Developments of Wire Cushion....

After having my tutorial, I got the idea to develop my wire cushion by using the wire in a different way. For my last cushion I used the wire to create the outer shape and filled it with the soft filling, but I thought it didn't look as interesting as it could have been and I wanted explore these materials and their relationship further.

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To develop this object further I decided to thread a thinner wire through the soft filling, rather than wrapping the wire around the filling. I wanted to explore the tension of the materials, and to see if I could inverse the materials - have the soft over the hard instead of the hard over the soft. The use of a thinner wire also made a difference as it looked more finer and a lot more like barbed wire. This then demonstrates the idea of inappropriate touch, and how even the softest object has a hard core, or sharpness to it.

I think it would be interesting to see if I can get the ends of the wire to poke through the soft filling, to further explore this tension between soft and hard, and I think I want to play with this idea but through other materials. Possible combine clay and wire in a cushion shape perhaps? Rubber and wire? I also want to bring back the ideas of sexism and feminism that I'm also exploring and have designed a piece where it's a applique breast and I wanted to wrap wire through it as a physical representation of inappropriate touch, rather than a subtle representation shown in the wire and soft filling.

Another idea I had to explore this idea of tension was to use pins for text on a soft surface. I could use a nice word perhaps statistics of sexism in everyday life or perhaps in the workplace, playing on my own personal experiences. I also though about using a soft material as the base, again to play around with this relationship between hard/soft.

I think to further develop this idea, I might try different methods of threading the wire in the soft filling, as well as possibly combining fabrics and other soft materials. I really like how this development turned out, and I like the subtly of the wire in the soft filling, it's not as bulky as my first wire cushion, and I think a series of these but with different materials would be really interesting and effective. I think I should also look into the use of wire in soft sculptures, and look into this tension between hard and soft.