Plaster Dipping

I have been experimenting with plaster as a sculptural material following my research on fabric casting. I was interested in the boundaries between hard and soft and have continued along this vein of exploration. One of the other materials that I have been experimenting with is rope, and so I have decided to fuse these two ideas together.

I recently dipped a number of textile items, including rope and calico. Here are some of the pieces drying.

I wanted to focus on the boundary between rigid and pliable and so dipped the ropes at different heights. One of the ropes I completely encased in the plaster, doing this meant that it was no longer textile at all and had completely changed its form.

Another item that I dipped was a piece of calico which i had slashed at equal intervals. I was inspired to do this by some packaging i found. Where the packaging had been slashed, it meant that it could now be stretched without breaking. When the slashes were stretched, they became a series of pockets in the paper which were both visually stimulating and tactile. I was curious as to whether this design could be converted to fabric, so I slashed some calico in the same pattern. as the paper and calico have different weights they held their shape differently, with the calico less inclined to stay stretched by itself. I went on to dip the slashed calico in plaster. I was interested to see how the weight and resulting stretch would affect the form.