Kate Zelentsova – Fashion designer, use of crochet

 http://1granary.com/

-Sensuality in the textures and shapes.

-Juxtaposition of embellishement as way to shape the garment.

-Opposition of accumulation, refinement /importance of negative space.

-Transparency of beading important to use in my own garment.

-Shape closer to the body / sensuality and intimacy interesting to consider in my own design development as it relates to something very personal and closed on itself that  doesn’t necesarally imply volume.

 

Caroline Wu – Fashion designer, use of crochet Caroline Wu – Fashion designer, use of crochet

 -Very organic and sculptural use of knitwear.

-Importance of transparency and texture, the garment becomes a scenery.

-A tapestry of reflexion and narrative.

 

Photography and memories : The shape of the blanket

-Colors multiplication of shapes and patern.

-Feel of the image blanket offers a protection.

-The characters hold to that protection and safety à reinforces the negation of blanket as an object of safety and the occurance of melancholia.

-Use of light.

-Blanket as a scenery surrounding the characters.

Photography and memories : mother and the blanket.

-Blanket is seen as an object that comes back around family, warm, conforting like a mother.

-Snuggled in the blanket a safety / protection.

-Almost like a gestation, cocoon a representation of the pregnancy as a feeling of envelopment.

-Blanket relates to tapestry, used to tell stories through textile.

-Crochet, ramification of yarns ressembles the complexity of the memory and the mind as well as the one perceived in the family group.

Photography and memories : miniature figure and object

-Absurdity in relation to size, surrealist way of representing objects.

-Introduction of character of the sister, novelty, difficulty to accept change, links with the lost object and the inconstance of melancholia.

-Interesting colors, shapes and textures. Idea of opposition /relevant to create samples.

 

Photographies and memories

-Scenery of the mountains, something I miss.

-Disapearance of the snow nowadays, like if the memory can’t be retrieved.

-Linked to mourning and death of grandfather that I miss and regret, not being able to know better, interesting way to introduce the lost object.

 -Shapes and colors of the mountains and the photography, interesting to create samples for the garment.

 

Projecting memory through film

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=SbP5Amw2rpk

-Memory liven in the living room.

-Juxtaposition of memory and reality, interaction of both, the little girl walks into the memories.

Elsa Sahal – Sculptures

http://www.elsasahal.fr/projects/arlequin/

- Reminds me of corals.

-Interesting use of corals.

-Shapes could be used for design development.

Drew Kampion – The Book of Waves

-Shape of the wave, extremely precise and complex.

-Interesting to use for design development.

-Movement of the wave portrays the inconstance of the melancholic mind.

 

Martina Amati - Under Installation

-Movement of the boody under the water.

-Idea of immersion relates with the importance of scenery.

-Feeling the birth and gestation of the body under water.

-Detachement, passivitry.

-The music emphesize how slow the corpses are moving, how we feel forced to contemplate absence and suspension.

Image

The lost of object in Melancholia

In what, now, does the work which mourning performs consist? I do not think there is anything far-fetched in presenting it in the following way. Reality-testing has shown that the loved object no longer exists, and it proceeds to demand that all libido shall be withdrawn from its attachments to that object. This demand arouses understandable opposition – it is a matter of general observation that people never willingly abandon a libidinal position, not even, indeed, when a substitute is already beckoning to them. This opposition can be so intense that a turning away from reality takes place and a clinging to the object through the medium of a hallucinatory wishful psychosis. Normally, respect for reality gains the day. Nevertheless its orders cannot be obeyed at once. They are carried out bit by bit, at great expense of time and cathectic energy, and in the meantime the existence of the lost object is psychically prolonged. Each single one of the memories and expectations in which the libido is bound to the object is brought up and hypercathected, and detachment of the libido is accomplished in respect of it.

Sigmund Freud.

 

In other words, the work of mourning is the work of coming to terms with the loss of the loved object. In melancholia something happens which prevents this process, I want to visualize the lost object and how it comes to be lost to build my narrative and illustration on the occurence of Melancholia. I think it would be intersting to make family as the lost object because it feels relevant if paired with an exploration of childhood memories. However as I have to show a visual representation of the lost object  I think it would be very relevant to use the figure of the blanket emphesize in the short story as an object that visualizes family as a tapestry of memories.

