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Friday, December 13, 2013

The world of corsets



I had to title this in 80 characters. I think that would be too long a title to be effective and my mind changed the character limit to word limit.

A simple corset made ornate with its pattern of black flowers on royal purple silk polyester. A faux purple lace through casing runs along the top of the corset and down. The lace stitch in the front invokes the behind the scene connections of the eyelets and the black ribbon that holds up the corset. The channels of acrylic bones with a vertical flow enhance the wasp waist appearance. Find your waistline without a tug-of-war.

While working on this, I realised that faux bones are needed to make corsets. 

A good book on the history of corsets.

Posters

 For an assignment I had to describe a Cuban poster and many others like these around.
A Cuban Naïve art piece with the starting point of any villa in the country. A cathedral with its four side openings of radial top door shape, ascending in size as you go down from the top. Iglesia de Nuestra senora de la soledad in CamagueyCuba. Vivid colours of hibiscus along with banana plants and palm trees lend a paradisical island touch balancing the somber blue skies in the background.

At first I just looked at them as paintings. Down the line I realised they were Posters. For the little that is there in a poster, still a reader can glean a lot from a poster.

The golden Grand Casino is lost in the shimmer of the red Italian car racing on the streets of Monaco. Behind is a blue car. The palm trees and the seaside are frozen in blue. Strangely spectators are missing. But you can imagine what it is to be there on 2 April 1934.



On a flight, I had seen a documentary about restoring posters. 

Two books about history of posters.

 After reading the initial chapter of this first poster book by Charles, I understood some elements of a poster. Main concept, scale.



Monday, December 9, 2013

Lens mug




Saw this mug today on a table in the meeting. Later at his desk, I connected the mug and his photography interest to the lens mug. Wow hobby into an everyday item.

What would your fan mug be like?

Materials



Coconut tiles
Steiner tunnel test
Translucent concrete

Have you seen the fabric stretched ceilings that some institutions have? They look like sails, modern art. But like other materials used in construction they have to go through tests and standards before they can be used.
This book 'Materials for Interior Environments' broadens your view of the life cycle of materials used in your construction from not just the source of where they are from but also what other resources have been spent in making it all happen. You are also encouraged to find reuse and reduce landfill with proper maintenance.
Of the materials we find everyday, we can learn a bit more, say your carpet - is it cut pile or loop? Looking at some examples you can place certain materials in a special environment like glass block wall in restaurants.
I liked the float glass process illustration in the manner of giving you a peek into each of the stages by ripping off a piece of the blackbox. The book has a lot and different kind of pictures to illustrate the concepts. Gypsum at a level invisible to the eye looks like fries.

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Twelve days of christmas

A man picked many elephant figurines for his wife. We suggested that he give her an elephant doll a day. The garage seller said Twelve days of Christmas. I didnt know its significance until I came across it in The Wonderful world of plates. And then my husband told me of a related event of gifting on CBS too.
A patridge in a pear tree

Saturday, December 7, 2013

The Plate Collector magazine



The Plate Collector Magazine has advertisements of plates that are released in limited additions. Advice on how to display your plates. Recipes for the special plates. New additions to plate clubs.

Juggle like a Curator




My first visit to a museum was during high school. Salarjung Museum. Their doll collection is something I can dream about anytime. As a visitor, awe is a usual reaction after the visit of a museum.
The book ‘Creating Exhibitions’ shows all the inputs that go into creating this wow from visitors. The process and phase illustrated by Richard Cress is the key summary of the book. Wheel of dependent implementation companion is another sheet which will help you slot your experiences in the matrix of the exhibit’s mode of presentation. The authors have used lot of figures from various museums to explain the various stages involved in the making of an exhibit. With mindmaps and schedules it has a feel of a management book.
After this book, I can appreciate the long time that goes into planning and executing an exhibition. Next time I walk into a museum I will pare down the space into 2D and 3D displays, any displays that used a designers innovation in shaping up. The art pieces are their own wonder, but their installation, their framework too shape the visitor’s experience.