Evaluation

• I chose to use the 'old wives tale' concept for my final outcome as I wanted to use my family within it to show how the tales are passed down in generations, my family as a representation of many other families. I thought that this was a good concept to look at as it is very intriguing as to how they come about and it flowed nicely with my other experiments and how I have looked at the study of people and getting to know different subject matter and how they work, for example my fashion myth post.


• I think that my final outcome went quite well as I finally able to set it to the scale wanted as well as including everything I wanted in it and I was also able to finish it within the specified time. My only problem was; how to change the video tape to DVD which in the end I asked someone who knew some people who was able to sort out the problem.


• The way the two boards touch to create 'old wives tale' of 'knock on wood' as well as the visual and conceptual links between the people speaking on the tape and the portrait of mothers on the opposite side. It was a very personal final outcome to me with the way I can relate to each of the people used within it with which I am now sharing through my final outcome. My family is the visual representation of many other families of which have passed down these mind-boggling tales.


• If I were to redo this whole project then I think that I would have probably stuck with the theme of landscapes and showing the 'form of god' through visual objects as from previous experience you cannot always rely on people to help with your project and many won't let you take their photo or worry about how they will be percieved. I think it all depends on the type of person you ask, however you always learn from yor mistakes.


• In my opinion I don't think that I could have really done any more if I was given more time as I would have only been able to carry out a few more experiments but then again if I did have more time then I may have been able to conjure a better final outcome than what I have done but then again it could have been worse. I believe that you shouldn't look back on the past, 'don't cry over spilled milk', you should just move on. I am very happy with what I have completed and challenged my self to overcome within this project and so I am proud to be submitting this body of work to the exam board.

My final outcome

I wanted to show the process of the making of my final outcome in which will be able to see how it all came together to create my complete exam piece; First I bought two wooden boards in which I then hinged together. From this I then drew out the lettering and painted along the writing. The writing isn't as neat as I wanted it to be but it still has that motherly feel to it, as though a mother had actually wrote it. In between the lettering is where the film will be projected.

I then added the photos of the mothers that I had collected from the people I had videoed and stuck them onto the opposite side to the lettering. I think that having the people photograph their own mothers then it gives each photo more value and it gives a different and sacred perspective that I couldn't have captured if I had taken the photographs myself.

Here are the photos close up:

Here is the video of my family telling you what 'old wives tales' they know and of which have been passed down to them:

Planning of final outcome

After looking through the different installations by Joyce Owens I have decided on my final outcome design. I wanted to include the 'old wives tale', 'knock on wood' within my final outcome as this was one of the main 'old wives tales' that my mother used to tell me when I was younger. I decided to use two boards in which would touch somehow which then brought me to the idea of hinging them together in order for them to be permanently connected and therefore 'touching/knocking' together.

As another aspect of my final outcome I am going to film my family speaking about what their mothers told them about 'old wives tales' when they were younger. There will also be a few clips of family relations to show the relationships and generations throughout my family. This I have decided will be projected onto one of my two boards in order to link both my video with the 'old wives tale', 'knock on wood'.

Even though this is a good link I still have a board that would be empty, so I decided to link the emphasis of generations even further within my final outcome by having photographs of the mothers of the people in the video on the spare board. This will link to both the board and the video in which will create a much better viewing of my final piece. For the photographs I will ask the people I videoed to take their own photos of their mothers in which will let me and the audience have an insight into how they view their mother and not one photograph will be the same, they will all be unique and sacred in their own way. I am also going to use lettering within my final outcome which will read - 'Mother knows best...', '...but is it always the truth?' I feel that this will link my whole final outcome together as the rhetorical question will really add emphasis to the thought of 'are old wives tales actually true?' Here is a diagram of what my final outcome will look like:

Back to research...

In order to know exactly how to shrink and make my installation my own and yet still have the essence of my original ideas but with further development I knew I needed to see how someone else combines their ideas and produces and small and yet significant installation.

For this I researched into Joyce Owens:

This installation really inspired me. The fact that it's quite a small installation has good development of how it shows the process of still life within 4 different materials in which change the picture each time, finally producing a final piece/outcome which is seen at the very top. It almost shows the ladder of success in which many people use to get somewhere high up in life.

