#tuslimerick

This time, I sketched out in pencil on the fabric the final patterns that tomorrow I will be trying to paint!

The back design was hard to photograph because of the light, so my apologies that I couldn't get a better photograph to show all the details of both sides!

All I had left for the first layer is to go over the bottom half, and here you can see the work that's been done! It might not be obvious, but doing this actually honestly took quite a few hours!

Then today, honestly, I'm feeling very distraught, I've been feeling burned out and really tired again and I'm just worried I've been putting more energy out than I've been getting back from rest, to the point that I've struggled to wake up, and my room being really cold probably doesn't help either, but despite not being able to make it college today, I did do some work and finished the second layer on the tracing paper!

So I should be ready to get everything printed tomorrow! Honestly, I don't imagine it'll take long, so hopefully, that means I can also go back to finish the dress from last week's workshop!!

I'm honestly really excited to do this one now as I love storytelling with art and words, so I went in that direction with this workshop, especially because lately, my themes with hoarding have started becoming very personal to me.

My idea with this zine really is that I wanted to truly hit the mark with the emotions of it, especially the struggle of letting go out of fear or paranoia and how that just really gets you spiraling, but I wanted to also include a good end to it, to inspire hope out of the struggle of giving things away, and I did this about me as I've been someone that has cried many times over thing's I've lost or missed out on, someone that clings on memories and items to never forget, out of fear and anxiety, I could honestly go on for hours about how deeply it goes with me this whole theme I've chosen.

Every little choice and memory I'm representing in this zine, but I think I want to leave some mystery to it for now to the things that aren't so obvious!

So the reason for my choices of colour here and incorporating actual plastic from home, was just to mimic the colourful aspects of my other works as well as just a few other reasons that I'll get to in a second.

Starting off with the stomach, as I've mentioned in other posts, I wanted it to resemble trash bags being over filled and looking heavy, to show the struggle of getting rid of possessions, even when it has no use and how hard it is just to even move around to try get rid of it all due to the environment. The way hoarding is, everything you cling to, in a way, clings to you back, even if you did want to get rid of everything, it becomes impossible to even navigate and organise to get to that point of freedom, it quite literally drags you down, like this being is too in my sculpture.

Continuing on with the limbs, again I wanted to show the struggle with movement, the weakness that comes from being like this, I wanted to use reds and purples, to show how winded and in pain someone gets, to the point of even loosing circulation from such heaviness being carried around, and since I used coloured inks, it looks vibrant, which makes it match with my previous paintings.

Finally the head, it's completely obscured by the hair covering it, to show how weak the being is, struggling to even keep their head up, all they can do is barely crawl in pain, almost giving up, it is a difficult emotion this work brings out, and it's exactly how I wanted it to turn out.

Now, for artist research, honestly I struggled this time, not because I don't know lots of artists, but because from peer reviews I felt this pressure that it had to be someone western and well known, even though in my personal opinion, who I've posted so far has been people who are very well known, just some of their fame isn't worldwide, that to the average person that doesn't keep up with non western media, wouldn't recognise, and that frustrated me.

I honestly felt very sad and overwhelmed which is why I really couldn't find it in me to make more posts, especially because I also felt confused... it made me confused that on the first peer review my tumblr was complimented with only one advice which I followed immediately after, but than the second one suddenly there's more than one thing wrong and it made me too scared to do anything...

So after a lot of anxiety I looked at moodle and the final form of the peer review, and I started to feel even worse, but one thing I noticed, there was three artists recommended for my project, and that I appreciated, because I looked at their works, and they definitely sparked my interest and I felt the connection with my work from them, so that's who I'll be writing about here.

First off, considering this work being 3D I want to start with talking about Alberto Giacometti, who's a Swiss sculptor and painter, a lot of his sculptures are very surrealist and have that gruesome handy work quality to them, of being just very thought provoking and emotional, you can feel the life that was put into his works by just looking at a few of his sculptures, they're not smooth or perfect, it shows the humanity in it, and the grittiness is something I want to and have been embracing my work for it's imperfections.

(Source linked with image, accessible on desktop)

This one here among many others of his sculptures caught my eye, like I mentioned, it isn't smooth or perfect, it's human, it's full of emotions and it feels vulnerable, just like how I want and have been trying to make my work feel like, it motivates me to try create works that are even grittier than I have before, it makes me very curious to try use metals in my work in the future as well.

Here now instead is a showcase of multiple of his works with Alberto himself included in the image, which I honestly think has multiple qualities that resemble my own sculpture, especially with the long surreal limbs of each figure, I can really see my work taking qualities from his, even without realising.

