With only two days to go before the Swap Shop event I have been very busy organisisng things which are going to make it run smoothly. Today the class and I tried Gillian's festive drink which we all decided was gorgeous and is going to be sold on the night!
Claire and I also went to the Scarborough Evening News to talk to a reporter who is covering the story, and we are hoping that this will provide us with a few more people attending on the night. We also had a photographer come in yesterday for a picture to go with the column!
I am currently working on my Peter Brook work and I'm finding it really interesting. Although I found reading the book really hard initially, I found the class discussions really helpful as i took quite a lot of notes during the lessons and also when the guest lecturer came to talk to us. It was also really good to hear his opinion on the text, as he seemed to have a similar outlook on the book to us! Except his was backed up by meeting many tutors and students who were studying the book at the time. I was also really interested to learn about Stephen Joseph and how it is very possible and likely that Brook may have taken many ideas from him and passed them off as his own!
My costume has quite a bit of work to be done on it, and i am starting to worry as every day i think of things that need to be done! I'm not going to upset myself too much about it though as i can only do my best and I always manage to hand in on time.

work...

Dissertation
I was finding it quite a struggle to write down and explain what I wanted to write about in my dissertation, but with help from my tutors and a bit more confidence in what I'm interested in i was able to overcome this. My dissertation looks at how we see freak shows and performers of the 20th century through 21st century eyes, and how our views have changed through the years. I really enjoy this field of research as it fits in really well with my Daisy and Violet Hilton project. It is also a little bit unusual so the reader should enjoy the subject.
I requested some very specialist books from the British Library and these have been a massive help to me with exploring the history of circus's etc.

Sewing
My corsets are coming along well as i dyed up the second one on Friday and left it to dry over the weekend. I was really annoyed when it came to dying it as we had run out of the dye i needed! I got over this though pretty fast as i did some samples of a blue pigment which came out really nice, and decided it would look quite effective to have two slightly different corsets but to keep everything else very similar.
I need to now finish the costumes construction and work on the embroidery which I will be adding to the corset.
I have started to machine together Becky's sequin jacket and it has been really hard to sew! so this in its self has been a big learning process on how to manage the fabric and make it do what you want it to.

catch up...

After the Halloween fundraiser night, I came up with the idea of hosting a Swap Shop event. This was well received and other members of the class soon came up with other suggestions on how we could make the event really big.
Claire came up with the idea of coupling the swap shop with a Christmas fair, where businesses could come and sell their goods for the fee of a table.
After a few meetings, we booked out the theatre, studio theatre and square cat for the 9th of December. Sadly this was the second date we decided on as the first date (a week previous to this) was double booked, but it meant that we had an extra week to plan the event, so it wasn't such a bad thing.
Collectively it was decided that Claire and I were to be the 'organisers' of the event, which means we have to delegate jobs and make sure everything is running smoothly, both before and on the night of the event.
The businesses that we have signed up to the event are:
Rock Your Billy
Sparkles
Terry
Emma
Be Gorgeous
Fair Child's
The Cake Hole

All together we have raised £96 for the Third Year Fund just from table sales alone. The Mayor has also agreed to come for a short while on the evening, and we are going to be getting publicity from the Scarborough Evening News and Yorkshire Coast Radio.

The admission charge on the evening is £2 and 50p for under 12s, and this includes a raffle ticket for all the adults.
We have also asked that each stall holder brings a raffle prize in addition to their table charge.

I have enjoyed organising the event so far, and have run into more problems that I thought, for example people not pulling their weight in the organisation of the event, but i have overcome this and learnt a lot about event planning and managing others.

Below is a copy of the poster which we are using to advertise the event:

Fundraiser: Halloween Film Night

This week has been really busy!
Thursday was our photo shoot for our Russian and Merchant of Venice costumes and also the day of our first fundraiser. The photo shoot ran really smoothly and all the costumes looked really good so I'm excited to see how the pictures turn out.
For the fundraiser we played The Shining and decorated Wayne's room in a Halloween theme to give it a spooky feel! We charged £1.50 for those in fancy dress and £2.00 for those in normal clothing, we also sold jewelery and baked food that we could sell. The night was really successful and those that came were excited to attend another event like this, and so we will probably arrange one nearer to Christmas with a festive theme.
From this event we raised about £120 which is great for our first fundraiser!

Today I went to Leeds and Bradford with my class to source fabrics. I found two fabrics in Bombay Stores which were similar to ones that I sampled from myfabrics which were really cheap! I decided to buy a few meters of each so that I didn't have to pay for postage.
We also visited Whaleys in Bradford to pick up some fabric which we ordered. I picked up the velvet which I plan to use on the corset, so I will need to dye this next week.

After this we all visited Leeds Museum where there was a costume exhibition called 'Heros and Heroines'. I managed to do a bit of research into clothing from the regency period for my next project.

Today the class and I had a meeting to organise fundraising. Next Thursday we are having a film night to raise funds for the end of year show, which will be really fun as we seem to be selling a lot of tickets.
For this event we need to make things to sell and so each of us have been assigned a type of food to bake and something which we are comfortable making.

After the meeting I transferred my corset pattern onto paper and adjusted it to my models size. This was quite hard as whenever I adjusted the vertical seams I had to alter the horizontal ones. I learnt a few tips here and it made me more confident when making corsets with odd designs.

