Natalie Perkins Fine Art Level 6

I researched Nicola Ellis, because I wanted to explore materiality by using mediums that had significant contrasts when combined. Due to this, I wanted to start incorporating objects, that had connections to industrialism that were able to create these contrasts, such as the contrasts between the wire mesh and yarn. Furthermore,  Ellis also works with manufactures who she works with to create her pieces and supply her with the mediums. By looking into a artist who has built up a relationship with manufactures, this would be beneficial for my own practice. To be able to see the importance of having these relationships, and to see how I could implement this in my practice to further develop. 

I researched into Holly Hendry practice, because I liked how she used thick metal pipes as a way to create a piece of work. By filling plaster, Jesmonite, foam, marble, concrete, aggregate, timber, stuffing into the pipes, creating contrasts and textures that create a whole new piece. I liked how she used different mediums for the filling, as the mediums look as though they have been forcibly compacted into the pipes. I also liked how the mediums, are complete opposites creating contrasts and how the work is works with different processes. 

For my artist research, I wanted to focus on using resources that were reliable. But also allowed me to understand what the artists intentions were, for creating their work. In regards to this article, on the artist Ruth Awasa I found this to be very useful. In relation to understanding the process, of how she began creating her wire sculptures. 

Her pieces, created from high-tech fibre developed originally for NASA spacesuits, are described as “living and breathing” because they billow and change shape in the wind. During the day, they cast shadows and at night, they are transformed by computer-controlled lights into “luminous, glowing beacons of colour.”

I really like how the sculpture changes all time depending on the time, because by creating the sculptures like this they are never viewed the same each time. As well as this it allows the work to always be viewed as being new, as the natural elements are constantly changing the colour and shape of the sculpture for the time that it is exhibited. Furthermore by bringing the work outside in the elements it will always have an natural movement in the sculpture, as instead of being moulded and forced to have movement in the sculpture it is able to does naturally by taking advantage of the natural elements themselves.

I also liked how in order to view the work you have to look upwards, as opposed to being exhibited in a space. Because of this it feels like you have more of a personal connection to the work, due to how it surrounds and immerse itself around the viewer. Another thing that I liked about the work was how you could still see the buildings and the surroundings. Because of how transparent the material is, as this doesn’t make the work feel like it is dominating the surroundings, instead it becomes one with the area.

 As the concepts behind her work become more intricate, so too have their physical structures, driving her to replace the metal armatures used in her older sculptures with a new soft fibre mesh. This high-tech material is fluid and light, but 15 times stronger than steel meaning that her more recent sculptures are so light that they can be tied mid-air to existing buildings, “literally becoming part of the fabric of the city”.

Echelman was on a Fulbright Lectureship in India in 1997 where she planned to teach painting and exhibit her work. The paints that she sent from America failed to arrive, and while searching for something else to work with, she noticed the fishermen bundling their nets at the water’s edge.

Installation Artist

Textural Space Exhibition

Agano created an installation by combining nylon filament, silk thread and handmade Japanese paper. A work of painstaking craftsmanship, realized with knitting techniques and 15mm thick needles, this untitled installation defied the easy categorisation of mere ‘textile art’ by exploring the 3D potentials and the evocative powers of light, shade and texture in a gallery space.

Agano’s work, with its mesmerising forms, acted as a landscape reflecting nature and its wonders. Gentle and delicate yet powerful and taut, it had the power of evoking at once the resplendent Alps and the shimmering oceans, the passing clouds and the elaborate web of a skilled spider. As a membrane of suspended beauty it enveloped the visitors and induced calmness through its ethereal shapes.

I really liked how Agano, was able to make the work have a powerful presence. But also made it seem weightless, as though an single disruption could destroy the structure of the work. Because of this, the work has a calming tranquil essence to it, through its ability to blend with the environment that it is exhibited in. Furthermore, because the materials used are translucent, it allows the work to adapt to it’s surroundings, and reflect light. Due to this the work almost becomes ghost like, as though you could pass right through the work.

