A morphing sequence of four images.

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Purse-Peacock

this is an image of many of the images that became my sewing box for this design. It itself is then manipulated and stitched with my name, university id number and the name of the studio design programme, An Architecture Sewn.

Appearing out of this distorted sewing box is the item which intrigued me most. My mums purse lent to me on an occasion. This purse is made in India to that Governments Satisfaction. It is constructed in black velvet and couched stiches of various threads. Beneath this layer is the stiffening of cardboard and the softening of a filling. Then to a layer of lining which is the silky surface of the interior world where we, in particularly my mum and myself, can carry and hide the objects for our evening. The purse is divided into two areas . In one there is a small pocket attached to the centre of the back wall of the purse. The handle is from rolled velvet and stuffing. But it is to the surface of the front flap of the purse our eyes are drawn. This area of decoration and embellishment is the show piece, the part that we hold out to be viewed , the part that we coordinate with our own costume. In trying to understand this area I've peeled the surface away from the structure of the purse.

The peeled away surface becomes fabric like, the container of the three dimensional world. Drawn up from its flattened template and pattern, it wraps itself around, but does not return to, the structure unaffected. The process has meant that the mathematical description of its surface has been pulled and that pulling as allowed the whole fabric to be holed, crumpled, and described in a three dimensional way. Surface is not a two dimensional flat pattern as often it seems to be read or even presented, but is the descriptor in three dimensions of a barrier. In this frame I have chosen to look for the object that which has been infuriatingly lost. I known it was put and left in there but as of yet I have not found it.

Sew in this morph I end with the golden surface of the purse. The light is the glorification of the woman, who owns the purse, the wonders of stitchery and the investigation of architecture. It is through a knowledge and want to bring the fibres, the fabric and the structures of this art of embroidery into my growing world of buildable forms that this investigation will lead. The purse is seen here in a state of continual flux only for a moment may we read one instance in its changing. The change of it causes and insists that its surroundings, it title and its self are read as one dynamic world.

Samplers.

Five images from an investigation of a method of pattern making.

Suggestions from the Victorian era would have us believe that it is part of a woman's nature to be interested in, and able to do embroidery. Indeed

"Great knowledge, pains and skill are required to win the prize in needlework, which is suitable employment for all woman, queens and noble ladies as well as maids of low degree, who by their skill and fame often come to be companions of noble ladies and even teachers of the daughter of a king, and thus raise their own rank."

G Ciotti, found in "The subversive Stitch" Rozsika Parker.

As the notion was to believe in the woman being closer to nature, therefore less civilised, the subject matter of this more natural process of women was of course nature its self. Self fulfilling prophets? In "simple" reflection and rotations the things of nature were taken and multiplied into elaborate images for stitchery.

Picted out in crosses and dots is the single cluster of the gardens nature. Naturally of the season and even some of the native flora, it is reflected upon and begins the build up of the pattern

Again a cluster from the garden. Here rotated and viewed from many sides. The rotation its self remembered as the blur of the lack of definition, in the cross stitched screen.

A native, and therefore to be civilised in this process, this Manuka flower becomes the daisy in the lattice of the image.

And from the forms of nature we get to the gothic garden building. The boughs of the leaf are the arched ribs of the cathedrals wing?.

Until we repeat and reflect and we "of course" return to a nature. "Mary Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow, with silver bells and cockle shells, ..."

The Growth of an Architecture.

A morph showing the plan of the site and the growth of the building which is then plucked of each layer to return to the site,

The lines of this fabric, of this site plan are coloured and dyed by the nature of its building and its influences.

As the plans grows it opens to show this alien form, not of the gardens form, this alien reflects it.

And then in its shimmering it has each layer plucked carefully from its surface to present the next level of fascination.

During the journey into the structure our view of the garden changes. Past the initial surface presentation of flowers we come to the foliage of the beneath.

Then we have the layer of the fabric which lies on the lowest surface of this garden, and before we enter another world our alien rebuilds and is again returned to the fabric of the site.

