IBDP Visual Art Project Self Evaluation

Name: Anna Ling Project no: 8 Title: ‘Native American Headpiece’ Date completed: Media: Textile/Wire/Embroidery Dimensions: 200X50cm What were the artistic and/or cultural influences for this project? Who/what influenced either the composition and/or the style.

This project has the most merge of my previous pieces, theme, and media. Therefore I was very excited to make this, since most of my research was done previously, and I knew the theme thoroughly because I have been with it for a

while. I have been interested in textile and mixing different types of materials, and combing them to make something different. From ‘Stained Dreams’ I carried using the same materials and media except in a headpiece form. The Culture is

based on Native Americans, from the concept of dream catchers. I wanted to extend on their culture, by looking at their traditional clothing, fashion.

By doing some research about their clothing more in depth, there was most information on their war bonnets. So I specifically did research on those, and from there I planned on making a war bonnet with a twist of looking at it from a

fashion point of view. Since this is going to be a fashion piece, I wanted to do some basic research on

it. Linking it to the purpose of war bonnets; which is a symbol of leadership and courage, and only men wore it before wars and ceremonies, I decided to make a headpiece but for women, to enhance their femininity through the meaning of

bonnets originally.

What materials/media/processes did you use and or experiment with, and how? I used the same materials as I made ‘stained Dream’ except with different colors and I added some embroidery in the end. To show the soft and elegant side of women, I chose soft pinks and yellows white off white. For accents, I also added

a dark grey/green color to compliment the colors. I gathered cloths with different textures and dyed some of them to get the right color. I developed my own technique of wrapping the materials around the feather shaped wires. And as

the feathers trail down, I shaped the wires into the pattern of a dream catcher that I made before.

The process took many hours, because there were many stages to go through. I made the wires starting from the middle and laid them out according to the length of my model’s height. I then took them one by one and wrapped pieces of

material around it. Then I took connected all the feathers by a long piece of wire at the bottom at the feathers. To make it neater I glued material over it and made the whole headpiece sturdy. I added embroidery at the top of the head for more

detail. How do you think you have responded to advice and criticism during the semester, both from fellow students and the teacher. Did you seek any? If so, was it useful? I talked to the teachers couple of times and I got advice to really look into the culture and even further, to look at specific tribes and their symbolic meanings of their traditional pieces. I also talked to my model many times to keep checking

the fit and the lengths. Fellow students gave me general opinions on the way. I also was thinking of painting the tips of the feathers a darker color, however from talking to other people, I decided not to for technical reasons.

What could you take through to the next project and develop further? This could be anything, ranging from a technique to an idea, not just the Theme itself. I definitely am satisfied with where this piece is taking me, because now I am very ready to do a fashion piece. I wanted to this for a while, and I think this

project was a good warming up for me. I still want to use the dream catcher pattern and use the concept of it, which will give me an objective for the project. From there, I can take pictures and do many things with photos, etc.