what you'd give to an eight year old.  

I chose the one with the most to colour in and without a race car/spaceship, and used watercolour pencils to blend, (I really want those pens!). I think that the acid trip/children's fantasy world is kind of cute, what do you think?

The sea is bubbling lava and the sky is radioactive! But the clouds are made out of marshmallows! Yum :)


Anyway the staff were really happy when I went in to hand in my entry, I don't think they got too many as most people thought it was for children. So finger's crossed!


Lots of Love
         Audrey Megan 

Dirt and Dresses

For my latest paper in Art and Design at uni we have been charged with a space that is now relatively forgotten and we have to find ways in which to interact with the space and to record the passing of time within it. I've thankfully managed to get graffiti alley which is in central Wellington and therefore it only takes me about ten minutes to get there. However, due to the fact New Zealand is hosting the rugby world cup this year. Both the council and the government have decided to "cleanup the streets," understandable? Sure, when it's taking all the empty chip packets off the sidewalk. But, alas they have decided to do away with any public self-expression! The history of graffiti alley isn't ancient, but it is a valued site by tourists, residents, artists, drunks and teenagers. A solid representation of expression, identity, perhaps anarchy, although beautiful nonetheless.  

From the old Left Bank blog.

See here.

I Have been assigned this space just at this seemingly inconvenient time, despite this I have found that I am now more able than I perhaps was before to make a statement with my project. My idea is to capture this restriction of self-expression by using fashion, as I am majoring in fashion. My piece, which has just hit it's mock up stage uses a dress to represent the alley starting out clean, neat and tidy but slowly getting covered with dirt and paint. (My gorgeous friend Keber gets to model and have paint thrown at her!) Before getting covered up and chained.  

When I came up with these ideas, I wasn't particularly thinking about what I was doing, and then my teacher asked why I had chosen performance design and yadda, yadda, yadda. Before I was informed of my apparent decision I don't think that I'd ever really heard of performance design before. But since then I have done some research into it, and I have found something that I can really appreciate, maybe that's why I love fashion so much, because wearing the clothes and showing the clothes is a performance in itself, that can be both beautiful while making a statement about social issues or historic events.  

A couple of performance pieces I really like I have posted below this first is a piece by Yoko Ono in 1965 where she sat on the stage and asked for the audience to come up and cut at her clothes. I find this to be very beautiful and a strong feminist statement at the same time. When Ono preformed this it was done in silence but some douche has overlaid music. However I fully recommend that you watch it.

The other piece of performance design that I want to share with you is actually done by my fashion lecturer Catherine Bagnall. She wears huge, bulky old-fashioned wedding dresses and ball gowns tramping / hiking and records how the weather and conditions affect the fabric and how the huge mass of fabric effects her journey. You can find a really good article on it at Fashionprojects.org and lots more photos of her work there as well.

 

(Source)

Well thats all for tonight, it's 12.15am over here and I've got to get up for art and design tomorrow morning, wish me luck!

Lots of Love

               Audrey Megan

Curvy, a book of delectables...

Way back in February when I first moved down to Wellington to attend University I was at Gordon Harris Art Supplies picking an amount of stationary that required both myself and two strapping young lads to carry home, but I guess that’s what you get for studying fashion. Anyway while I was there I spotted the new Curvy anthology, Curvy 7. Published by yen magazine it catalogues up and coming female artists who work in a range of mediums and wow! Is, some of the stuff amazing. However after spending the hugest amount I've ever spent on stationary I was in no position to spend any more money, no matter how great the book. 

(source)

So I had a flick through and needless to say I was impressed by what I saw, and so I had always planned on eventually going back to Gordon Harris and purchasing the book for myself. However I very recently joined the Wellington library and being me I've already managed to issue far too many books to read in one month. But, the one I have looked at/read first and reread is of course Curvy! I was so excited to find that had it there, and it has opened my eyes up to a range of, painters, illustrators, photographers , etc., that I never knew existed before. The only problem that I've found is that I have to give it back, and pouring over the books contents multiple times has only spurred me on to actually make the purchase. Although god knows when that will be! Ahhh the life of a poor student...

I thought that before I left you I'd share a few of my favorite pieces and artists that I found within this book.

Angela Boatwright

 Melissa Haslam

Courtney Brims

Well thats all for now, time to enjoy the weekend!

Lots of Love

       Audrey Megan