To carry on with the idea of hand stitch I experimented with machine free hand embroidery. I like this technique as it gives a 'home made' feel but is quicker than hand stitching, and so i will mix the three techniques (dying the fabric, printing with dye and embroidering) in order to make the corset fabric.

Today in my construction class I toiled up the corset and jacket onto the mannequin. This took all day as the corset was quite difficult to get my head round due to the style of it, and also as I had to think of a way to join the twins together.

For the past few days I have been playing with the idea of Daisy and Violet being trapped by their guardians. I feel like they were caged birds, and I would like to play with this idea and further it.

Yesterday I learnt how to print with dyes rather than binder and screen printing inks. This stops the pattern you are printing from sitting on top of the fabric, and allows it to be saturated neatly into the weave. The technique works best with silk fabrics which I plan to be working with.
I used the samples I dyed up last week to print on, and once the prints were dry I embroidered into them to create depth and interest.

I have based my designs on the patterns and themes which tattooed women had on their bodies. I'm interested in the difference between the types of sideshow performers ie those born with disabilitlies and those who change their bodies through choice, like a tattooed lady.

Today in Emmas lesson I wrote my literary review on an article discussing how reality tv shows such as the xfactor and American Idol are the modern day freak show. It was the first literary review I had ever written and was quite hard at first. After help and encouragement from Emma I gained a bit more confidence and started writing. Before I knew it I had written my first draft! I think sometimes I need to just start writing my ideas down, and worry about if they make sense afterwards when I'm re-drafting the piece.

This week I have been focusing on working into my fabric dye samples. I have been looking into the tattooed women that preformed at side shows. From this I have taken the tattoo designs and embroidered them onto the fabric samples. I think this works quite well as it gives the fabric an extra dimension and is also relevant to the side show life.
I have also been doing quite a lot of research into the history of circuses and sideshows in order to bulk up my costume research and also to help me with my long study essay. I was quite lucky as in the summer holidays I managed to buy a few rare books off eBay about circus life, and these have really helped me when researching.

On Monday I started planning a brief for me to follow for this module. This proved to be quite hard as I had to set all the tasks for myself, and state what I wanted myself to achieve from the project.
In textiles I decided to do some dying samples as I had the idea of dying my fabric for the corset. After sampling a few different pigments on various fabric types, I really liked the Olive green shade as it came out very similar to a fabric I had in mind already. This would be a much more cost effective and exciting way of getting my fabric to look the way I want, rather than just choosing a pre-made fabric. After I chose a colour I was drawn to, I started experimenting with different techniques. I used a spray gun to squirt the dyes onto the fabric which meant i was able to blend two colours together, and i also sampled dipping in only one end of the fabric into the dye to let it soak up part of the way. I'm glad I had a sampling session in this class as I was close to ordereing fabric which was quite expencive!

Today in our class with Emma we discussed semotics which is the study of signs. This is helpful in costume as it allows us to look at images of characters we may need to emulate and pull feelings or meanings from them, so we can use them in our costumes.
We also learnt about objective and subjective literary reviews and how to come about them. For next week I need to choose an article or piece of writing and write a brief copy of a literary review for it.

Today we started talking to Ruth about our long study essay and talked through the project module handbook. Before next week I need to come up with a comprehensive book list and a more finalised essay question.

Yesterday we had a meeting in our professional practice class about fundraising for the end of year show. I came up with the idea of having a 'swap shop' type event as I think this would be a popular event. For next week I need to have a few ideas on how we could set this evening up, and in what ways it was successful for other people. I also need to ask around a few of the clubs and bars in Scarborough to see how much it would be to rent the place out for a fundraising evening.

First construction lesson of the year, I discussed corset styles with Wayne and have viewed a few fabrics which I think may be suitable. I also started to collect all my ideas and design the costume.
Idea of looking at Edwardian postcards to get a bigger idea of the corset and underwear.

Week 1

Monday

Sat with group and reviewed each others projects for the next semester. This was really interesting and exciting as all the class have really strong ideas.
In Ruth's lesson we gave each other feedback and told each member firstly our initial reaction to their subject choice and secondly their personal strengths and weaknesses when working. I found this really helpful as my class were really interested about my project and were positive with their feedback. They also said to be more confident with my ideas and work as I tend to doubt myself a lot when I don't need to. I thought this was a really fair observation of the way in which I work, and is the first thing I will work on during my third year. (That and time management!)


Tuesday
Emma's lesson and introduction to Reflection and Review.
Need to keep my journal up to date and to keep on top of the work in this module as it is an area which I think I'll enjoy.

Rest of the day was spent reading up on the designer Lucile and his later collections. I also started to look deeper into the artist Gottfried Helnwein, who worked along side Marilyn Manson for a number of years and is how I recently discovered him.
I will look further into this artist and explore alternative art in more detail, as i think it parallels the idea of a Freak show very well.
In addition to reading into Helnwein and Lucile, I discovered the relation between very early actresses such as Theda Bara and Goth culture, as they both have very dark styles which steer clear from mainstream fashions. This theory came about whilst reading the book 'Goth Vamps and Dandies' by Gavin Baddeley.