Idea for a hand painted, wood veneer fabric inspired by an Indian Sari - Part 3

                 


                               The wood veneer fabric construction is still in progress....
                             Below are photos of the sealer and shellac stage, which is
                                                                    ongoing...

Pre-shellac, nov. 17, 2013

Test- shellac on a test strip of
fir veneer in full sun

Test strip 2_shellac and sealer on a
sample of fir veneer in full sun

After shellacking the top 2/3's of the
veneer

Another fragment in full sun

In progress_some commemorative flowers painted
some flitches still still with no shellac

                                           More info in future posts......

Idea for a hand painted wood veneer 'fabric' inspired by an Indian Sari - Part 2

                            The wood veneer sari fabric is still in the process of being
                                 built... As the final wood flitch veneers are being cut
                                        and glued in place, the hand painted images 
                                                    and colours are being added...

The original image for the feminine as
a repetitive image on the original sari
by Lotus Eye

The image hand drawn and cut into a stencil and
hand painted onto the veneer fabric...

Stencilling of images on glued down
flitches in progress...

Stencil image of the feminine with red added
as well as the unrestricted blue...

Glueing down the Pallu flitch and weighing it
down with books, manuals and colour chips... 

A close up of all the elements so far...

Pre-shellac and with some flowers
Nov. 17, 2013

                                               ...More images in next post......

Idea for a hand painted, wood veneer fabric, inspired by a sari...

                           Photos follow of a painted wood veneer which I'm in the 
                              process of making for my office, inspired by a sari....

                                   Explorations in colour and wood veneer fabric...

                                                           First was a sketch. 

Sketch of Sari, inspired by Lotus Eye
and partially to commemorate the marriage of
Vinod and Lalita in Hyderabad, may 2013
(the flowers..)

The first day_a 4'x4' 2 ply base, a piece of one-ply
fir flitch and gesso base for future colour

A few days later, with colour strip, trim and reveals
and flitch fragments

flitches glued in place_ a long
cumbersome process

Half the flitches glued in place and
test stencils

More images tomorrow.....

Style and Grace_Indian Sari

          Listening to 'On the Run (Part ll) with Jay-Z and Beyonce as I write this...
                                         'toast to cliches in the dark past...'
                   .... and 'Jiya laga na...tum bin mora' from the film 'Talaash' ....
                                                    it's not Coltrane ...but ...

           Ok.

           Simply, I'm making a sari.
           Out of a veneer of plywood.
           Inspired by my beautiful sari
           designed by Paromita Naidu
           and her company Lotus Eye.

           My Lotus Eye sari is shown below...

My Lotus Eye Sari

         The ceiling height in my office is 
         about 11 feet plus, so I was able 
         to fold the sari over a rod and 
         hang the rod with piano wire from
         wood lattice which is just below 
         the ceiling itself. 

               I first met Mita about 5 years ago, just after returning from my first trip to 
               India. During that trip I was privileged to spend time in Dharavi and since
               one of my interests in architecture is multiple housing and community, 
           that walk through what is called a slum ( they call it a slum; we call it 'home'...)          
                           sparked a lot of thought. It's even sparked a few designs...

                                                                So...
                                           Beautiful Saris is only part of it......

                                                                but

                                         Bigger story: I'd like to incorporate

                                   the simplicity, elegance, colour, style and

                                         grace of Indian saris into architecture...

               So the sari I'm making is a work in progress. Started with ideas for panels,

               for incorporating jewelry I brought back from Hyderabad into doors or other

               panels (see earlier post) , numerous sketches of doors, and now a sari. 

                            Or maybe it's more about a veneer fabric inspired by a sari...

                               A couple of early sketches of doors are shown below....

                     You need to realize that the goal for these doors/panels is that they
                     will be very contemporary, in very contemporary houses and other 
                     buildings. So it will be a process of refining the designs....

                     My Lotus Eye sari is unique; different too I think for LE from what she 
                     usually designed at that time. It's almost like a batik and I love that it 
                     was handmade, and that there are both repetitive elements and all 
                     kinds of free form, uninhibited parts. 
                                                         Searching for freedom.

