For the Anthropocene Identity project, we were supposed to create something that says something about living in the Anthropocene period and our own identity, by creating an “artifact” and imagining it 1000 years in the future and how it will change over time and what would happen to it.

I chose to make an object that looks kind of like it could be a stuffed animal of some kind, maybe it is an actual animal, something that is definitely supposed to represent an animal. I personally was thinking of a turtle because I have been told that Turtles are my spirit animal, not that I really care for that type of thing, but I like turtles and I can relate to their slower nature and I like water. I also wanted it to function as a commentary on the right now and how people are trying to ban straws because they are "killing the sea turtles", when we all know it's not just the straws that are killing the sea turtles. 

Over the thousand years, my sea turtle looking artifact (which consists of 2 rocks wrapped in fabric) was sun aged and dumped in the ocean, so get covered in nasty things like algae and to have salt grow on it. To be torn and repaired. Choked by straws, only straws, because according to people these days the straws are the only thing harming our sea life right now. 

Process: I black tea and cinnamon stick dyed light blue, light teal, and forest green fabric and then baked it in the oven to dry. Then I took them outside and pretended to wash it on the cement with a rock to wear and tear them. I sprayed bleach on the light teal and dark green fabric to bleach portions of it and then tea dyed it a second time.

I painted brown acrylic paint around the holes in my light blue tea dyed fabric and tore sections of it off and wrapped and hot glued it around my two rocks, tying some thread around the "neck". I tore patches from the other two fabrics and and frayed the edges and glued them on top of my fabric covered rocks. 

I used tea stained embroidery floss to stitch together the the holes in the fabric. I glued sand for the "salt" and instant coffee ground for oily looking stains on certain sections. I painted more brown acrylic paint on the bottom to make it look like it had been laying in mud. I then tied and glued dirt covered straws around the "neck", and last but not least I took actual algae from a nasty sludge pond bellow a car wash not far from my moms house and spread it on sections of my artifact to give it a real life look (a real life smell as well.)        

3.2: Securing: I died my light teal fabric by painting diagonal stripes with a red, blue, and black acrylic paint and warm water with a little bleach in it. The red acrylic didn't mix in completely so I smeared it off my skewer onto the fabric, I then rinsed it and dipped the right half of it in turmeric and warm water and rinsed it again. I broke the skewer I used for stirring paint into three pieces (measuring to make sure they would fit into the corner making each bigger than the next) I stabbed the pieces through the fabric on each end and couched them on with coral embroidery floss (EF), making the stitches further and further apart with each stick. I then stapled on a piece of dried pine tree, and sewed on an old piece of paper with a cat drawn on it using plum colored EF and the seed stitch.   

3.1 : Adhering: I dipped each half of my white fabric into two different shades of light blue dye (unknown origin, I didn't mix it) and painted on dye with three different acrylic paint and bleach water mixtures first in light pink, orange, and after bleaching a cross through the middle (painted on) I added dark blue acrylic and water (also painted on) to the center. I then adhered on coffee beans with fake nail glue, a shell with hot glue, a zipper with Armaflex 520 foam insulation adhesive (I first attempted a black epoxy but it was too dry), the toothpick I used to try clearing the epoxy tube with Elmer's glue (the kid safe kind that dries clear), and feathers with honey and a piece of painters tape because the honey wouldn't dry.    

Dying Exercises 

2.3 : Dying (Additive & Substractive): I embroidered maroon fabric with gold embroidery floss (EF) using the lazy daisy stitch and french knots (all but 3 of the french knots pulled through the fabric too much). I then painted/poured on dye made from green, blue, and black acrylic paint and warm water. Some of the green paint didn't mix in all the way and I smeared what was on my stirring stick onto the fabric in diagonal lines. I then sprayed it with bleach, rinsed it, and wiped more green paint on it with my skewer. 

2.2 : Dying (Subtractive): I embroidered forest green fabric with a coral pink colored EF and a maroon/plum colored EF using the fly stitch, I then cut triangles from the bottom left edge and sanded the bottom left corner with a coarse grit sandpaper with a handheld sanding machine. I finished it off by spraying it first with a mixture of water and bleach, then just straight bleach when the first attempt did nothing (my mothers bleach is very cheap apparently).  

