Alexandra Ball, Textile Artist
My interests lie in the miniature; in previous works I have created work on organs, fetuses and skeletons; mainly my focus has been on animal anatomy as I have no interest in the human form. I wanted to expand outside the realms of anatomy but still keep to the miniscule; specifically animal based; I proceeded to visit the Natural History Museum in Manchester to visit the zoology department and there I found the inspiration for my project. Insects, still in keeping with my miniature ambitions, a lot of people are frightened by insects but I see them as visually fascinating creatures especially wasps and moths; both of which not beloved insects. However I wanted to start smaller and work my way toward insects with wings and settled upon creating pieces on moths.
I have taken great influence from the Natural History Museum, Stephanie Metz and Mister Finch. I created a few soft sculptures; which I personally felt went extremely well; I used a mix of techniques to give them a realistic feel. Due to soft sculpture being very time consuming I concentrated on the two dimensional form of moths before setting upon the task of creating the sculptures. I choose to put my focus into fibre textile and created my moths in a variety of methods and materials, I have tried to keep them as realistic as possible. Also I see white as a sense of purity and innocence which is what I feel sums up insects as they are innocent of free will and cause no harm, unless provoked and that’s not all of them. I see moths to be the most innocent of these creatures as they are attracted to what harms them and people find them unpleasant and creepy (creepy crawlies); I see beauty in them.
I love working with textiles as it gives you so much freedom, There is so much variation in the types of fabrics that can be used. I limited my colour palate to just the colours in the actual moths in both my two dimensional and sculptural. I really enjoyed experimenting with different fabrics and seeing how well they work together or how fabrics can clash. I loved mixing needle felting with the soft sculptures and how the lace looked against the sheer fabric, which I have applied for the effect of my wings.
In this final project I have created different sized soft moth sculptures all trying to look as realistic as possible but as everything is faux and handmade it is difficult, especially with my biggest moth. I believe that they do look realistic from afar and I wanted to reflect the beauty of the moth by expanding their size. One moth in particular does not look very realistic because I added beading, I wanting this to bring out the splendor of the moth. However it detracts from the authenticity of a moth, it has proved difficult for me to show beauty and realism at the same time.
I decided to exhibit the biggest soft sculptured moth because I find it to be the most realistic and I want the audience to see how when expanded the miniature insects are not as scary as they seem but beauty is in them. Overall I feel pleased with my project I have experimented with sketching as a tool for me to see the detailing within them, experimented with wing designs using textile and created moths to a high standard.