Kind of blue an essay on melancholia and depression. Mark Kidel

Coastal Scene about 1892, Théo van Rysselberghe

George Seurat, The master of pointillism

Japanese Bridge, Claude Monet 1899

  • The painting represents the water lily pond in the garden of Giverny where Monet lived. It displays impressionist techniques and exploration of light representation through the eyes of the artist. Almost ressembling pointillism, the water and the flower are confounded in a form of blurryness like a fog of water and flower instead of grey. The blurryness is interesting as it is a way to portray visually the frailty of memory and touch of melancholia in artistic representations
  • The nympheas or water lily or also extremely present in the painting covering the entirety of the pound, it suggests a sea of melancholia and the present idea of drowning in flowers. combinig both the violence and brutality of death with a form of aesthetically pleasing beauty.
  • I would like to use the techniques of pointillism in knitwear to represent melancholia texturally maybe I could use pattern plates or intarsia knitting ?

L'écume des jours Boris Vian

Source : Boris Vian "L'écume des jours"

  • This novel by Boris Vian explores the theme of melancholia through the imagery of a water lily that grows in the lung of one of the character. There is no precise time line for the story but we know its happening arounds the 1950's in "La rive gauche de Saint Germain des prés" in Paris however the story is not entirely loyal to reality, 'pataphysical pheanomenon are happening in the daily life of the characters. The book develops  the story of Colin a man who lives in a house with his chef Nicolas and little mouses that he talk with along with a pianocktail, a fabulous invention of his a piano that makes cocktails. Driven by the desire to be in love, he maries Chloé a young woman he just met. However Chloé starts being ill just after her wedding, a water lily is growing in one of her lung. The story shifts at that moment and Colin only goal is now to buy flowers to heal his wife. The universe of the story becomes bleaker and bleaker as Colin has to work and sell the pianocktail to pay for the flowers. Chloé finally dies from her illness at the end of the story.
  • The story can be seen as a experiment on 'pataphysical a conception of the world as part real and part imaginary every thing is on the same level. I personally view this as an aim to stay halfway in the innocence of childhood and halfway in the real world. However the message of the book is that wanting to live in that inbetween between reality and imagination is not possible because death and its fear is to real to be 'pataphysical. Therefore the idea of the water lily growing in Chloé's lung can be seen as a metaphore of melancholia, the brutal dive into reality of two childs that so far only lived in an imaginary world.
  • I think the imagery of the water lily can be interesting to symbolize melancholia as it encompasses both the tragedy of depression and drowning through the word "water" as well as the aesthetically pleasing vision of a flower.
  • Moreover, 'pataphysical, the interuption of imaginary into reality could be an interesting maner to represent the interaction between the memories of my character drownig and what she sees around her in the ocean when she drowns.
  • The documentary is built as an essay exploring the concept of melancholia through time and history, It was created in 1992 by Mark Kidel. The interesting angle chooses to portray melancholia as a state of being, a mind of spleen rather than treat melancholia as a pathological depression. Its often seen this way because of Freud interpretation of melancholia as another word for "depression". However fundamently I agree with the essay representing melancholia as a subtle form of sadness. a interwinded pessimism where happiness always is teinted by sadness.
  • By developping melancholia through the archetype of the tourmented artist, it induces melancholia with an aray of sublime anc grace. By opposition to a brutal, violent devouring form of sadness that can be achieved by self harming physically or mentally. Melancholia is softer, its a constant vision of the world, the etheral stability of a sad mind, a still contemplation. . This statement was introduced by philosopher James Hilman he speculates "that if you're not depressed, you're abnormal -- because the soul knows about the trees that are destroyed, the ugliness that is spreading, the chaos of the culture in many ways..... And somehow if you're not in mourning for what's going on in the world, you're cut off from the soul of the world. In that sense I would think an underlying depression is a kind of adaptation to the reality of the world. Therefore melancholia joins 'Pataphisycal as an interpretation of the world we live in. In a form of inbetween state in wich rather than excluding reality from life a acceptation of mortality has been reached by contemplating in an awareness of death every moments of existence.
  • Moreover melancholia is indeed strongly attached to symbolism . In artistic representations, Melancholy was always depicted as a woman a muse or an allegory both representing despair and aesthetic beauty closely related to the nymphea in the lungs of Chloé In Boris Vian book. Melancholia before refered to as Spleen. was long Symbolized by the celestial prescence of Saturn,  dismal, infernal star subject of contemplation and fascination. "the star of the slowest revolution, the planet of detours and delays" as stated by Walter Benjamin. 
  • I should consider the symbolism of  melancholia for my project aswell as research Verlaines "Poèmes saturniens".

