Day 7 - Set task

So, what we had to do, pick a favourite piece of tapestry and write about it ^^

This is the tapestry piece I chose to analyse.

1. Stand in front of one of the alter cloths, how does it make you feel? Is there just fabric, or is there an underlying structure?

Well, I feel oriental asian :p but really, I feel like it is somewhat influenced or is like Asian pottery, like Chinese dinnerware, the colour of blue and white. Alot of the other tapestry or most of them had the fortune colour red, which meant that one of the purposes was to bring good luck or ward of evil. But I also feel like the purpose of this tapestry was perhaps made for good intentions of luck.

2. Look at the colours, how many can you see and what do you think they impart to the viewer?

I only see 2 and if it were to impart on a viewer, it might be a nice colour combo and may even remind them of Chinese dinnerware XD and I'm not trying to be funny! The colour combo makes the tapestry beautiful and does not make it look loud unlike other ones with red, green, gold & etc. It is subtle and would work anywhere. Perhaps it's balance as well since the phoenixes within the design represent that aspect of balance.
3. What are some of the motifs/symbols/typographic devices that you can see in the selected cloth? Are there any patterns? Are they repeated? Why do you think this is so?

I see alot of floral designs that appear to be reflected.

4. Choose a motif/symbol/pattern - sketch one of each/choose the ones that communictae the strongest to you.  

I'm most attracted to floral aspects of the design. It is what attracts me and communicates with me weirdly enough when it should be the phoenixes, god or the colour that should be communicating with me.
  5. What are the textural elements of the pieces? How many layers of processes can you identify?

It looks like a type of screen or block printing in my opinion and there may be more than 20 processes as they would have had to illustrate the gods and one might tell with the different few shades of blue.

6. Can you see any narratives? What are they?

I'm not 100% about a narrative but what I can see or what I am assuming that the purpose of this tapestry was made for was to bring about good luck and fortune since within this piece, one can see phoenixes and three gods of fortune. The in Chinese culture, Phoenixes are meant to represent balance and unity and with the three gods of fortune, a unity of these three gods and their power would be a sign of empowering or giving a boost of luck to the person or household gifted with this tapestry.
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7. Consider the possibility of adorning your market stall with cloth, what symbols, typefaces and narrative devices might you put on it? What fabric and etc?

I couldn't really say as our product is very art Deco and modern, using geometric shapes as a center piece so our stall would be more of an industrial look.

Day 7 - Peranakan Museum

Today would be my first day for working at the studio. We all had to bring our laptops for starters. I envy those who didn’t have a 1.7kg bloody laptop bag. It was a big relief when we reached the Paranikan Museum as I was melting DX.

We ditched our bags and laptops in a room, grabbed our worksheets and a pencil and clip board (provided) and our cameras. Given an hour to wonder around the museum, we were to seek out a form of embroidery or rug or tapestry that we liked and talk about it a bit. There were so many beautiful designs and it seemed like it would be tricky to actually find a favourite one.

Besides the tapestry, there were other stunning artefacts and fashion displays. The ‘wedding bed’ was attractive as it had a lot of beautiful tapestry around it but I really disliked the section that held a traditional burial coffin…literally the burial section. It just creeps me out.

Just some of the fashion worn back then. They look so modern though XD.

So these are some other artifacts I had come across in the museum but I didn't have much time as I had to track down some good tapestry to analyse :P

The 'wedding bed' it was covered in so much beautiful tapestry. 

Along the way, I came across these mini stations that had embossing stamps. Apparently, at the front desk, you can pick up these ‘colour wheels’ and you ‘stamp’ these embossing icons on the colour referring to the ‘station’ of the embossing. That was probably an exciting thing for me, running around to collect all the stamps.

Unfortunately my colour wheel got squished too much ><

For the overall exhibition, I loved the branding applied. It is quite unique as I don’t think you’de find branding like this applied in a museum. I just have a weakness for floral and pretty stuff. I think that this has got to be my favourite museum out of the museum we’ve been too.

This was at the entrance of the museum.

This the back of a clip board that the museum lent us to use. It was very pretty and is part of the pretty museum or exhibition branding. 

Afterwards, we dropped off our stuff at the studio, which was like next door, and headed for lunch. After lunch, we all started working on a logo for our group branding. Once we agreed on one, we then had to ‘henna’ the logo onto ourselves, which was fun XD

I initially came up with the logo shape idea, while my other group members worked on the typography, colour and appearance of the logo.