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Smart Gallery by Helen Peyton. Social Museum and Art Gallery

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Smart Gallery - Skipton 2014 | Social Museum & Art Gallery

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Helen Peyton's Smart Gallery at Skipton Town Hall 2015

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Fulgurites are natural tubes or crusts of glass formed by the fusion of silica (quartz) sand or rock from a lightning strike. Their shape mimics the path of the lightning bolt as it disperses into the ground. All lightning strikes that hit the ground are capable of forming fulgurites.

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Fulgurites are natural tubes or crusts of glass formed by the fusion of silica (quartz) sand or rock from a lightning strike. Their shape mimics the path of the lightning bolt as it disperses into the ground. All lightning strikes that hit the ground are capable of forming fulgurites.

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EXOGENIC FULGURITES, ELKO COUNTY, NEVADA

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A new class of fulgurites was first documented after a spectacular find was made in 1997 in a remote area in Elko County, Nevada. The find was written up in Rocks & Minerals magazine, by Jerry W. Mohling , Volume 79, Issue 5, 2004, Pages 334-340.

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"Textiles are closely connected with us as human beings and our surroundings. Indeed we rely on them to survive, for warmth and shelter. (and medically). The processes, materials and qualities of textiles provide metaphors to describe the society we’re in as well as symbolising and holding affinity with important life processes. Textiles as language can be explored through history, etymology and metaphor. The metaphors of spinning appear regularly in the ancient Hindu texts including the Vedas, Upanishads explained by Puntambekar and Varadachari in their book Hand-Spinning and Hand-Weaving (1926).‘ When the poet sings his invocation to Agni, he asks of the gods “to spin out the ancient thread”. The continuity of life itself and of the human race is compared to the continuity of a well-spun thread. “As fathers they have set their heritage on earth, their offspring, as a thread continuously spun out.”

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"Textiles are closely connected with us as human beings and our surroundings. Indeed we rely on them to survive, for warmth and shelter. (and medically). The processes, materials and qualities of textiles provide metaphors to describe the society we’re in as well as symbolising and holding affinity with important life processes. Textiles as language can be explored through history, etymology and metaphor. The metaphors of spinning appear regularly in the ancient Hindu texts including the Vedas, Upanishads explained by Puntambekar and Varadachari in their book Hand-Spinning and Hand-Weaving (1926).‘ When the poet sings his invocation to Agni, he asks of the gods “to spin out the ancient thread”. The continuity of life itself and of the human race is compared to the continuity of a well-spun thread. “As fathers they have set their heritage on earth, their offspring, as a thread continuously spun out.”

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WRITING AS MAKING _ The word tantra which has become synonymous with eroticism and esotericism within western society, in Indian traditions applies to “text, theory, system, method, instrument, technique or practice.”  That the Sanskrit term translates to ‘weave, loom and warp’ suggests the interweaving of traditions and teachings as threads into a text, technique or practice. The Hindu God Vishnu is called tantuvardan or ‘weaver’ because he is said to have woven the rays of the sun into a garment for himself.
The metaphor of text as a woven fabric has been explored by philosophers Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes and Julia Kristeva. Textiles and Text share the same latin origin: the verb texere which means ‘to weave’, and it is believed that textiles could have been a form of language before the advent of writing. Tim Ingold in his writings on Lines, reflects that ‘line began as a thread rather than a trace, so did “text” begin as a meshwork of interwoven threads rather than of inscribed surfaces’.

http://travelsintextiles.com/textiles-language-and-metaphor/

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silky, satin,

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…nothing is more likely to lead to a really living style than the consideration, first of all … of the suitable use of material … we [must] begin with considering what material lies about us, and how we are to use it, and the way to build it up in such a form as will really put us in the position of being architects, alive and practising to-day…’ William Morris (1891) ‘The Influence of Building Materials on Architecture’. Available online: https://www.marxists.org/archive/morris/works/ 1891/building.htm

