Today, I am putting everything together to submit it to my tutor, but there's something missing. I had hoped to be able to put the dome together, and have the structure covered when it went into the box, but I was too hasty. My plan was to make a dome from clear vinyl, and to decorate it with a retreating city skyline made from several layers of organza, so as to give the effect of mist or smog over a city. However, to make sure that the organza was durable enough, I decided to draw out paper patterns of the skyline I hoped to cut out, complete with windows, etc., and to glue down the organza to a piece of vinyl a few centimetres larger than the pattern. This technique I had already proved could work by making the weeds for the riverbed in the same way. Once it had entirely dried, I could unobtrusively pin the paper to it and cut it out with a scalpel. However, I then made my mistake. To construct the seams of the dome, I plan to use some invisible mending thread to machine the layers down - this thread is made in a kind of clear plastic, and not meant for use with a machine, but through some perseverance, I got a bobbinful to wind, and by putting down the feed teeth and changing the tension, I could move the material myself to get a fairly regular stitch. The mistake came when I decided that I wanted to keep the skyline free of such obtrusive stitching, and merely glue again. I prepared a large section of the floor in a back room with folded draping calico, and glued everything to the body of the dome. I covered it carefully with tinfoil, thinking it less likely to stick to leaking glue than clingfilm, and stacked up some encyclopaedias on top. A few days later, I picked up the books, and what do you know? The vinyl had made the centre of the shapes entirely airtight - and I had somehow completely dismissed that as a possibility. I sadly peeled them away, and in less than an hour after pegging them up to dry, they were finished. I cleaned the dome as best I could, but it has taken on a mottled appearance over the whole shape, and is, I fear, un-salvageable. The organza shapes, meanwhile, having been glued and dried twice, have shrunk away from their vinyl backing, making the surface crumpled, and full of air pockets. Luckily, both of these materials are relatively cheap, and most of the templates have survived. Unluckily, this will have to wait until after my assignment submission to go ahead, as the materials must be ordered. An A2 plan of the layout accompanies my submission.
Other things I want to include in time for assessment:
- Add some more diverse colours - with leftover grey felt scraps applied to flints,
- a fine wire weathervane for the top of the spire, hopefully in a pretty jewellery wire gauge,
- add a path, maybe gravestones, and a gate to the church courtyard, the gate hopefully made in a scrolling ironwork style, as long as it is possible to source a narrow enough wire-edged ribbon.
- A touch of the Baroque by adding some quarter-circle shaped crochet fans to stepped house front, as many houses in Amsterdam seem to have.
- Make some railings for the waterside edge of the courtyard,
- Add some street level arches to the front of the townhouse, which currently has no official door!
- And add a final all-round 'wrapper' to bottom of base, on the outside of the dome, to mimic the traditional wooden base to a Victorian dome display.
To sum up.
My motives in making this piece are not very complex. I made it because it combined some of my interests - Victoriana, the Low Countries, and textiles. I made it because it would allow me to build on some earlier sketchbook work I felt shouldn't be wasted, because it was an opportunity to have a clear goal, and challenges to replicate items that would test ingenuity. I made it because it presented a project that combined 3D and 2D decorative techniques, modelling, pattern cutting, and would give me a chance to practice all of them. It was more exploration than expression, which I don't think is a bad thing. It doesn't have anything particularly profound about it, and it doesn't have a great deal of deep thought behind it, but as a textile object, I think it's helped me to think about new techniques, ways to make new shapes, and well, ideas to build on in the future. Once the dome is complete, and stitched into place, I'll be reposting final pictures.
