Project Critique

So, here are a few pictures of what we showed in class last Friday.  The biggest problem the group had was with the printed shirt covered in tags. The suggestion was to turn it into a 3d object that can be worn. So you have the art object as the worn piece and worn clothing as the art objects or something to that extent. Not sure what's going on with this right at the moment. It's time to get through other final's first.

WIP Shots

Work in Progress Shot's, from a few nights ago. We had critique on Friday. I have some pictures of the final product as well but I wanted to post these first cause I thought they were fun. We had a few issues;

1. The t-shirt print out turned pink when we steamed it. All the white is now a rather aweful shade of pink. This is an issue with the printer at the moment it hasn't been properly calibrated or something to that affect.

2. When screen printing on denim, the pigment soaks into the material and rather disappears. However, the effect was rather nice in the end even if it wasn't expected.

3.  We decided to go with just one type of fiber for the display of blog information instead of a lot of different facts. We went with Cotton as it's one of the main fibers used in clothing and something that everyone knows.

4. We dumped down the mission statement for the project quiet a bit and made it a lot simpler. I think it worked fairly well in terms of tying everything together.

Alright that's all I'm going to say at the moment since I have other comments on the critique and a few points from coming out of that.

 

Cotton & The Environment

Did you know that the average tee-shirt will generate 28 times its weight in harmful carbon emissions in its lifetime?

Well you like me might wonder well, why and how is that? It comes down to a number of issues:

1. Methods that are used in farming the cotton.
2. The fact that most cotton is then transported across large distances to reach the processing/manufacturing plants.
3. Methods that are used to process the raw material, to the knitting and dying processes.
4. The later washing, drawing and packaging of the producting.
5. And the fact that most products once packaged for shipping then travel long distances to reach the place where they are then sold.

Transportation accounts for a large percentage of the carbon footprint that is given off. The fact that most materials are not grown where the product is made and the fact that most of our products are no longer made locally not even remotely so.

People might think that Cotton is a wonderful alternative to all the plastic fabrics out there such as polyester or nylon and other mixes there of. However, Cotton isn't always the great alternative.

1. Cotton is one of the most pesticide-intensive crops grown in the world.
2. Cotton farming and the production accounts for a quarter of the world's total pesticide use.

Links: 
- Harmonious Living, Your Carbon Footprint - Read The Lables: http://www.harmoniousliving.co.za/Environment/Eco-Friendly/Your-Carbon-Footprint-Check-the-Labels/
- Earth Trust, Carbon Footprint Reduction Table

Tag UpDate

So an update on the tags and what we're doing. Candace and I put together a number of the images we took from the GoodWill escapade and I took from the Walmart escapade (People give you the oddest looks for just walking around places and taking pictures). So we took all these pictures and put them together into the shape of a t-shirt and then used the cloth printer in the textile's lap to print it out in a large size.

When Candace get's back we're going to collage the tags across the top of the printed form--sewing them on one side so that they stick out and create a 3d layer over the 2d print out. At least that is the current plan of attack. ;)

We may need more tags and we've talked about a couple of other ideas as well.

I would also like to create a digital form of the map that goes along with this project that is somewhat interactive but I'm still trying to figure out Flash and thus the first few attempts have failed. We'll see if I can do it by next week. hahaa. *disappears*

Around the World with Aunt Sharril!

In these last two weeks Jay and I are trying to reel in some information from people abroad, and I'm very happy to have received a response from my Aunt Sharril, who is the most well traveled lady I know. I'd love to get a peak her closet, but alas, all I have is some interesting information about a few items.

White pants,  50 % cotton,48pc linen 2 pc lycra bought in Australia, Made in China
Printed Top, 100 % rayon  bought in Autralia, made in Indonesia
Skirt, 100 % cotton bought in New Caledonia, made in India
Shorts, 100 % cotton bought in US, made in Egypt
Sweater, 100 % cotton bought in France, made in Spain
Night gown, 100 % cotton  bought in England, made in Sri Lanka.
"I wonder where all that cotton actually came from. I notice that nothing I randomly picked in my closet is made in France or the US where I spent a lot of time"

Which is a good point. Even though things are made in one country, there is a very long chain of production leading up the actual constructing of a garment. An item of clothing could have materials that travelled around the world 5 times before making it to your closet!!!

Thanks again to Aunt Sharril, and hopefully we get some more responses from others abroad!!

-Candace