Next up, and honestly my absolute favourite recommendation, is HR Giger, who's works have inspired books and been included in the movie Alien, he truly is an incredibly creative individual, making fantasy realism and morbid art, going far and beyond creating extremely imaginitive pieces that have very eery yet beautiful qualities to them.

HR Giger has honestly done loads, books, paintings, sculptures even furniture and film designs, he's another Swiss artist, and his work is genuinely mind blowing to me.

The Zodiac Sign Fish, from 1995, made in cast silver, is honestly such an amzing sculpture, it is just so mesmerising to look at and I just love the fins at the end, how it kind of looks like a hand as well with very thin webbed fingers, it is almost grotesque but in such a beautiful way, it genuinely makes me want to do works like this especially with all it's curves it serves as inspiration for the spiraling aspects of my works so far.

(Source linked to image)

Katarakt, 2004, I genuinely love this one, it has this horror element to it yet, this peace and darkness, the curves and twists, the grotesqueness and morbidness of it, it connects perfectly with my work and visual ideas, especially with the amount of the same patterns here, it really fits with my ideas for my hoarding theme, I just genuinely love this one so much, I can't even begin to think of what else to say about it.

Lastly this one is a specific piece from 2005, called Waste Not by Chinese artist Song Dong, this now directly influences my themes with hoarding as the whole piece is about not getting rid of anything and instead recycling it constantly, the piece itself shows with the amount of materials how it all can and has been reporpoused, exploring the themes of survival during tragedy, showing the lived struggle, how you cannot afford to waste anything, that nothing can be constantly replaced during struggle, it also evokes plenty of other simbolisms and commentary over a massive amounts of issues the world all together faces.

I've linked there the article about it that better describes and delves in about the work and Song Dong's life, I think it's a really good read about her.

Here's one image of her work exhibited in 2006, Museum of Modern Art in New York, image can be found either from the link about her or through the image as well.

I honestly think it looks beautiful and very literally connects to the themes I've explored with hoarding and the fear or inability to rid of anything for numerous reasons, including the tragedy Song Dong's family has faced, mentioned in the linked article.

And now that's everything I have to write here, my apologies for this taking so long even if I've already posted explanations about that, I still feel bad about it, but finally getting this done now will let me get back to working better I think.

Due to being sick the past few days, and I might still be sick for the rest of the week, I'm not sure, I will take time now to post more about my ideas, the artists and things that inspire me and information about the theme I'm doing.

(The outlined text links to web pages of where information has been sourced from)

To start like I've mentioned plenty, my whole project so far is centering around hoarding and how it relates to consumption and production. So let me inform you a little more in depth about it:

As mentioned before, hoarding means a person collecting a various mantitude of items and having extreme difficulty getting rid of and keeping organised of everything they own, it is a serious mental health disorder that often affects many disabled people or people with other mental health disorders, for example OCD and anxiety, it is also often a trauma response in other to cope with the potential PTSD a person might have.

Something you might not be aware of is that what someone hoards can be literally anything, from boxes to digital information, and for some, especially those with OCD, memory hoarding, reasons for doing so can range from being a calmin coping mechanism, to parnoia and anxiety, fear of still needing it in the future, to emotional attachment and so on, it can also happen if someone struggles to organise things in general or clean things up due to lack of mobility and energy which can be cause by various disabilities and disorders.

Severe hoarding can cause numerous issues, from health complications due to lack of hygiene or injuries from lack of space, to worsening already present mental health disorders and disabilities, it can also affect those around the person with the hoarding disorder.

As it hopefully is obvious, it heavily relates to consumption and production as hoarding literally is activaly participating in consumerism and production of the things that are being hoarded, and it also 'produces' various issues as mentioned.

(Source of image linked, using this as an example image)

Now continuing on, the things that have inspired me how to visually showcase hoarding, are things like decora fashion, which although partaking in such fashion in of itself is not an act of hoarding, the maximalist nature of it mirrors the nature of what hoarding can look like.

The fashion itself is a subgenre of Japanese alternative fashion, a way to rebel against conforming to society in a colourful and youthful, accessory filled manner, it has also been a way to reclaim one's childhood since the fashion often includes accessorising and dressing after childhood nostalgic items and childhood fictional characters, which in my opinon can also be a form of comfort for those with childhood trauma, those who were forced to grow up too quickly, as well as to rebel against the idea that adulthood can't have anything childish about it.

To me in a way some forms of hoarding can relate to this fashion style as it can also be a form of coping from childhood trauma and clinging to past nostalgia desperately to cope, to me they mirror each other as decora fashion can be a fairly healthy fashion style as it takes a lot of time and effort and even self care to be able to carry out the style, while hoarding is an incredibly unhealthy way of collecting things, they essentially have similar aspects but are done in opposite sides of healthy and unhealthy.