Gustavo Silvestre - Textile / Fashion design

http://gustavosilvestre.tumblr.com/

-Interesting colors and effects, relates to how evanescent our memories are.

http://gustavosilvestre.tumblr.com/

-Closer fitting form, the crochet creates prints on the body, using negative space.                                                                                        

-Variety of colors and textures, almost like a tapestry à interesting mean to tell a story visually.

-Head hidden / trapped in crochet, reminiscent of Magritte’s mother found drawned with her night gawn covering her face.

 

http://gustavosilvestre.tumblr.com/

-Flowing shape, loose material

-Use of crochet to convey that delicate / etheral feel. Crochet could be very interesting to represent  failty of memeory.

Photography and memories : A tapestry

Photographies and memories : Acre Wood

-Description of Acre Wood.

-Really particular moment that resonate within reality and dream. Winnie the Pooh forest.

-Surrealism of visiting an imagery place.

-Explains the attachement I feel to objects, especially figurative objects.

-Closeness to family and space.

-Cuddly toys interesting as textures for sampling.

-Attachment to nostalgia and time that passes, representative of the lost objects as moments that belong to the past and never could recreated with the same innocence.

-Pataphysical response : to bring cuddly toys in the scenery they are derived from, in cohabitation with the characters of the story results in a context where the cuddly toys liven.

-Reproduction of the scene of walking away, ambiguity between reality and dream.

 

Photography and memories : the carousel

-Moment of childhood in Paris and my conception of time and life at the time, like a collection of moments and sceneries not interupted by pragmatism and rationalisation, an innocence caracterized by an unconciousness of surroundings.

-Me and my best friend / socialisation and safety in interaction with others. Defined place in the family group, legitimity of existence as a person, melancholia feels absent.

 

Photography album : an object

-Old eaten by insects.

-Testimony of its time and people dead remembered in the capture.

-Sacralised object, ressembles enluminure found in religious books.

 

Photo album : memories of collages.

http://time.com/3801986/the- vanishing-art-of-the-family- photo-album/

-Archaïc / instinctive disposition of the collage without artistic vision behind it.

-Playing with color of paper.

-Juxtaposing scale and sizes.

-Extremely interesting object of testimony to understand a period in time and history.

 

Lauren Elisabeth Mathison – Knitting landscape

https://www.instagram.com/lulumakesthingsyo/

-Interesting use of colors and textures.

-Use of beading to evoke details, make me think of corals. Use beading and pearls to represent corals.

-Pattern in the knit.

Contrast of materials to express complexity of the sea life. Use argile to represent corals ?

Susana Majuri - Blue and other collages

http://www.susannamajuri.com/blue 

-Focused on a woman under water exploring landscapes.

-Landscape feels « creased » like if they were distorted by being underwater.

-Bubbles suggest everything is underwater, interesting figure to use to relate to the scenery when the character is diving in memories, he uses process of collage under water.

-Importance of composition, character never in the center.

Nadinah Zakariya - Rise photography

http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/article/10782/1/nadirah-zakariya

-Drawning, inconsistance of water/interesting visual effect.

-Almost disappearing figure, blured by the water.

-Juxtaposition of reality and dream, the stong reflection of the clouds suggests that the woman is equally flying in the sky and at the bottom of the swimming pool.

-Very representative of melancholia where the subject is longing for happiness  and joy but trapped, almost negated by his mental state, here represented by water.

« They are caught between two worlds, reality and the dream state ».

Nan Goldin Guido – Floating, Levanzo, Sicily 1999

http://www.artnet.fr/artistes/nan-goldin/guido-floating-levanzo-sicily-PMdHNNTVB-kv1hEUKbm2-Q2

-Blurry landscape.

-Suggested scenery and character.

