Construction in progress

Helen's steel frame

With the white card presentation and final design schemes chosen, construction well and truly begun on 9^th February. Now a couple of weeks down the line things are certainly coming together.
Helen has successfully drawn up all the patterns for her costume. She has constructed the main steel frame and the panniers to be attached that achieve the typical 18th century dress shape. She is now currently experimenting with manipulating her chosen transparent material, organza, that she will use to fabricate the bodice and the dress. 

Emily's Steel and chicken wire
frame, the silhouette of a house keeper. 

Emily has built a steel and chicken wire structure to support and provide a base for her paper based sculpture. The shape of the frame is suggestive silhouette of a former house keeper. For Emily's design it is important the silhouette is clear to the visitors so the concept can be easily understood. This is why she decided to build a main structure which she can then dress with paper notes to achieve the final design outcome. Emily is now currently experimenting and researching various papers, handwriting, vocabulary and spelling of the 18th century which will help her to represent Sir Henry Harpur Crewe's personality creating as close to an authentic finish as possible.  

Ruth's wooden doll's house structure

Ruth's progress is going well. She has created the base structure for her dolls house including doors and lighting spot at the back. The architecture on the outside is coming along to. She is including details from the North front of Calke with the columns and windows. Once this is done, Ruth will Paper Mache the inside and out with newspaper which she sourced from a scrap store. The six scene inside the house will be created next week once the doll house is finished. Other details like the luggage tags and paper soldiers still need to be created. Ruth has sourced several suitcases from Lakeside Arts Centre who have kindly lent her them for the final exhibition at Calke. These will be piled up representing the evacuees at the house during the Second World War. 

Emma's felted hare body

Whilst doing some artist research, Emma came across the technique of needle felting through the works of Zoe Williams. Emma felt inspired to learn the art of needle felting through the artist’s beautiful and unusual felted animals. Although time consuming Emma’s animals are starting to take shape with a lovely child’s toy like take on a rabbit as pictured to the left. Emma is pleased with her progress so far and is hoping to create 2 or 3 animals to exhibit in amongst Calke Abbey’s collection of Taxidermy. Whilst continuing to complete the animals she will also begin to think about the cases in which they will be displayed and how the works will be labelled.

Jayne's cardboard doll's
house

A children's room divider, a ride-along-horse, a dolls house; just a few of the items I have constructed over the last couple of weeks for my wallpaper inspired installation. I am now faced with the challenge of replicating the various wallpaper patterns which I will either stencil directly onto the objects or hand print/paint onto paper which can then be used to cover the items. I intend to experiment with laser cutting, screen printing and ink transfers in order to find an appropriate way of replicating the wall coverings within the limited amount of time we have left.

Chloe's hand painted paper leaves

Chloe has built a free standing wooden structure that can be placed on a window sill of the principle stairs . She is now currently intricately painting paper leaves, experimenting with papers and painting techniques that she will use to create paper leaves and vines on mass. 
These very brief descriptions of each piece shows we are all progressing well through the construction of our final installations. The next ongoing challenge is to think about the exhibition as a whole and start planning the material that will support and explain the exhibition to the future visitors of Calke Abbey.

Jayne