"THIS THREAD OF ARIADNES IMPLIED THAT EVEN VICTORY OVER THE MONSTER WOULD BE IN VAIN UNLESS YOU COULD DISENTANGLE YOURSELF FROM ITS WEB"

John Ruskin, Fors Clavigera
from "The Subversive Stitch"

Threadhouse Morph.

Three images that are tampered with then morphed.

Whether these images are lost in the web or just wish to remove the hierarchy of the line in descriptions of architecture is as yet undecided. The nature of the descriptions is an attempt to portray the stitched surface plane, in the way it brings the objects forward to the texture of the surface. Originally these images were sectional drawings of the building that were generated and printed. This surface was then played with in a medium familiar to many when sculpting on the surface, make-up. It often seems to be that women are pushed to the surface arts, in embroidery, in interior design, etc, and that it still has a connotation of lesser. The choice was made to use make-up which is so familiar and then investigate it in an unfamiliar application. And just as stitchery has been seen as a frivolous way of studying architecture, mark making with makeup received similar response. Scanned back into the sanitised world these images were then again stitched with the addition of the images of threads were built into fabric and laces.

the definition between stitch and line is lost. Elements are interpreted by the viewer, or perhaps not as may be intended. The threads begin to swirl and the snow storm becomes the lace and linen.

Lace fabric is lined with the blue and then stitched with the threads of the section. The edges of the fabric are then held and stretched and in the slippage the third section comes through.

Snow and water are bounded by the edges, the shadows of the threads, this darkness is drawn to the side and in it passage pulls out the threads of the section which fold back into the unseen space behind the surface of the embroidery.

Sectional Morph

The motion of morphs themselves is seductive. We are caught in the world which is greatly familiar, learnt from the television we quickly accept the chosen view point and all it conventions.

The lines appear conventional in all ways except for the shimmering. The clouding and motion of lines mask over the structure for which they are a description.

Flickering lines, blurs and colours dissolve away and disclose another description of the structure and it domain.

Then the stable world behind seems to buck. It is itself only an image a plane of pixel's to be manipulated.

Sectional drawing, picture plane and words all turn over, push and pull and the question becomes how do we read this information as a clue to an architecture.

Then the domain and its structure are upside down, the notion has become perpendicular and the "sensible" elevations are concertinaing their way out of the space behind the curtain of the screen.

"LINE IS THE THREAD OF ARIDANE, WHICH LEADS US THROUGH THE LABYRINTH OF MILLIONS OF NATURAL OBJECTS. WITHOUT LINE WE WOULD BE LOST."

George Groz from "The Subversive Stitch"

The next five sequences are from archicad. Simple in their construction, but doubting of the notion that "without line we would be lost." Lines themselves can mean nothing, can lie, can edge where there is not an edge, can confuse, can puzzle, can intrigue and can be of the entanglement of the web and not of the line out. The notion that the line has a precision is a fallacy. The thought that computer line is more believable as a buildable line is a con. The designers choice in viewpoint, in colouring, in the number of lines, in the speed of the motion, in the nature of the motion itself, even in the simple choice between wireframe and hidden line, all push a particular reading of the forms. These drawing are no more informative in themselves but what is happening is that because we already have a learnt response to a certain style we are able to read more quickly the information presented.

Here in a wireframe drawing we are at first lost in the confusion. It is possible for us to make readings of our own, but the uncertainty of not easily getting the authors thoughts is unsettling. Many quickly dismiss these images and move on, not lost in this web, for very few ever enter.

This fly though the top story of the building is easier but still unsettling. The closeness of the forms almost claustrophobic. This is not the gentle stroll, but a quirky and short jump. The hidden line removes all lines that become obscured. It does not however place the lines we would usually see in the joins and intersections. It is this lack of information which, in detailing especially, make the images harder to read.

Jumping around the outside we see five elevational views. Snapshot after snapshot. The lines of the fabric obscuring the floor below. In the hidden line views we have completely lose the transparent nature of purse. Reading of solid and void is clearer but it is not necessarily more informative to the nature of the intended building.

Travelling around the building's ground floor we have entered from outside the purse through a window of the bedroom wall. Moving forward still and into the downstairs bathroom from the hallway entrance we are shown slivers that are framed by the drawn windows of the form.