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/15/the-eco-guide-to-radical-materials

https://www.tizianoguardini.com/philosophy/

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http://nyftlab.com/

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Pinatex - http://www.ananas-anam.com/pinatex/

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Synthetic leather made from collagen
http://www.modernmeadow.com/

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Background image - Gary Greenberg, close up of grains of sand x 300 magnification

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Background image - Gary Greenberg, close up of grains of sand x 300 magnification

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Searching the library catalogue:  Techno textiles (2): revolutionary fabrics for fashion and design

Braddock, Sarah; O'Mahony, Marie

The predictions of style gurus and top international designers are given concrete form in this exuberant celebration of the way new technology in the fabrics and fashion is bringing together art, design, engineering and science as never before.

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From "Stuff Matters" by Mark Miodownik a materials scientist, p3

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From "Stuff Matters" by Mark Miodownik a materials scientist, p3

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Why does a razor blade cut while a paper clip bends? Why are metals shiny? Why is glass transparent? Why does everyone hate concrete but love diamonds? Why does chocolate taste so good?
So to understand materiality, we must necessarily journey away from the human scale of experience into the inner space of materials, on a microscopic scale, why some materials smell, why some last a thousand years and others crumble in the sun....thread is a man-made structure at the limit of our eyes sight that has allowed us to make ropes, blankets, carpets, but, most importantly clothes. Textiles are one of the earliest man-made materials. When we wear a pair of jeans or any other piece of clothing, we are wearing a miniature woven structure, the design of which is much older than Stonehenge. Clothes have kept us warm and protected throughout  all of recorded history, as well as being fashionable. But they are high tech-tech too. From space suits to artificial limbs made from solid textiles, stab-proof underwear from Kevlar, the evolution is ever-changing.

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http://www.seventeengallery.com/artists/susan-collis/

Making ordinary objects out of precious materials in contrast to Gallo

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What is the material?
What does it look or feel like?
How is it made?
How does this inﬂuence its look/feel?
Does it carry any associated meaning/s?  If so, how did you learn what it means?
Do you like this material?

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So materiality can be:
…the ‘essence’ or qualities of  materials…
…the human experience of  connecting with materials… and/or the inbetweenness, where the  human mind meets and crafts the matter  of materials… unﬁxed in a state of ﬂux that changes  over time… inﬂuenced as much by immaterial  concepts (like memories and  experiences) as by ideas about materials.

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Philip Howes and Zoe Laughlin (2012) ‘Introduction’, in Material Matters:  New Materials in Design, Black Dog: London, p.15

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Philip Howes and Zoe Laughlin (2012) ‘Introduction’, in Material Matters:  New Materials in Design, Black Dog: London, p.15

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‘…materials are for making. The practical applications of materials is what brings them alive: It is what turns plastic into prosthetic limbs, stone into sculpture, and metal in machinery … the design and making phase is what really turns [new materials] from standalone curiosities into revolutionary new ideas, objects and products.'

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Do we know how and where the materials we use come from? Should we know?

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Do we know how and where the materials we use come from? Should we know?

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Eg., leather, silk, paper, plastic

Victimless Leather – a prototype of a stitch-less jacket, grown from cell cultures into a layer of tissue supported by a coat shaped polymer layer.

This is a sub-project of the Tissue Culture and Art Project where the artists are growing a leather jacket without killing any animals. Growing the victimless leather problematises the concept of garment by making it semi-living. This artistic grown garment is intended to confront people with the moral implications of wearing parts of dead animals for protective and aesthetic reasons and confronts notions of relationships with manipulated living systems.

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Essential Reading: Andrew, S. (2008) ‘Fabric Tactility as Communication’, pp. 39-41, excerpt from ‘Textile Semantics: considering a communication based reading of textiles’, in Textile: the journal of cloth and culture, Vol. 6, Issue 1, pp. 32-65.