If we think nature as a giant dedicated craftsman, we will see it busy in an endless process of putting together equal elements over and over again.  Samuelle proceeds in the same way when creating her works. She begins from a simple module: a cone, and expands by repetition, assembling one piece after another, using the physical characteristics of the material she prefers: paper.

Samuelle chooses to use mostly recycled paper. Found in old dusty library, landfill or second-hand shops, old books are precious material for the artist. From the palette of yellow, beige, okra and through the ageing inks, hidden stories come forward.

The use of discarded materials, available in huge quantity, allow the artists to reach immersive dimensions with her projects and moreover to comment on important environmental issues like overconsumption and overproduction of goods in our society.

Discarded objects are also found in her sculptural production, where the modular paper technique adapts to a smaller scale and it is combined with broken or forgotten objects, loved and abandoned ones.  According to Green: “Combining these objects that hold so much personality with other materials breathes a new and different life into them”.

I’m not certain why I’m drawn to them but they began to appear in a series of paintings about 25 years ago and continue to make appearances throughout my work. They seem to be a thread that holds things together in space and time. It ties together the old and new and joins the unites the materials that were seeking each other out.

Expanding from sculpture to spatial dimensions, her installations respond to site and its features.  Hundreds of paper cones are insert and glued onto a metal wire mesh that becomes the structure of an extended soft surface creeping onto existing structures while transforming the spaces of the exhibition and linking back to nature and its forms.

The work never seems quite finished, I see the manifestations as an ongoing project that is a living, growing, changing organism of sorts”. This time-consuming process of making is often possible thanks to the work of volunteers, family members and friends, this allows the work to reach a more than human immersive size.

The History of Wire Mesh

Early Examples of Wire Weaving

Examples of gold and silver jewellery dating back to early Egyptian times exist which incorporated hand woven wire meshes, but the earliest evidence of the development of wire weaving on looms for industrial purposes appears to be in the early part of the 18th Century. Wire drawing had existed prior to this for many hundreds of years on a simple scale. Iron ingots were beaten to a flat sheet which was then cut into strips, hammered round, and pulled through a stone die and many products were made from hand wrought wire.

In the 5th Century, the growing popularity of chain mail as a means of body protection seems to have been an important stimulus to the wire drawing and wire working industry - at least in Europe. During the reign of Charlemagne in the 8th and 9th Centuries the strategic nature of this industry was regarded so highly that the export of chain mail and drawn wire from Germany was forbidden.

This is some research that I undertook, to have more of a understanding of the origins of wire mesh. By researching it to this I was able to see the reasons why it was created, and it original purpose. In addition to this I was able to incorporate the history into my practice, by experimenting with the processes that they did to be able to form the wire.

Charles Berry's book "The Worshipful Company of Tin Plate Workers alias Wire Workers and its connection with the Wire Industries" written in 1926.

Whilst reading this article they recommended this resource, by Charles Berry further expanding on the development of wire mesh, and what the wire industry in the 17th century was like.

Reference is made those who "sold iron and steel wire by retail and cut and worked it into mouse-traps, bird cages, lattice-work for windows, buckles, chains, clasps for garments, fish hooks, pack-needles, knitting needles, rings for curtains etc.

These types of product remained the mainstay of the wire working industry throughout the 18th and 19th century, the two most significant producers in the City of London in the 19th C being F.W Potter & Co. (later Potter & Soar) in Shoreditch and Bedford, Steer, End & Co. in Southwark.

Further reading shows what people used the wire mesh for, from using it to create bird cages to knitting needles. Because of this it shows that the wire was used in a number of diverse ways, showing me how versatile the wire can be, regarding the things that you can make out of it, and how you can form it. Although my wire mesh is predominately used for keeping live stock in their enclosures, as well as keeping things out such as foxes. The research is still relevant to my practice because I am learning how different types of wire mesh have been developed over time, and the purposes of having different types of wire.

The Invention of The Wire Weaving Loom

Apart from the wire weavers in the London and South East, the industrial North West grew rapidly with a number of manufacturers adopting mechanical wire cloth weaving techniques.