And that's what makes me want to combine the two in my art pieces, showing the beauty and vibrancy of decora fashion and showing the effects and tragedy of real hoarding, in a way it is also a statement on how often the pretty things we see and put out, especially on social media, are hiding the tragedies and horrors behind it.

In a way that's what capitalism does, and that also relates to consumption and production!

It all connects, art whether you want it or not to can always find many ways to make a political message, isn't that wonderful? How powerful we can be as artists, able to have impacts with our art.

(Example of Decora Fashion, Instagram of person above included)

What about artists that inspire me and works of art that I find relates in some ways to my ideas? Well unfortunately our class was recommended to do research about said artists through the library but due to being sick I'm unable to access all the books there, but that doesn't mean I don't know any artitst at all!

And well all the artitsts that inspire me most are contemporary, most of which can be found through their social medias, so let me tell you about some of my favourites who I think relate to the ways I want to make my art for this project!

Someone who I've consistently followed and felt inspired by is Yuu Miyashita's work, a japanese singer and artist, often making his own album art and at times animating his own music videos, his work, the fluidity in his animation, the use of light and colour, the thin line work, it all just is so etheral to me and the amount of emotions his work evokes in me, it's hard to say exactly how he directly influences my work, but I know I heavily take after him in some ways, at times it might just be the emotions I feel from his work is all that affects me but to me it's still important.

(Example of Yuu Miyashita's art work)

Now another artist who I really like and I think for this project I take heavy inspiration for the vibrant colour used in their artworks, as I envion my work pieces to become full of colour is known as @/nounoknown is another Japanese illustrator, known most for making art for vocaloid songs, specifically GUMI, seeing their works on youtube thumbnails for music videos is something that brings me a lot of nostalgia as someone who grew up listening to this type of music, and I think that's an important aspect that relates to the themes I'm exploring, specifically the childhood aspect.

(Example of nounoknown's art work)

Here's the final results! I accidentally sewed one of the arm holes shut, so I had to pull the strings out to make it wearable again, which was a bit of a hassle, but I got it done!!

I'm going to try brainstorming ideas over the weekend for the animation, I might base it off the zine I've made! I really want to get the feeling of overwhelmed and spiralling across with hoarding in it, so I'll be thinking of that!

I also want to talk about a certain artwork that's been on my mind for a long while, something that always makes me very emotional, and visually, I find it still connects to my work even if the message itself isn't fully related but it does relate heavily to consumption in general.

This is "Untitled" (Portrait of Ross in L.A.) from 1991 by Felix Gonzales-Torres.

This piece represents Felix's partner, Ross Laycock, who passed away from AIDs, the pile of sweets start at being 175 lbs, the weight of his partner, are free for anyone to take from the gallery, and the pile getting smaller is supposed to represent the AIDs consuming his partner's health and body as he starts getting weaker and closer to passing away because of the disease.

You can also interpret it by considering how much people were shunned and turned away for just being queer or having AIDs and making survival even more difficult, being abused and consumed by the disease and the way society was at the time, (not that it's so much better now either though), it would just beat you down and tear you apart.

The piece can easily be misinterpreted due to how colourful and full of sweets it literally is, giving a false sense of niceness to what is truly a miserable and emotional piece and message from a very serious time period for us queer folks.

In that way, it relates to how my work with hoarding has been very colourful and also giving a fake sense of cuteness and nice when the disorder itself literally eats away at you and overwhelms you, it can make you sick with how many things are being hoarded, and I can just imagine that a lot of victims during the AIDs epidemic also were likely to have developed hoarding disorders as a way to cling to their lives and leave evidence and proof of their suffering, to show we existed and refused to perish silently.

"Untitled" is such a powerful image, a very clear embodiment of consumption, it always breaks my heart thinking about it, and I genuinely think it is an important artwork that needs to be remembered and talked about, so that's why I'm doing it.

For photoshop this time I'm focusing on my own home and trying to relate it to hoarding and my life and past, Paul Gardiner recommended I try to stylise things like a movie posters so I'm looking at horror movie and animated movie posters.

One of my most obvious inspiration is honestly the Spider-verse posters, as they're honestly beautiful and there's so much going on with fits with the overwhelmingness of amount of things with hoarding and my room also includes quite a few Spider-verse things, like my figurines and the art book for the first movie!

The next few are all from horror movies, most I haven't seen yet but the posters themselves really fit with my themes of spiralling out of control and just that fear and anxiety that comes with hoarding.

The common themes these 3 posters visually have is the amount of spirals and just emotions being shown and I just really feel drawn to them, and the Suspiria movie is something that I really want to look more into especially because the original movie is Italian, and I'm Italian so it connects with personal aspects I want to go with my project.