Week 5 - Emotive Wire and Braids

Clockwise from left: Energy #1, Energy #2, Love

At college this week we were asked to give the tutor some words to describe feelings and then bend wire and pipecleaners to evoke the words.
The words we chose were

• Anger
• Fear
• Love
• Serene
• Desire
• Magical
• Tranquil
• Energy
• Cold

Magical

I must admit it took us all while to get into the spirit of this! However, some interesting shapes did emerge once we stopped thinking in 2D.

We were then told to wrap some of the shapes in fabric and bind with yarns and threads. This is where it got a lot more creative and I managed to turn a rather naff yellow pipecleaner star into something more magical.

Anger

Fear

My ball of anger has flashes of purple and turquoise inside.

Cold

Tranquil

Fear was inspired by the thought of being hunched over and back turned.

Tranquil is really all about the purple, blue and white calming colours.

Finally, for me Cold had to be spiky and well wrapped. I coated the long white threads in glue and glitter to make them look icy. This also made them stiffer which worked well. This is my favourite, although I also like Anger and the simplicity of the shape for Energy #1.

The second part of our college class was all about braiding. Starting with thick card braiding plates that we made ourselves and a bag weighted with stones secured with an opened paper clip, we followed various sets of instructions to make our braids.

Various shapes of braiding plate and different numbers of threads produce different kinds of braid. One one in the middle is called 'Christmas Hearts'! I'm not sure any of us in the class really took to braiding but I can see its potential to make an unusual necklace.