I initially wanted the piece to have a basic hexagon frame to hold a base structure that would sit on the shoulders, and then have a very oversized 'hat' that would act as the point of the lantern and would be detached from the main body of the piece. The technicians in the 3D room said that thin steel would work, but I would have to learn how to weld. Whilst I want to learn how to weld and steel would be the more finished option, I wanted to see if it would work first before I tried this. So I bought sticks of bamboo and cut them to the same size as the panels I had made. I then tried to thread wire through them but as it turns out the bamboo was not grown enough to be hollow all the way through. Back to the drawing board. I then decided to just gaffa tape the wire to the sticks of bamboo to create a sort of tent pole like rod that could be threaded through the top of the lantern and so the material would hang off it. Wire could then be threaded across the hexagon so it would sit on the shoulders of the wearer. As it hung on my hat stand all pinned in shape I realised the white panels were too wide, and it would look better if they were stitched so that the blue panels were together and the white silk was sticking out. This looked better because it gave the spectacle more depth and texture and the possibility to add more boning to hold the shape would be there.
I then made the top - or the hat - of the spectacle. As in my original drawing, I wanted flaps to represent tiles and I wanted lots of different textures of the colour green to mimic the original lanterns that I saw in San Francisco. Willow has more flexibility than bamboo, so I used willow to thread through the edges of the shape that through to make it hold its form. When I put it all together on a person (they were holding it up), my first thought was that it didn't work at all. I hated it because it wasn't oversized enough, as I had pictured a big floppy top to the lantern.
This was a pivotal moment for me. I realised that I had been so focused on making the spectacle look like a lantern that I realised that more often than not my works start off as something and then develop into something else entirely. I think this is because the original drawing I did for the lantern was more decorative and figurative and not very abstracted, which meant that whatever I made from the drawing was also going to more realistic. As soon as I took out the willow and put in on the head looking like this - all floppy - I knew that that was how it was supposed to be. Having it flopped down like this is more other worldly as it is difficult to know exactly what it is. Seeing how much better the top part of the spectacle worked without the willow through it I knew that I needed to also change the bottom half as that to was too structured. So I decided to take a risk and cut the bottom half apart completely, in order to construct it the same was as I made the top - in four triangles to form a pyramid type shape which would sit on the shoulders. This spectacle has been difficult to make, and I think that is because I have been working from such a figurative drawing which left little room for experimental interpretation. However seeing it on the body like this (see below), it is much closer to how I pictured it in my mind.
I always imagined it with bells on each corner - not large ones so that they are particularly noticeable but so that there is sound when there is movement. Bells have a lot of symbolic meanings - from religious connotations to the association with the mind and the expansion of consciousness. Bells are rung to mark the time, and are intended to be heard from a distance. I like the idea that you can hear the spectacle before you even see it. To me this also relates to festivals, where often you hear the music and the sound of the culture before you see it, and when you eventually do see it, it is a moment of pure beauty. There are many other reasons why I wanted to incorporate bells. They announce an arrival - like a door bell - but they also are rung for the beginning or ending of something - at weddings or at a funeral. The degree show is the culmination of three years of uni, it is the ending of a massive chapter of my life, but this is also the beginning of a brand new chapter where hopefully I can carry on the ideas that I have only the scraped on this last year of uni. In china, bells are a way to connect with the spirits, so I cannot help but feel that it is appropriate to use them on a spectacle that is not only based on a Chinese lantern but a spectacle that is trying to channel an other worldly feel.
I am still not 100% happy with this spectacle, this could be because it is a very different spectacle to what I have created previously, in that it is more decorative and is made from a material with a pre-existing pattern on it, and I wonder whether I will reach a point with it where I decide it is just time to stop working on it completely and scrap it.
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