About Me

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Sydney, NSW, Australia
I'm an arts management worker/ artist/ designer. I work at Accessible Arts in administration and bookkeeping, but also work on various freelance activities from photography to graphic design. I'm Associate Partner at the ARI, the Big Fag Press, board member of Runway Australian Experimental Art and occasionally work at Bailey and Yang Consultants. My creative work has often been driven by social issues and commentary. This blog started as a way of documenting research for my honours year at uni, which I have continued, in order to gather inspiration for future artistic practice.

Monday, July 30, 2012

Cartoon Collaboration


I've met with my cartoonist Justin White a few times now, we brainstormed a lot of ideas and he's running with some mock-ups to show me. It's been tricky getting the balance of satire and intellect without being crude or derogatory.

I came up with some paradoxes I see in the world of fashion/ beauty:

- Designers using a size 8/10 mannequin to design for the Australian female (average size 14).- People are more likely to buy fashion if they see it worn by a person whom they have something physically in common with.
- Fast fashion's flaw: how do you design something good, and make it obsolete when the new season comes around?
- The paradox of selling fashion to females through sexualised images of females.
- How can the standard of beauty sit so far away from what a human being is biologically programed to find attractive & healthy?
- Women shave/ wax their body hair but them wear fur.- Gender differences - men desire to be a size/ weight that is attractive and generally healthy & women, despite feminism, find a "fragile" body attractive.
- Androgynous designers who still put their female models in high heels.
- Trying to help women's low self esteem by putting an un-retouched image of a supermodel on a magazine cover.
- Chain stores who lower all their sizes so that a normally size 10 woman will want to buy a dress because the size 6 fits her.
- The fashion designer's "legacy" - where to place the button on a shirt is of great importance to the world.
- The idea brought up on Seinfeld - models being counterproductive to the fashion industry - with all these beautiful women, who's looking at the clothes?
- Pun on highly conceptually driven fashion that looks exactly the same - "I wonder if my profound feelings on the fragility of human life are evident in the drape of this fine silk fabric?"


Then together we came up with these ideas for cartoons:

- A woman deciding between two dresses (in a chain store), and the deciding factor in her choice was that in one of them she fits into the size 6.

- Two magazines side by side with images of child models, exactly the same, only on one, there's a blurb which says "un-retouched image".

- A group of designers looking at a line of auditioning female models, and deciding they don't like any of them, and then end up choosing the male intern - comes from the idea of Andrej Pejic, the androgynous model.

- A calendar showing trends in fashion, "yellow is the new black", then "tartan is the new yellow", progressively getting more ridiculous.

- A world which has adapted to fit in with fashion, namely doorframes for specific headdresses.

- A cardboard cutout placed slightly on the side with the caption "celebrity finally reaches goal weight".

- Or a cardboard cut out with a model, and a woman who looks exactly the same, in the same clothes looking at it saying "I wish I looked like her".

- Cars with prints the same as people's clothing, perhaps the same as some printed jeans that are popular at the moment?

- Bears wearing human skins and other bears protesting about being "anti-skin".

Mamamia

I was recently directed to this article by Amanda Dallimore on living with Anorexia via The Butterfly Foundation on facebook. It's great being connected to all these people doing fabulous things and telling true stories about body image - such a contrast to anything you'd find in any magazine.

I looked at doing an internship placement with mamamia.com.au earlier in the year when I was researching Mia Freedman as one of my inspirations. I actually just read an interview with her in the latest Dumbo Feather. I think the work she's done is amazing, and I may apply for that internship next year when I have more time.

Free Money!


I came across this on facebook - Doug Eaton decided to spend his 65th birthday doing good deeds for others. He wrote out this sign and was giving away $5 notes to passers by.

I like this idea because it has beautiful anti-superficial ideas and a strong focus on getting people to think about their social responsibility. To me it says, you know, if you have the basic financial situation to provide for the things you really need, then you're doing okay, and if you can't afford that huge screen tv, you'll probably still survive. I think when asked for money from the homeless, everyone at least occasionally thinks, "well, I need my money" (I know I do). But as the sign says, if you have the basics, you can always afford a few dollars. ((Says me, who's just purchased a shiny laptop!!))

Of course, I tend not to like giving out money because I want to know what happens to my few dollars, which is why I'm always giving away my lunch instead!

It was suggested on a blog somewhere I read that this guy is probably religious. I find that a little presumptuous. Can atheists not do good deeds?


Pinterest

I finally created a profile on Pinterest. It's a lot of fun, I've discovered, and great for inspiration and mood boards.

Parody Shoot


I did my first studio photoshoot a few weeks ago - stressful,  but I think the photos turned out really well thanks to my fantastic stylist Paris Tucker, photographer Shayne Baptist and model Amelia Conway. I had 6 outfits all consisting of patterned jeans, a lace top and some with a coloured jacket. I was trying to emulate poses you usually find in catalogue shoots for chain stores. I need to still retouch the photos (mostly lighting) and come up with a good title for the shoot like "Original designs this season!" or something.

For layout, I am thinking of have several spreads with the photos laid out separately, and a mix of photos - landscape, portrait & closeups. Then for the final spread I can include all 6 looks next to each other. I think the parody will come out clearly this way, especially since it's all the same model. The title needs some good consideration though.

Monday, July 2, 2012

Fashematics

My cartoonist told me about Fashematics. A satirical blog which collates images to parody catwalk fashion.