I chose to research into the installations of Joyce Owens as they really caught my eye with the originality and interesting aspects of them, for example, within the installation above there’s a mannequin that’s been painted into a realistic skeleton with a bright red heart that’s in the wrong position of the body and the mannequin has hair coming out of it. It’s these objects within her installations that really intrigue me. The fact that she uses hopeful and needed words to peoples lives, that feeling of reassurance and almost the religious sacrament, the hands of god, ‘I can heal’.

Conjuring an idea for my final piece...

For my final piece I wanted to do something that was out of my comfort zone, something that wasn't usual for me to do.
After a lot of thinking I decided that I wanted to do an installation, but what to do for it was an issue that I hadn't yet resolved. I knew that I wanted to link the theme of the installation to the different themes throughout my blog.
While looking through my blog I found the phrase 'old wives tale' in which caught my eye. From this I decided that I wanted to use this phrase somehow within my installation.

I came up with a few ideas from this topic:

1. The first idea I had was to use boards to create that feel of claustrophobia from the amount of 'old wives tales' that are circulated from word of mouth and how you can't escape them.
I was going to display this within a room where on the wall next to the door there would be big writing saying 'Mother knows best...' in that italic, neat way that a mother always writes and there would be flowers on the door and so from the outside of the room it would look really welcoming to show that its a 'mother' who tells their children these tales, the non-escaping tales, the person who loves you and who you love. However when going through the door there would be a really narrow passageway that's filled with portraits of mothers to add that daunting feeling to the 'never-ending' passage way as everyone knows that frustration of not knowing whether something is true or false.
When you finally reach the end of the claustrophobic passageway there would be a big whiteboard that would have a tally chart drawn on it with the headings 'true or false'. This would be for people to draw a small dash under the heading of what they believe 'old wives tales' to be.
From this you would enter a really light and airy room in which there will be a video of people saying what tales their mothers had told them when they were younger and them saying whether they believed it or not.
The light room would give you that feeling of freedom and space thus making that daunting almost claustrophobic feeling go away.
You would then go out of the room having felt different emotions from the same topic and almost feel relieved and hopefully have actually learnt and liked your experience.

Even though I really wanted to continue with this idea I felt that it wouldn't be practical within the space available and it would also be quite a daunting task to complete within 8 hours.

2. My second idea, inspired by my first one, was to still have the boards, but only two of them in which would be set at a 90 degree angle. I would have a shelf on the second board which would situate a television playing my video as well as a photo frame with a portrait of a mother.
On the first board I would have a child's bed coming out of it with the usual teddy bear laying on the bed with a chair next to the bed on the floor. This would represent a mother telling her child an 'old wives tale'.

Even though this was quite a good idea, I thought that it didn't really represent the telling of 'old wives tales' that well as I feel that this installation would be better suited with nursery rhymes. I also figured out that I wouldn't be able to get a bed and I don't know if the board and shelf would actually support and hold up the television safely.

I told myself that I had to be much more practical if I was actually going to succeed with my ideal installation.

The myths of fashion

For an industry that prides itself on creativity, fads and the tendency to push boundaries, it tends to have a lot of rules.

Many people have passed on outfits because it doesn't go with the ''Do's'' of fashion myths which when in actual fact the outfit suited their body shape and skin tone.
A lot of these rules have been around for decades, they relate a lot to that of 'old wives tales', tales that sometime people believe because of superstition and appearance to the outside world, but are the same rules that applied years ago still true today?
The runways and fashion statement of today beg to differ.

My mission is to find out if these myths do in fact still stand today and photograph them.

'You can't wear gold and silver together'

As we all know there are two primary metallic colours in the world of jewellery - gold and silver. But if you have a gold wedding ring for instance then does that mean you can't ever wear silver again? That's ridiculous!
Every jewellery store today has stunning jewellery pieces that have the silver-gold combination. Silver and gold together has now become a very popular trend within jewellery today but does this mean that the myth is false?