-Inconstance of water as a moving scenery.

-Everything seems undefine like a mirage, experience with blurry photography ?

-Interesting color scheme, very textural.

John Everett Millais – Ophelia, painting

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oph%C3%A9lie_(Millais)

-Still, immobile.

-Precision of scenery that traps the body.

-The surface of the water confuses the silhouette of the body.

-Evoques melancholia, beauty and mourning.

-Flower express death, relate to « l’écume des jours », Boris Vian (poppy signifies death. Exploration of flower language in project ?)

Magritte – The Beautiful world, Le Beau Monde 1962, L’Embellie 1962. Paintings.

https://www.renemagritte.org/

-Surealism, absurdity.

-The sky as curtains, the apple stopped an empiness.

-Pataphysical answer to reality.

-Interesting to suggest sanity vanquished and melancholia taking over.

 

To the ligthouse Virginia Woolf

Source : To the lighthouse Virginia Woolf

  • The novel is set in the Ramsays' summer home in the Hebrides, on the Isle of Skye. The section begins with Mrs Ramsay assuring her son James that they should be able to visit the lighthouse on the next day. This prediction is denied by Mr Ramsay, who voices his certainty that the weather will not be clear. The whole story is centered around the visit to the light house being aborted before the familly is able to get there. The lighthouse keeps us from getting lost, saves us when we are lost, and prevents us from losing sight of land, it is a symbol of security of shelter and warmth that rescues us from the potential dangers of the night. This idea of an unreachable lighthouse relates to melancholia in the sense that it is a constant desire yet one that is impossible to fufill like in melancholia where sadness is not seen as a violent and hasardous occurance but rather as a constant state of mind a sadness that is an underlying deeper feeling. I want to do more research on possible explanation of melancholia and challenge how it is related to desire and mourning. 
  • I think using the symbol of the lighthouse in my project could be very interesting as it represents safety and comfort what the melancholic mind desperately seek for but cant ever reach. 
  • Moreover, the story is set on the sea side of the island of Skye wich could be relevant to my story as the character is drouwnig. She could be drowning in the ocean near the island of Skye. I thought it was coincidental that a story of melancholia woudl be set in the Island of Skye, the island I am named after, it could offer an intersting paradoxe, as the character is a projection of myself in my project, it is logical to then question wether the character is metaphorically drowning in his own mind (the ocean of the island of Skye) or physically drowning. I want to do more research on the landscape of the Island of Skye as it would be a relevant and melancholic scenery for my story. 

Matty Bovan – Fashion designer, use of crochet

-Shaping crochet to disruptt he fall of the fabric.

-Accumulation of embellishment relevant to the complexity of memory.

-Abstraction of shape and print yet harmonious result.

-Organic and psychadelic.

-Sensuality in the shape and the textures.

Photography : shape of the blanket

https://www.etsy.com/fr/search?q=couverture%20vintage&ref=auto1&as_prefix=couverture%20vin

-Creased fabric.

-Disturbed prints.

-Interesting for design development.

-Blend of colors and holes in the knit.

 

Photography and memories : Figure of the father

-Introduction of character, persistence of contemplation.

-Use of light, aureole, undefined background.

-Character as a scenery.

-Use of colors and volume inspiration for design development.

Photography and memories : a birthday

  1. -Social situation of gathering that doesn’t exist in my life anymore.

-Color and texture, opposition of the dress synthetic and the carpet, traditional fabric and weaving.

Photography : a blurry finger

-Illustrates reality coming into memory.

-Pataphysical view of scale through the lense of the camera.

-Visual of how I wish to portray the sea life as blurry and vivid.

 

Photography : erasing character

-Absurdity of a body without head in a capture of reality.

-Disrupts the shape of a photography and changes its message. Could it be considered like art ?

- Cut out paper, shows emotional response, anger…

Vanessa Barragao – Coral reef, textile art.

https://mymodernmet.com/coral-reef-textile-art-vanessa-barragao/

-Variety of processes to experiment with hooking, crochet, weaving, knitting, basketry, felting.

-Shows the complexity of corals, through all the processes. Volume in the textile to show show the depth of the ocean universe.

-Interesting use of fringing and layering, could be used to create my own samples.