The path here takes us in side past one wall, it then spins us around disorientates the building and the lines and throws us to the edge. The images move at a rate where we only through familiarity do we see and pick up motifs of the building that we are growing to understand.

Seen like some hedgehog these pictures blur and dissolve into each other and in the final shots reveal the inside of walls and cables. The lines of the fabric of the purse and the cables seemingly all of the same hierarchy. Lines themselves we see dissolving in this series. From the apparent honesty of all the lines which produce only glimpses and confusion, to the hidden lines which don't give us the lines of the joints at an intersection, to the need to break down the long lines to short straight lines for the diagonals, to the obscuring of the lines at the horizon, to the blurring of the lines and to speed we need to be able to read them at.

We live every moment of our lives swathed in those ties... BUT WE CANT ALWAYS SEE THEM INDEED WE MUSTN'T, BECAUSE THEN WE WOULD BE PARALYSED, TRAPPED. WE FEEL THEM BLOWING ABOUT US THE MINUTE SOMETHING HAPPENS TO DISPEL OUR APATHY; AND WE BECOME AWARE OF BEING CARRIED ALONG ON A STREAM THAT FLOWS TOWARD SOMETHING UNKNOWN. AND JUST SOMETIMES BUT VERY RARELY, THOSE TIES TWIST AND TURN AND WEAVE AROUND US UNTIL ONE LOOSE END BECOMES KNOTTED TO ANOTHER THEN VERY SOFTLY THEY ENCOMPASSES ,THEY FORM A CIRCLE, WHICH IS THE CROWN, PERFECTION

The Radiance Images.

Danae

Evocative, of myth and legend, when first seen the image shows the fragments of the walls. They have been cut and have had elements drawn from their structure. The threads (rain) that hang above glitter down or are the threads removed?

Wiry One

Strongly perspective this shot suggests to me the tacking and the stitching of the first template. Again the wireframe has the suggestion of threads, this time silken in their lustre.

Below the purse

The column cables in this image are breaking up. As they do so they become more like the stiches, the warps and the wefts, that inspired them. Stitch lines appear in the walls where only the very edge of a fin pierces though the stone. Blocks and slivers of stone are supported like beads and clasps on and in the supporting web of the fabric.

wide eyed and upward looking

Here under the fins and surface of the purse we see the wall threads have dropped to be caught by the floor that is itself giving away. As we look up we peer through the silver of the purse surface and the fabric to the roof above, past the distorted floor and walls.

Inside the upper compartment

We move our view point up and now are able to see the sky. It is now possible to see the one steel wall seemingly out of place, found like we discover the forgotten pin in a garment. The light from the stone wall reflecting of the shining surface to pattern and suggest what it might be in the decoration, the embellishment and the embroidery of this space, in this particular place.

As with rosepath weaving the objects here trade places with which piece is on top. the thin flim of the purse encasing the inserts. then giving the external role to the stone of the lower floor. Without the fabric of the ground it is possible to see that while dependant on each other the floor plans are shifted from a direct line up. As in a fabric or garment the relationship is not that of a homogeneous whole but of structure gained by relationships between many elements.

Ether

In the claw of the peacock, on the surface of the fabric, the building is caught. Its upper surfaces sailing in the breath that makes this fabric shimmer and distort the lower level.

Across the ether

Banded by the garden design beyond the gossamer tent billows as we proceed up the silken blue path the lower world is sheltered by the wings of the bird whose size has made him unseeable.

And finally we get to the point of frustration. In judgement of myself, I see that the work has only investigated the fabric and the form that is sewn from the flat pattern or woven with areas of the weft missing. It is now time to start the embroidery. I now have the Basket of threads and the garment. From here the structure and the decoration must lose that sense of the polemic relationship to show the lessons of cut and drawn work, and how they might apply to an architecture. In this image we see that still the pictures are not part of the world but are there to fill and add to the image. When I begin to show that it is not evenness, or a balance I am trying to achieve but a complete integration of stich and fabric then hopefully I will have an Architecture Sewn.