'Horizontal stripes will make you look fat'

This is one of the most famous fashion myths that many people go by today. The myth here is that horizontal stripes draw the eye across the body, making you appear wider and vertical stripes are meant to draw the eye up and down the body making you appear slimmer and taller.
However a study done by a perception expert at the University of New York found that people find horizontal stripes to appear more slimming on the body as vertical stripes which are widely set apart provides the eye with width illusion. This actually goes against this myth?

'Never mix and match prints'

Vintage clothing has made a huge comeback, and as a result loads of people are wearing mixed prints. Stripes are seen with paisleys; Fleur-dis-lee can be seen with plaids, so it seems that no-one is playing by the rules of these myths anymore?

'Never wear dark tights with light-coloured shoes'

In fact dark tights god really well with light-coloured shoes as beige tights wash you out. Black tights are actually at an advantage as they make your legs appear slimmer and more toned as beige tights are more baggy as they have a smaller denier.
Nude colour shoes, especially high heels end to go especially well when paired with black tight as they have a good contrast between them and make your shoes stand out from your body.
Does this go along with the myth?

Overall I found that this experiment was quite an interesting one, how I got to understand the myths of fashion and how many people abide by them within daily circumstances. I thought that the experiment also paired really well with the 'Acting like robots' post as its almost a developmental stage coming on from the previous post. 'Acting like robots' was the viewing of the myths and how the designers are trying to teach people about the myths and how the designers themselves are abiding by the 'rules' in order to get people to buy their clothes because if they didn't do this then the superstitious population would not buy their clothes if it was too way out with the creativity and designing of the products being sold.
I found that this was quite an educational post as it taught not only me but my audience about these myths and how to overcome them. Fashion seems to be developing and in the future maybe it will break all the boundaries and we can then all leave these myths and 'rules' behind.

Performing like robots...

While on the topic of movement, I decided that I wanted to capture movement but within fashion. How models are told what they have to do and how they have to appear to the audience in order to sell the clothes worn for the designer/ company. They are almost like a mannequin in whic people dress do their make-up, their hair and prepeare everthing for them in order for them to go and perform something they've been taught by someone and walk how they have been told.
Its almost like a robot in which someone controls.

I wanted to capture the movement of the 'robots' and how even though they have been taught and controlled on how to do everything, their personality and their own movement still somehow come through within thier facial expressions, the way they present themselves and the way they each move differently. The best place for this was definately a fashion show, so in order to complete my experiment I decided to go to Southampton fashion show which is held every year.

There was loads of people which went to see the fashion show, it was packed.

They showed all the trends which were on the brought from the catwalk, in which all the clothes were lent by surrounding shops within West Quay shopping centre. There were four main looks for the catwalk; The boys are back, Country Squire, Denim attitude and Posh frocks. In each catergory there were different outfits worn by each of the models and there were also different dances in which they had to perform.

I watched the catwalk 6 times over 2 days in which gave me the best advantage to get the best out of my photos and to capture the models in motion.

Below are just four of my shots:

So that you could see all of my shots not just the four above, I have uploaded my contact sheets:

Overall I really enjoyed this experiment as I got to go to something that really interested me and in which I had never been to before so it was a really good and enjoyable experience for me to participate in and I feel that I have learnt a lot from this experiment and have captured some great shots from it. It has opened my mind up to other suggestions in which I could use or in which could contribute towards my final piece, later on in my exam project.

Movement

When looking through my photographs which were inspired by the 'hidden object' games I found that movement was used alot within them and was what caused the playground to look how it did in that moment of time. This is when I came upwith the idea of taking 5 photos of someone moving around and show them within one photograph to suggest movement within the scenery or place. For this experiment I used my sister as I thought that she would be a good subject for movement as she loves to dance around and be active which would show not only movement within my photo but her character and personality as well which also links within my 'personality' experiment. Once I had taken this series of photographs I thought that a great way of showing the movement that had taken place was to create a flash video using the 5 different photos in which when combined would create that feeling of movement which will also be visable not only on screen but within my sisters expressions and body language. Here is my video:

This is the finished photograph that came out of this experiment:

I quite like the outcome of this experiment as I have been able to capture not only the sense of movement with which happens to people everyday, nearly every second but I have also been able to show my sister's personality within the sequence on photos which I didn't actually realise that I was doing until I had shot the photos as my overall outcome in the beginning was to show movement and space.