Tulle and Candyfloss....the relationship to my own work and context

Since I discovered Karen Casper's work last year, I have been captivated by her multimedia creations.

Her inspirations run alongside mine including vintage embellishments, the mythical and sea-coral.  She uses a variety of techniques such as Devore, fabric painting, stitching and her trademark three dimensional embroidery with glow in the dark thread. I think the layered aspect to her lace makes the work so much more captivating, it demands a second and third look.

Karen's market seems to be for bespoke one-off creations which means she can afford to spend both time and money on precious materials and the customer can ensure no one will ever have the same.

Her creations are normally an accessory to the body which can be viewed not only as fashion for editorials but also as exhibition pieces.  I also think costume definitely has a strong influence over her work and sculptural embroideries.  Her latest creations....


Ventalina - 3D embroidered fan

The piece is insipred by the growth and cultivation of the undewater world named after Gorgonia ventalina, the purple sea fan, which is an especially beautiful and delicate coral whose latticework of branches is reminiscent of lace. I used a 19th Century French lace fan as the base and applied 3D glow in the dark embroidery that includes vintage lace. Other techniques used within the piece include devore, digital print and other fabric manipulations. Finally embellished with vintage pearls and jewels.   The work is part of the Manchester Museum's Coral: Something Rich and Strange Exhibition




Violet - 3D embroidered headpiece

I  created the contemporary headpiece using pieces of Gawthorpe's antique lace,combined with glow in the dark thread to produce a 3D embroidered sculpture. I also chose two headpieces  from their collection to gain inspiration from. A steamed fur felt skullcap style hat from 1930-40. Trimmed with leaf shapes of the same fabric and a section of gold chain and a ladies bonnet from 1860-1890. It has a plaited straw triple brim lined and trimmed with velvet and is decorated with artificial lily of the valley and orange blossom flowers and flowers made from swans down. 





I love the combination of neutral colours and the odd dashes of bright.  I can very much identify with Karen Casper's context for her work. The aim of my work is also all about the accessory whether that be to decorate the body, an interior of a house or paper decoration.  I feel inspired to create a super decorative parasol, a mask and I want to bring together my love of millinery with my own prints and embroideries.

I also have wanted to do a photo shoot for my work for a long while.  I have ideas as for how I would stage this. In particular, my current work would look fabulous on models riding on a carousel.

http://www.tulleandcandyfloss.co.uk/violet-and-ventalina.html