                     The fabric of the sari I am making is composed of a 2 ply aircraft 
                     plywood, very thin and light. It comes in 4x4 or 4x8 sheets. The 
                     finished surface is one ply douglas fir or cherry, which comes rolled 
                     up and is seriously fragile.
                     It's called a 'flitch' and I glue it to the substrate and hand paint it...

                     Below is a photo from the first day, showing a 4' x 4' piece of the 2 ply 
                     substrate and a small piece of fir flitch....oh, and some gesso painted 
                     on the substrate as a base for different colourful paint for the future 
                     reveals...
                                                                                     
                                                               More tomorrow.... 

             

Indian jewelry puja closet door panel_a longing for more surprise in contemporary architecture

Simply, this nov 27 2013 post is to show a few photos of a sample panel I made in my office, exploring the idea of how to incorporate Indian jewelry into architecture.

Yes, it is literal. Jewelry literally incorporated in the panel. The panel is flitches (thin veneers) of Fir glued onto a substrate panel 5/8" thick. The reveals were left between the flitches for colour. There is a vertical reveal of about 1-1/2" wide (derived for a variety of reasons; not important here..) to accommodate the jewelry. The first panel had a red and gold necklace installed in the wide reveal; the second plays with a lovely light green bracelet and colours. Both had an anklet on a dark brown piece of wood. On the right side of the panel is a vertical flitch veneer. For me it is the pallu of a sari...

And for interest, a few words of background.

In the last five years, I've developed a real longing for colour, in clothes, in drawings, in buildings.
For a few reasons.
I started using it again, for one; on my comic strips (drdaytrade.com) and on the back of architectural sketches. Rather than 'colour subtracting' as Picasso put it, I found it enhanced my joy and focus a thousand fold ...
Then there was a trip to India five years ago, followed almost immediately by encountering Paromita Naidu and the beautiful saris she designs and sells through her company Lotus Eye. I bought one of them for my office and it is one of only 2 or three items I value above everything else in life.
More recently, I travelled to Hyderabad in May of 2013. I don't buy things easily, randomly; but by the the time I left for India I was already very interested in Indian jewelry, and realized abruptly that this was for me a chance I had been waiting for. The first day I bought like a shopper would; sparingly,
by a process of elimination. The second day I bought passionately..... I bought because I knew it was for inspiration not just consumption.
I basically want to incorporate the grace and elegance, colour and surprise of Indian jewelry and design into architecture. And I don't find it extravagant; I find it essential.
(A second very powerful strand of this intention is the result of a chance meeting of Iti Chandra/Kalsi,
who now puts henna on my left wrist as often as possible and not often enough. Iti has graciously said she would act as a consultant on my projects; she will always have a place in them if I have any say in the matter...)
I should just say that my primary interest in architecture is designing for groups of inhabitants, for community. Some of the architects that inspire include Aldo Van Eyck and Hermann Hertzberger.
While I was in Bombay I was fortunate enough to be part of a group that walked in Dharavi, the 'slum'
(there were so many beautiful places there..) of the city that is under attack from developers and big capital. Post that trip I have spent a lot of time thinking about and designing collections of dwellings for both India and North America, for Dharavi inhabitants in their fight (oh no...not another saviour..!) and for houses here in Canada. I'm always interested in re-interpreting precedents and trying out good ideas from one culture or place to another..not that that is always possible, obviously.
Hopefully in the future I can post some of that work.
While in Hyderabad, I spent time working in the office of Soujanya Dasari. We have talked about collaborating and in fact while I was there I worked on a SketchUp model for a potential residential project there. It is somewhat in limbo, but will be resurrected soon with luck. I can never thank Soujanya and her parents enough for their generosity on a personal level and am still trying to figure
out how we can collaborate professionally.

Just a few more unsubstantiated words, more about which later...

Guess what?
Modern contemporary architecture is all about ornamentation!