https://kiyomiwata.com/ She was born in Kobe, Japan, 1941, and studied at Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, VA; Penland School of Craft, NC; Haystack Mountain School of Craft, ME and New School of Social Research, NYC. She's had shows at the MET, Renwick Gallery, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and much more. She's received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York foundation for the Arts. I've noticed that she includes her heritage in her work whether it be the methods, language, or general aesthetic. https://sculpturemagazine.art/qualities-of-the-unsaid-a-conversation-with-kiyomi-iwata/ I thought it was really interesting how she came about her work. She had pursued art but all of her big "ah ha" moments she really stumbled onto. She hadn't intended to pursue certain media instead they came upon her. I also thought it was really insightful the way she talked about balancing her art and her family. https://americanart.si.edu/artist/kiyomi-iwata-7264 https://www.architectmagazine.com/project-gallery/artists-from-the-grotta-collection
I first saw her work at the VMFA and I saw her Chrysalis Four piece. I appreciate the repetition of her kibiso pieces in which they repeat organic shapes and lines. The first piece has lots of dimension and contrast. I especially like the materials that she used. The natural fibers is reflected in the shapes that she creates. I like in her Southern Crossing Five piece that the lines vary and aren't completely straight. The piece feels fluid and natural. I also really like her use of color in this piece. The red feels like one from the earth and and I like how the dye emphasizes the knots and thicker parts of her media. Her pieces have a certain amount of quiet strength in which they seem like they could be blown away at any given minute but just out of sheer will they wouldn't move anywhere they didn't want to. She also works with silk organza which I also really enjoy the natural colors of. I like how she maximized the natural wrinkles that silk gets when it is dried. Her form continues to be fluid and natural. Overall I think I would incorporate a lot of her techniques such as using organic shapes to emphasize the naturalness of the material. I also think I will continue using color sparing like how she does. She uses red in the way that I use blue I believe so I think it would fun to experiment with a completely blue piece.
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I thought it was really impressive seeing all of her achievements laid out. I also thought it was really helpful seeing someone who actually works as an artist and can make money as an artist. I also thought it was really helpful seeing pricing for her work because I feel like its hard to gauge how much to price your work especially as a young artist. Overall I thought the lecture was really informative and I really just liked looking at her art as well.
This week I started on my next project. I wanted to explore with already made plarn and I saw someone unravel a sweater on TikTok so I thought I would find a polyester sweater that I don't wear to unravel. Since polyester is plastic the threads are literally plarn. But it was really hard without chopping up the whole sweater so I dont know if I will continue with that.
This week I finished making plarn out of the green translucent packaging bubbles and then instead of crocheting it first I just arm knitted it because I ended up having less material to work with than I had anticipated. Once I finished that I realized it wasn't exactly how I pictured my end piece so I decided to start a backing piece made from white bags. I already had some pieces cut leftover from an earlier project so I started on making white plarn.
This week I was preparing the plastic bags for being made into plarn and I had to figure out how to transform them into loops since they weren't exactly plastic bags. I'm working with those plastic packaging bubbles and I really like the color. It's like a translucent green which is really pretty but I'm not sure how much plarn I can actually make and also if it's going to be opaque enough for the project idea I have.
For my artist talk I interviewed Lyn Page, co owner of Clementine, Ashby, and Clover in Carytown. One of my main take aways from the conversation is that if you work with the community you serve they'll help and support your business as well. Also taking chances can lead to really good unexpected possibilities. I also learned that second hand fashion has been around for a while and is not going away any time soon. I was really surprised of all the different ways her businesses are connected to the community, either through reaching out to VCU students for design, providing new stores based on customer needs, donating funds to the community, or even just hiring local students. I learned a lot about the differences in the types of second hand sale that I didn't realize before. I found it really interesting how she used art as a way to heal herself. Her process is really unique and seemed to be very related to her pieces. I loved her message about making work for yourself and making sure your work speaks to you. I love the amount of time she puts into her work and the texture and layers she adds into her work. I thought it was really cool how she talked about how her culture affected her own work which I really related to. Overall I thought the colors and textures of her pieces were really cool. I value texture a lot in my own work and would like to experiment with color in a similar way.
I cut the Ulta bags into loops and then I crocheted the green and orange pieces of plastic into a singular rope. I've been testing ways to arm knit it into a piece.
This week I finished making the long string of plarn and started to crochet it into a large chain. I had to change my plan because the plarn wouldn't work with the technique I had in mind. So I changed and now I'm going to create a piece with a focus on circular negative spaces and sphereical shapes underneath.
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Hanna NgaiHi, I'm a senior at Maggie Walker in Art 5 and I'm an installation sculpture artist that turns plastic bags into art. Archives
May 2022
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