 

Hengki Koentjoro – Underwater photography

http://www.hengki-koentjoro.com/

-A real universe underwater, depth in the perspective of the corals.

-Extreme precision of the use of the light

-Corals feel like lace, evanescent and frail.

-Extreme subtly of the surface almost forgotten like a dream, reality becomes the world underwater.

-Refinement of sea life.

 

Bill Viola Tristan and Isolde

Bill Viola : Tristan and Isolde

http://www.billviola.com/

-Very moving, poetry in visual art.

-Aesthetic of the bubbles floating.

-Immersive music like a caress highlight the sacralisation of the rise.

-Use the bubble as a symbol of scenery.

  • I liked how washed the work appears like if something almost blurred all the colours out to make it less discernible more abstract yet showing the Impression of what the painting is evoking.
  • I like the use of colours and the echo of the different tones juxtaposed playing with saturation and fading to maintain a harmony in the profusion.
  • intersting to use the idea of colours dripping, washed to express the fragility and disorder of memory 
  • How the artist expresses her work as a reflective and meditative time almost like a form of introspection of her emotions in her paintings its not really controlled and I think that would be an interesting technique to try out and let go a bit of the very illustrative work and focus on impressions of feelings as my work is related to that topic
  • the blurry juxtaposition of colours and tones could be very interesting to create knit samples to represent the blurriness of what sees my character when she is drowning.
  • The artist transforms resin and steel into human forms that are hauntingly real and somewhat dealing an invisible personal struggle.
  • The human sculptures were purposely made by Park to look unfinished and hollow “to describe the condition of emptiness.”
  • using the idea of making samples or drawings that are looking unfinished could be very interesting to portray the emptyness left in melancholia and the holes in your memories.

Green teeth ; Buried in the city

Laurence Von Thomas - If you leave photography

http://www.dazeddigital.com/photography/gallery/11898/9/laurence-von-thomas-if-you-leave

-Etheral floating in nihility free from links.

-Soft use of colors and light, replicate the transparency and uniformity with water color ?

-Vulnerability in the posture and costume shows transparency, absence, emptyness  à relates to the feeling of melancholia floating in a daze of spleen.

-Head up fascination of something untaugible, links with the idea of the lost object, a concept that only exists in the melancholic wind.

The beginning Christian Schloe

  • If you read that painting in relation with a garden of melancholia by the same artist it suggest that the birds represent anxieties and troubles in life trying to get in the younger person brain. When the first painting shows letting your problems out by literally removing your face, it shows here the occurrence of those issues before they become damaging. 
  • I like the idea of having a recurring symbol that keep evolving and changing context and narrative to bring a totally different lecture of it. It could be interesting to build a pattern a symbol that repeats in my separate novellas who each bring a different understanding of the occurrence of melancholia. 

Garden of melancholia Christian Shloe

  • the symbolism of birds in melancholia taking the place of the person. oblirating self with a form ideal, the bird by flying can access other arrays of creative realm, It can represent the idea of wanting to get out of your own body to escape your own life.
  • Using surrealism seems significant as it question what we are really seeing it seems absurd but also metaphorically symbolising deeper buried feelings that are difficult to express with words.
  • I could include more surrealist representation in my own work as a way to expend the visuals and experiment with the absurd, maybe by contrasting very different materials in my samples...

Empire of light Magritte 1949

  • This painting by Magritte is closely linked with Virginia Woolf obssession with the figure of the lighthouse however it is seen as a pessimistic symbol given Magritte's history. The houses are dark and empty they explode into light in the middle of the day however the variations are oxymoric since they depict the dark silhouettes of these houses in a deserted night with only lamplight, the "Dominion of light" is paradoxaly obscure and cold. 
  • This paradoxe is only understood if we look closely at the personal psychological context the paintings were created into,  as I found out in a book called, "Cultures of the death drive, Mélanie Klein and modernist melancholia", Magritte's mother died drowning, her night dress was found on her face several of his paintings evoke death by water or concealed faces. In this painting in particular, Regina Magritte abscence was noticed and the search for her begun in the middle of the night, The "Empire of light" evokes that moment of terror and uncertainty and the premonition of death. 
  • It could be interesting to use the ideas of concealed faces and death by water in fashion design as my concept is closely linked to drowning.