In the forefront of this development was the family business of Thomas Locker, who was believed to be the first person in the world to weave wire mesh on a steam powered loom. The Company later grew to be the largest private employer in the Borough of Warrington in the 1950's.

Two specific drivers for this development were firstly the incorporation of wire in the warp of sailcloth by the jute weavers in Dundee and Liverpool to increase the strength of their material.

The second was the growth of the paper industry. Hand woven wire mesh had been used for pulp dewatering for hand laid paper before the 17th Century, but it was a clerk working for a paper mill in France who, in 1798, first thought of using fine wirecloth in a continuous form for the production of paper. This invention was later introduced into the UK by Henry Fourdrinier after whom the process was named.

This was to have an enormous impact worldwide, as the endless mesh belt, the basis of the invention, allowed the processing of pulp at much greater speeds than were previously possible. Paper and books could be produced in far larger quantities than ever before. This together with the wide range of woven wire meshes that could now be produced at speed for sieving and screening fuelled rapid changes.

Subsequently after the Second World War, growth in the industry centred largely in the North West around Warrington and with some manufacturing in Scotland as well. One of the dominant players in the North West through this time was Locker Wire Weavers , while the Potter & Soar Group (having absorbed Bedford Steer End around 1910) remained in London until the 1970's. Post war developments in manufacturing techniques had greatly increased wire cloth weaving efficiency,

This is information on the origins of the wire mesh industries, and how they developed from the 17th century to the 19th century. The research was important to note as it shows me how much the wire mesh had been experimented with, and how this changed the way people used the wire. Previously in the 17th century the wire mesh had been used to create pulp for paper. However during the 1798 and onwards it had been developed into wirecloth. Which shows how versatile wire mesh can be, and how it purpose was continuously experimented and tested throughout the years.

Modern Wirecloth Applications

Woven wire mesh and wire cloth have countless applications today:

·        in filters for road vehicles

·        the manufacture of floor coverings

·        chipboard, hardboard, pulp and paper processing including watermarking for banknotes

·        in filtration and separation processes for the Petro-chemical, pharmaceutical and food processing industries

·        radio and microwave shielding

·        ore and minerals screening

·        screen printing

·        transportation belts

·        plastics extrusion manufacture

·        optical lens manufacture

·        catalytic converters

·        precious metal recovery

·        flame, heat and light diffusion

·        vacuum forming

·        spark protection

·        battery manufacture

What Chicken Wire Is

Chicken wire, or poultry netting, is a mesh of wire commonly used to fence in fowl, such as chickens, in a run or coop. It is made of thin, flexible, galvanized steel wire with hexagonal gaps. Available in 1 inch (about 2.5 cm) diameter, 2 inch (about 5 cm) and 1/2 inch (about 1.3 cm), chicken wire is available in various gauges--usually 19 gauge (about 1 mm wire) to 22 gauge (about 0.7 mm wire). Chicken wire is occasionally used to build inexpensive pens for small animals (or to protect plants and property from animals)

In construction, chicken wire or hardware cloth is used as a metal lath to hold cement or plaster, a process known as stuccoing. Concrete reinforced with chicken wire or hardware cloth yields ferrocement, a versatile construction material. It can also be used to make the armature for a papier-mâché sculpture, when relatively high strength is needed.

The History of Chicken Wire

Charles Barnard, a British ironmonger, built the world's first wire-netting machine in 1844. He based his design on cloth weaving machines. Soon the firm of Barnard, Bishop & Barnard, established in Norwich, was selling wire netting all over the world. 

During World War II, the fine wire used to make chicken wire was used to make large wire ground mats for radar systems, evening out the random reflections from the uneven ground below. The installation of these systems caused a countrywide shortage of chicken wire in the United Kingdom.

During World war II it was also commonly put on helmets by German soldiers to cover the helmet and camouflage it with plants and branches.

                                      How Wire Mesh is Made

FUN AND EDUCATIONAL!! HOW FENCING WIRE IS MADE!! YOU'LL ENJOY THIS VLOG! - YouTube

Step 1: Hook the wire onto a stool, then they are put through the raptors of the building through a pully system, once this is done the wire gets welded together.

