Interview with Lucy

In my previous post, I wrote about Lucy, one of my housemates and photographed her latest project. This is an interview I conducted with her about it.

Shif: "What was the assignment for this project?"

Lucy: "Good question...find a cultural significant wearable item and either use it as a starting point for what was supposed to be a small, quick project, but I don't do small quick projects. If I wanted to do a small quick project I could do that on my own time, but I like to over achieve as you can see (she is currently on the floor of her room making a 3D structured collage)"

Shif: "What was your inspiration?"

Lucy: "So my particular project, I had a really hard time thinking of something to do cause I usually over think my projects. So during my sophomore review, Ed West told me that my projects that are more successful were the more fun and silly than conceptual and profound. For this project I decided to work off the idea of Native American head dresses, which were never a traditional part of their garb and instead were made for the public eye. So I decided to make a birdcage hat that was over the top and glittery and not functional and the cages aren't made for any use or purpose. It was really fun to do and I don't usually work in 3D mediums so I kinda was just winging it and it worked out really well actually. Its the most stable thing I ever mad and it smells like Michaels."

Shif: "How did you go about creating this piece?"

Lucy: "Well, at first I wanted to make the cages circular, but soon realized you cannot make a circle out of something flat or in sheet form, which was kind of like a "duh" moment. I should have thought of that first. Instead, I decided to make a tube shape, which makes sense, and they are the shape of cages that they made in the colonial times to catch animals and show what they have caught ... and then I struggled with the hat part. I had purchased a fishing hat which I would cut the brim off and hope it would magically work but it didn't. So I made a band of fabric and sewed it onto my hat, sewed the cages to my hat and wired the cages together which makes it way more stable. Then I put the glitter foliage on the hat, actually while it was on my head. I went into the unisex bathroom and just attached it. And used what Sam Hanson taught me about hot glue. If you get hot glue on your hand, just put it in your mouth and it will stop hurting isn't that cool?"

Shif: "Haha, really? Thats crazy! So it was a big hit in your class?"

Lucy: "Yeah it was a huge hit and I actually wore it in class during the critique. Surprisingly enough, they figured out what it was and its a shame we didn't have more time to critique it but it was really fun."