Last week was a busy one around here! We participated in Artscape where we showed work from Make Studio artists for sale and I installed Royal Forms, a site-specific sculptural experiment, to culminate my experience working as a visiting artist at Make Studio in the pilot residency program.

After spending awhile deciding on a project, it was decided that I’d ask artists at Make Studio to contribute any digital images they have referenced as source material for previous work to my project. The concept was to use on-hand materials and imagery to reflect the special interests and aesthetic of our community. Print-outs that the artists offered up were then made into semi-transparent transfers (coated with several layers of Mod Podge, dried, and then the paper backing was removed). We made a whole lot of these. Here’s the process in action:

Finally, using the basic principles of garment construction, I combined and fused the image transfers together to create a variety of shapes that would become Royal Forms! They changed quite a bit over the very, very hot and stormy weekend. This is a detail from after the installation was dismantled:

An excerpt from the artist’s statement: Royal Forms were constructed from the vast array of digital images that are frequently used as source material and reflect the diversity of Make Studio participants and their creative interests. This project utilized available cultural (symbols, stereotypes, icons, celebrity) and material surplus (donated craft supplies, recycled items) in order to advance a communal aesthetic and ethic. As a whole, the residency’s focus on exploring subcultural affiliation, identifying stereotypes, and stereotyped identities is reflected in Royal Forms content and co-creation.

Pretty wild, huh? Overall, it was such a great time and I was both surprised and pleased with the final piece. I’m hoping to revisit “the forms” again in the future and held on to a number of transfers that weren’t used at Artscape. So, I’ll be saving this fave for now… Thanks for hosting me, Make Studio!