Step 2: Then the welded wire gets put through a weaving machine that knot and tie the wire together forming into a bundle , afterwards the wire bundle comes of the machine to be hand cut and processed.

Step 3: The wire is then put into a machine that crimps the wire, in order to hold the wire tight.

Step 4: Next the wire is put into a machine that coats the wire in lubricant, before it gets put into another machine that ties the wire together. In order to do this the wire gets put into the machine and then is twisted around and cut

Step 5: After the wire has been tied, each individual piece is then hand woven to form the wire fencing, continuously twisting each piece together to form the shape.

I researched into how wire mesh is made because I wanted to see the construction process, and the machines that are used throughout the process. By learning about this I was able to see how the wire becomes flexible enough to form shapes but still strong enough to endure some damage. In addition to this I also realized that although I had originally thought that the majority of the wire mesh would be created by machinery, this was not the case as a large amount was done by hand. Such as entwining the wire piece’s individuals together to form the fencing.

Types of Wire Mesh

           Types of mesh

Depending on the type of material used meshes are of the following types:

Plastic     meshes are made from polypropylene, polyethylene, nylon, PVC or PTFE.

Cloth     meshes are made of loosely woven or knitted fabric with a large number of     closely spaced holes. Knitted mesh is frequently used for modern sports     jerseys and other clothing.

Skin     graft meshes are skin patches cut systematically to create a mesh.

Fiberglass     mesh is a neatly woven, crisscross pattern of fiberglass thread used to     create products such as filtration components, reinforced adhesive tapes     etc.

Metal     meshes are made of various metals which each give their physical and     chemical properties to the mesh, which are then widely used in various     industries.

Metal Meshes

Meshes made of metal can be woven, knitted, welded, expanded, photo-chemically etched or electroformed. Some common metals used in making wire meshes are:

Stainless     steel woven mesh has high resistance to rusting and corrosion and is     widely used across many industries

Carbon     steel woven and welded wire mesh is affordable, versatile, strong and     magnetic. It can be galvanized or given a PVC coating or painted for     corrosion resistance.

Copper     mesh is ductile, malleable, durable and has high thermal and electrical     conductivity. It is also resistant to atmospheric corrosion; although a     green patina forms on exposure. It is attractive and used in many artistic     and residential projects.

Brass     woven wire mesh is soft and malleable, abrasion resistant and has high     tensile strength. It has industrial applications but is also used for     artistic applications.

Bronze     mesh is malleable, durable and ductile as well as resistant to atmospheric     corrosion.

Aluminium     woven wire mesh is lightweight, corrosion resistant and affordable. It is     used in many industries including aerospace, automotive, marine.

Tuttle embraced a handmade quality and the invention of forms that emphasize the occupation of these space along with volume. Over the course of his career, he has continued to overturn traditional constraints of material, medium, and method that engages a variety of traditional and non-traditional processes such as in his wire, small-scale collage, dyed cloth, and octagonal pieces.

Tuttle work is mainly small scaled and intimate, experimenting with colour, material and form. By using materials such as sculpture, painting, drawing, printmaking, and artist’s books to installation and furniture.

I really liked the wire piece’s that Tuttle creates, I liked how small and intimate they become in the way they are able to be held in two hands. In addition to this I also liked the combination of the variety of mediums being combined together to create different compositions and textures.

“My curiosity was aroused by the idea of giving structural form to the images in my drawings. These forms come from observing plants, the spiral shell of a snail, seeing light through insect wings, watching spiders repair their webs in the early morning, and seeing the sun through the droplets of water suspended from the tips of pine needles while watering my garden.” “My curiosity was aroused by the idea of giving structural form to the images in my drawings. These forms come from observing plants, the spiral shell of a snail, seeing light through insect wings, watching spiders repair their webs in the early morning, and seeing the sun through the droplets of water suspended from the tips of pine needles while watering my garden.”

Ruth Asawa was an American artist known for her intricate sculptures based on sinuous organic forms. Using galvanized wire, stone, and bronze, Asawa crafted nest-like works inspired by native Mexican basket-weaving techniques. “I was interested in it because of the economy of a line, making something in space, enclosing it without blocking it out. It’s still transparent,” she said of her materials. “I realized that if I was going to make these forms, which interlock and interweave, it can only be done with a line because a line can go anywhere.”

