Tina Beardall

I was attracted to the colours- red and green being on opposite sides of the colour wheel. I have no idea whether, or how, the student reproduced this idea as a piece of 2 dimensional weaving but it made me think of pods hanging from some kind of weird plant.

I decided to recreate these pods in 3 dimensions. The pods were made using a rugby ball as a mould around which I could fashion a wire pod shape in 2 dimensions with semi-circular weaving with yarns in the 3rd dimension. As well as using the green, I used white where the drawing was blank. 

I left the wires at the top and bottom of the piece to resemble tendrils.

A lot of experimenting was required to make the structure stable. 

Ten wires were required for the struts and the completed pods were sprayed with fabric stiffener.

In order to prevent the red zigzags from sagging I also used fine wire as a base. When the structure was complete, the pods looked empty. In my imaginary forest in which they would hang they would need to contain seeds which I created by weaving Yorkshire buttons.

Materials

Linen, cotton, seaweed yarn, hemp, jute and wire

Inspiration

This piece was inspired by a drawing in the workbook of Herbert Stanley Platts. 

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