‘Responses to fabric look and handle … suggests that responses to many fabrics are not inherent but “culturally learned”.’ (p. 39) •  ‘The word “silk,” rather than the fabric itself, elicited a learned cultural response about the qualities of the fabric from the viewer, i.e. that silk was more expensive and luxurious’. (p. 40)

‘Silky’ = about Materiality (but it doesn’t have to be about silk!)

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 When you think of a fabric or material (e.g. silk, wool, cotton, wood, steel, aluminum) do you see a picture in your head?  Or do you think of the way it feels, the noise it makes when it moves or bangs together, or the way you can manipulate it? 

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 When you think of a fabric or material (e.g. silk, wool, cotton, wood, steel, aluminum) do you see a picture in your head?  Or do you think of the way it feels, the noise it makes when it moves or bangs together, or the way you can manipulate it? 

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Our sensory encounters are with the ‘materiality’ of things.

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‘…every material has, as a matter of objective fact, a speciﬁc nature, a ﬁxed set of inherent properties, which can be expressed or supressed when it is used.’  (Pye, 1968: 86) (from lecture)

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‘…every material has, as a matter of objective fact, a speciﬁc nature, a ﬁxed set of inherent properties, which can be expressed or supressed when it is used.’  (Pye, 1968: 86) (from lecture)

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‘The truth is that what we want to do is, not to express the properties of materials, but to express their qualities. The properties of materials are objective and measurable. They are out there. The qualities on the other hand are subjective: they are in here: in our heads. They are ideas of ours. They are part of that private view of the world which artists each have within them. We each have our own idea about what stoniness is.’ (Pye, 1968: 88)

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Each material has its own individual qualities… Stone, for example, is hard and concentrated and should not be falsiﬁed to look like soft ﬂesh… It should keep its hard tense stoniness”            (Henry Moore, 1934) 

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Each material has its own individual qualities… Stone, for example, is hard and concentrated and should not be falsiﬁed to look like soft ﬂesh… It should keep its hard tense stoniness”            (Henry Moore, 1934) 

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What is design?  Petra Blaisse from Inside Outside

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What is design?  Petra Blaisse from Inside Outside

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Blaisse's company straddle across the disciplines of design with a focus on working with the right materials and their unique qualities.
https://youtu.be/ZHnHDMlpSNY   24:18 minutes - 27.24

"Design is the way usable objects are shaped or constructed."

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Okore states that - " The media couldn't engage with the conversation about the concept or relate to the materials. Why would I use paper? Who would collect it? How could it be preserved? Ironically, all the questions that tend to plague art created using textile materials, wherever in the world that may be..."

How and why do we decide which materials are more valuable and which aren't. Should we re-think how we consume and understand a materials qualities?

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From Essential Reading - Hemming, J. (2010) ‘Material Meaning’, Wasafiri, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 38-46.

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From Essential Reading - Hemming, J. (2010) ‘Material Meaning’, Wasafiri, Vol. 25, No. 3, pp. 38-46.

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"The textile may not be the central motivation of these artists’ practices, but consideration of the messages the textile conveys is crucial to a fuller appreciation of the content of their work."

What do the materials we use convey to a wider audience?

What does it mean to be a textile artist?

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How many materials do we come into contact with on a daily basis?

What is your materials diary?

How much do we understand about those materials?

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The institute of Making

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The Institute of Making is a cross-disciplinary research club for those interested in the made world: from makers of molecules to makers of buildings, synthetic skin to spacecraft, soup to diamonds, socks to cities.

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How do materials gain and carry meanings?-
What part do materials play in contemporary society?-  Do materials matter in design?

Do the materials you use in your studio practice matter?

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Like a Jungle Orchid for a Lovestruck Bee

Burning in Water Gallery New York 2017
https://youtu.be/zOQL8ydJloE
Focus on materials that are considered unimportant.

What do the materials represent?

Artifice and Nature