I really liked how Asawa talked about giving structural form to the images of their drawings, because this connection is really apparent in the way the sculptures are structured and exhibited. In addition to this I liked how when exhibited the lighting was also a important aspect of showing how transparent the wire sculpture is, and how this was able to project the shadows formed by the sculptures themselves, as this made the sculptures produce multiple drawings when exhibited together, adding to illusion of there being more sculptures then they are.

The Mind

284cmx103cm

07/05/21

For my degree show piece I decided that I wanted to start to push the wire mesh further. To do this, I decided to incorporate objects into my piece in order to see what would happen if I tried to weave into the object. By weaving the wire into the plinth it pushed the wire to it’s limits, and you were able to visually see it movements being constricted. In addition to this, I also began to incorporate old jumpers that I had, to further empathise of things being trapped in the mesh, and emotions associated with fear and imposter syndrome.

Dancing to the Rhythm 

112cmx48cm

19/04/21

For this piece I was still interested in scaling up my work, and using it as a way to present both materiality and movement aspect of my practice. Due to this, I wanted to focus more on using the floor space, as opposed to mainly working on the walls. Because of this, the works started to become more alive, and I was able to explore the pushing the mesh to it’s limits.

The floor space allowed me to have more control on how I could scale up the movement that my pieces have. I was able to do this, as I had move room to bend, and increase the height of the shapes that I was creating. As well as, allowing me to change the direction of where I wanted to wire mesh to go.

Water 

07/04/21

During creating this piece, I wanted to further increase the scale of how I was working, in order to not rely on the wall as my foundation. Because of this, I started to be able to have more freedom in how I presented the work. By being able to have more control on how I presented the work, It was easier to identify how I wanted to show the movement in the work. Furthermore, it also allowed me to make the movement look like it was moving naturally, without it looking artificial.

Waves

84cmx36cm

18/03/21

For this piece I wanted to explore incorporating movement in my work. I decided to try and mimic the movement of waves, in order to make it look natural, and as though it is moving. However, I soon realized that although it was easy to form the square wire mesh, it wasn’t easy to do this with the diamond mesh. The diamond mesh is firmer, because of this it is harder to bend and form then the square mesh. Whilst this made it hard to mimic the shapes that waves produce, I was still able to explore bending and manipulating the wire. As well as this, I also I started to look at how I can enhance this aspect, by using the colours of the yarn to select areas where I wanted the movement to be more prominent.

Torso 

82cmx64cm

11/03/21

I wanted to continue making sculptures that didn’t rely on the working directly on the wall. Because of this, I looked at how I could start to form the wire mesh into spontaneous abstract shapes. By doing this, I was able to have more control of the movement that I could form the mesh. In addition to this, I still used the piece as a drawing board to be able to explore different ways of weaving with the yarn. Whilst weaving, I liked doubling the yarn to be able to have different thickness and tones. Another thing that I liked about this piece, was the human qualities that the work captures, because the shape reminds me of an human torso. Whilst forming the piece I didn’t plan it to have human qualities, due to this I liked how yarn and paper strips looked like stitches.

The Act of Being Unbalanced 

71cmx42cm

06/03/21

For the next piece I wanted to focus more on using the paper strips with the wire mesh. The reason why I wanted to do this, was I felt that I had focused too much on using the threads in the work. As well as this, I wanted to experiment more with just using the same colour thread as the paper strips. By doing this not only did it make the materials look more pure and clean. But it also allowed the light to reflect of onto the materials, and the curves of the formed sculpture.

Caged 

90cmx47cm

01/03/21

For this work I wanted to experiment more with constricting the wire and forcing the wire into the shape. Because of this I found that it was a lot harder to pull back the wire, as opposed to bending inwards. As well as this I also felt that I preferred focusing on certain areas to weave into, instead of weaving into the majority of the wire. Due to wanting to use the thread as a way to enhance the shape and movement further, without it being overbearing.