Friday, September 25, 2015

The Weeping Dress, Martha L. McDonald, Artist








Craft Victoria
Melbourne, Australia
March 10 - April 21, 2011

Featuring Craig Woodward on fiddle

The Weeping Dress was a performance and installation arising from research of Victorian mourning rituals.  During a woman's first year of mourning, nothing she wore could reflect the light.  That meant wearing wool bombazine or crepe, which didn't hold the plant-based dyes so color ran from the fabric in the rain and heat, staining her body.  I am fascinated by how this public performance of grief was experienced in such a private and corporeal way.  I constructed a period mourning dress out of black crepe paper that I activated in performance to release the fugitive dye and leave a stain, or trace behind. The transformation of the dress and the stain it leaves behind suggests presence, absence and our own impermanence. 

Above images and text from McDonald's blog. Link here

Jackie Langfeld, Artist



This piece by Langfeld is an example of how you can use materials such as cardboard and twine to construct a form to be worn on the body. Image source link here