Thesis Journal

“Esoteric Africana” is an art installation and exhibition inspired by wizard tropes, high fantasy, and my own mixed race lineage. It would take the form of several art pieces with the main focus on the installation aspect. Each piece serves as an ode to my own art journey and my experience experimenting in different mediums. 

In Esoteric Africana we walk into the lair of Oburogi, a wizard and diviner from another world in another time. One similar to ours but brimming with magic, monsters, and mysteries. 

Oburogi has pinned to the wall scrolls of three great creatures, each unique but familiar. Popo Bawa, a giant bat creature that sucks the souls of man in the night. Lukwata, a grand serpent-like dragon that stalks the great lake. And the mythical Nyeupe Kudu, the tall white antelope with glowing eyes and three horns. Each holds a key ingredient to the key to eternal life.

The garments of Oburogi sit in the room, a robe and staff adorned with stars and sacred symbols.

Out of the total concepts and items mentioned the most common were:

Magic mentioned 3106 times (16.5%) Wands, Sticks, or Staffs mentioned 2831 times (15.1%) Hats mentioned 2967 times (15.8%)  Robes or Cloaks mentioned 1624 times (8.6%)  Wisdom and Age mentioned 1060 times (5.6%) Pointy (In reference to hats) mentioned 965 times (5.1%)  Beards mentioned 511 times (2.7) Stars mentioned 323 times (1.7%)

All other concepts or answers  listed less than 300 times make up 22.4 % of the responses.

I've made progress on my african wizard robe (with some wax help of my partner) we cut out the backing peice/base, tried it on to make sure the length was right, now were onto the actual design and decor. I went ahead and decided to continue using the batik process since the result i got the first time was very nice, my partner had the idea lf making strips that we peice together to keep the patchwork look from the first large test.

After my initial intention i came to a conclusion about what my Thesis is going to be actualized as.

Here are the results of my larger batik tests. admittedly, these pieces were left in the dye bath for far too long. But I was pleasantly surprised at how well the wax worked at resisting the dye. The pieces where I used a linoblock to place the wax didn't perform nearly as well as when I applied the wax with a brush.

After I used the iron and newspaper to melt a majority of the wax out of the fabric, i worked on turing these sample pieces into a larger patchwork piece. It honestly was after i spent time removing the wax and doing more casual research (aka watching youtube videos) about adinka Cloth that I came to the conclusion. Batik dying isn't the path I want to explore with pattern making for my thesis.

This also came about when I spent more time refining my proposal draft. I will dedicate a separate post just to that. for now lets get back to the batik project!

Here are the fruits of my labor, I didn't have a specific plan with the placement of each swatch. I just spent some time in front of the sewing maching holistically matching up peices of like sizes to grow the tapestry until I used up all the pieces. These are honestly my favorite types of sewing projects.

In a standard room light setting, you can see where the wax bleed out from. I honestly really enjoy these darker sections. They break up the ligher indigo. and contrast nicely with the off-white of the muslin. But where I personally get the most value for this peice is putting it infront of a window

I love seeing the sections of each patch, and the lighting from behind really makes the white and indigo pop.

Yesterday (9/2), I spent some time doing some small-scale batik tests with lino blocks.

I spent a couple minutes carving two quick and crude linos to test with.

A classmate and friend kept me company while i tested (her arms are the ones stamping in this photo). The process was heating some wax up in a pot, diping the stamp in, and quickly pressing it against the fabric.

After this, i soaked the fabric in a cold dye bath just so i could see what it may turn out like.

Overall the results are pretty okay. the next step is exploring materials and ways of applying the wax to the fabric and seeing if this is scalable.

Yesterday evening and today I worked on some more things related to my thesis. I created digital versions of the symbols I designed in my sketchbook.

For the most part my studio space will be my apartment/front and back yards. I was at first thinking about using the Fiber Arts Studio on the first floor of the school but after further investigation I found out it was actually being used by a couple MFA students. To me, it didn't seem that it was organized or in active use. I found dead moths, food and bugs in the washing machine and dust everywhere.

So, under the idea that it was an abandoned space with the help of a classmate, we cleaned it up a bit and made it a more navigateable space. I don't have any before photos, but i have an after. you will have to trust me on the initial state of it.