2.1 : Dying (Additive): I used a light teal colored fabric and tied one end with embroidery floss and dipped it in a dark blue Procion dye (made with teal and black) and swished it around, cut the string and dotted the un-dyed end with black Indian ink. After rinsing and drying I embroidered it with White and light blue EF using a otomi stitch and a medium green EF which I attempted to dye darker with a dark green, blue, and black acrylic paint and water mixture using a loose stem stitch.   

1.5 : Couching: in the 1st one I laid 1/3 a piece of blue yarn down in a swirly pattern and couched it on with regular black thread, the 2nd I couched on pink and then red embroidery floss (EF) with white thread in an back and forth squiggle, in the 3rd I couched on strips of dark green fabric with neon green EF, and the last one I couched on a strip of light teal fabric laid in a circle with the same neon green EF from the previous box.    

1.4 : Back Stitch with patterns or shapes: for 1.4 I used the same "shape" for all 4 squares just with different colors of embroidery floss used (technically I accidentally did the reverse image for the first one because the tail is on the wrong side). The 1st one I used black with 1 thread of neon green and 1 thread of dark green for the eyes and brown for the ground, the 2nd one I actually used teal blue EF and white regular thread for the sky and used negative space the make a white cat shape (like I did in 1.1 and 1.2) and the ground and the eyes I did in dark green EF, the 3rd one I did an orange cat outlined in dark orange with dark orange stripes and filled in with light orange with dark blue eyes and green for the ground, the 4th one I did a brown cat with dark and light brown like the orange cat as well as blue eyes but with brown ground on a more sporadic pattern.    

1.3 : Running Stitch with multiple threads, different directions, and overlapping: I outlined all the boxes in red embroidery floss (EF) then in the 1st box I mixed neon green and light blue embroidery floss and did them in haphazard directions as if the stitch was bouncing off the red outline and overlay-ed those with long diagonal stitches half in orange and half in pink. The 2nd box I did short light blue stitches EF) in a curved diagonal radiating from the top left corner and overlapping pink EF doing the same thing from the bottom right corner. The 3rd box I outlined a cat and gave it a nose in pink and white EF with neon green EF eyes and white EF whiskers, I then did haphazard stitches in teal blue EF mixed with white regular thread for rain, and did a haphazard horizontal stitch in brown EF for the ground. The last box I used all embroidery floss, light blue for the sky, teal blue for the waterfall, dark brown for the outline/details of the cliff, light brown to fill in and 2 thread of white for the mist (which I curled and didn't pull tight to give texture). 

I tried making this one a whole piece by representing 4 different emotions encased in one red frame: pain, conflict, sadness, and peace.      

1.2 : Running Stitch with multiple and different threads: We were supposed to do the same thing as the first set only this time we were supposed to experiment with mixing different threads, the the first one I did the same pattern as my last box in 1.1 only with 2 black embroidery floss threads and 2 white regular threads, the 2nd box I used one of each orange and light blue embroidery floss and did the same pattern as my 2nd box in 1.1, the 3rd box I mixed 6 threads of regular black thread and 1 thread of neon green embroidery floss and slowly made each stitch on each row longer and longer until one row was one single stitch and then decreased the stitches, the last bow I mixed 2 threads of regular white thread and 1/3 a piece of blue yarn. 

1.1 : Running Stitch: for 1.1 we were supposed to practice running stitch with horizontal lines with varying lengths and densities to see what we could accomplish with the stitch. In my 1st box I used shorter stitches as backdrop and long stitches to create a design (a cat head), the 2nd box I attempted to do the opposite still using shorter stitches for the background but this time I left the shape in the negative space (just an outline of a whole cat this time), the 3rd box I just played with line length going from short or long across, leaving the spaces between the same size as the stitch, the last box I alternated between short stitches and long stitches leaving minimal space between the stitches.