I think mods had all the fun there was too have in that fleeting and gloriously ridiculous time known as the 1960's. People really were willing to try anything, observe:
I mean I had certainly heard of 'Paper' dresses (actually a plastic cloth called Tyvek) both vintage and modern, but body paint from Coty of all companies? The 60's really was a different time. Nowadays when you think of bodypaint on adults it tends to conjure up images of naff painted breasts (ooh look it's a face-ugh) at outdoor music festivals and perhaps even fetish parties (I'm guessing at that last one). Hard to imagine walking into a drugstore and buying this in a paint can right next to the Coty boxed perfume sets.Then rolling it onto your legs like a pair of tights or along your forearms like DIY opera gloves. Especially in that Betsey Johnson dress pictured above (one only hopes that was washable paint!).
For a list of where to buy vintage and modern 'paper' (Tyvek) clothes and accessories please feel free to email me, glowingdoll@gmail.com
Take something cool slap a Liberty print onto it and it instantly becomes cooler. This seems to be a winning formula so far since Liberty have revisited past collaborations with Nike and now RetroSuperFuture. I'm sure Lomo's covered in Liberty print are not far off...
I love a good etsy find and especially when that find involves hats or fascinators. So I was very pleased to stumble upon Zara Carpenter's shop on etsy called 'Chatham girls'. I adore the photography Zara has used and her choice in models. Her designs are simple but effective packing a quirky punch and much needed blast of colour in these grayest of winter months.
Bruno Billio is a mad genius and artist in residence at The Gladstone. He has lived there for the last eight years!The above is his apartment at The Gladstone. He had a dinner party then flicked a switched (the dinner table revolves) sending glasses and chairs flying. Then left the resulting mess as his piece for CUTMR. The bottled water in the first picture is available to purchase in the hotel lobby at the main desk. This was easily my favourite piece. I loved the voyeur aspect of it.
Parts 1&2 of Mark McLean's Dollar Store Triptych. If you know me you will also know that I love/hate dollar stores and often buy random crap for my DIY projects there. Mark has taken that too the extreme and created actual art from items I would never even notice at the dollar store. Now, I'm secretly itching to melt some plastic soldiers together.
Treehugger by Map Collective
Part 3 of Mark McLean's Dollar Store Triptych. I think this was my favourite of the triptych the zipties fixed to hubcaps so simple and yet so beautiful. They reminded me of graceful anemones
Rena Grosman and Vivien Cheng
Face To Face by Xiaojing Yan. A beautiful and dreamlike way of representing portraits each piece looks heavy but suspends gracefully from the ceiling.
Rob Southcott (Room 212)
Dennis Lin (Room 214). Like the human psyche arranged on to shelves and then wrapped tightly in industrial cling film. Various objects and pieces of objects at first seemed random but gradually began to form a whole as I walked around the whole piece and peered into each nook and cranny with my camera.
Groundwork (Room 204)
Wish You Were Here! By Denise Ing and Ken Leung. The inflatable hand on the left is controlled by a motion sensor in front of it. The hand on the right is remotely controlled through their website, www.wish-you-were-here.ca. Are the hands waiving hello or goodbye?
A shrine to lost farmland and the structures that went with them by Lubo Brezina and Scott Eunson (Room 207I. This piece is based on a barn and reminded me of the skeleton-like shells of old barns that i used to love so much as a child. Give me a rotting barn over a condo anyday.
Room 202 by Jana Macalik, John Peterson and Diana Watters
The bedroom from hell. It looks like it could be in some suburban basement but the harsh white lighting speaks more of an institution like a hospital.
Room 206 by Cyborgesses
A cozy and creepy alter-like installation. The drawing reminded me of indian illuminated manuscripts.
Chaos Theory by Becky Lane and Chrissy Poitras
Escapes III by Jen Spinner
Amanda Mccavour's reconstruction of her living room using thread sewn into dissolving fabric. The result is a drawing made of thread stitched into itself. I love that the mundane objects like the iron and the paint can are represented here too.
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I'm sorry for the overload of photos, I took so many what you see here represents about a third! So this may seem like a lot but it is actually the 'edited' down version. This just goes to show you how wonderful and diverse Come Up To My Room is. My one complaint would be the crowds of people but hopefully next year I will be able to get a pass for the media preview (shameless hint).
Here is a photo of DJ Sara Simms wearing a custom antler fascinator that I made for the photoshoot. It took me ages to make the antlers and at one point I was even watching a Golden Girls marathon to get though it! The work was totally worth it though to get this great picture.
