Rusty Ikea hatstand with a Cherry, Beech and Maple leaf cape with hood on plastic wrap.  1700*500*500mm

As part of the Press Play: a collaborative, experimental, multi-part exhibition, University of Reading

A slightly dishevelled and rusting Ikea hatstand is clothed in a hooded cape made of autumn leaves.

Why? Why is it draped around rather then hanging on the hook of a hat stand? And why is the hat stand in such a state? The piece calls attention to the draw of nature, its ephemerality and the agency of things. The length of the cape and hood gives the ‘clothing’ a somewhat Romantic style – pointing to the romanticization of nature. What is it? Who does the cape belong to? Why was it? Would the cape disintegrate slowly over time? The leaves dried and I intend to crush them up and use them in a future project.

Press Play Collaboration Exercise – Conception and Making

In this last and final section of Press Play, I was given instructions by way of a questionaire. The question he posed was: What do you do if your tool is broken?  I responded by showing what I would do with an abandoned, rusty hatstand found in the garden. I had been intrigued by Jane Bennett’s Vibrant Matter earlier in the year and this item, some kind of metal cage, called my attention.  What it was doing in the garden I don’t know, but I imagined it clothed in the red Virginia Creeper that covers much of the back yard and that hatstand began to take on its own personality. 

The hatstand in the garden; sketches; a Cherry leaf stack; soaking the leaves in vegetable glycerine; sewing the leaves together; assembling the leaves onto a plastic cape.

Gathering leaves was the first stage the changing state of the leaves would become part of the project itself.

I found the Beech leaves to be the sturdiest, almost leather like and kept a nice sheen, but I intersected with the Cherry and Maple to give the bold red colour and then chose to assemble a nice ombre of colour. My sewing machine chewing up some of the leaves and I had to change the needle and clean out the bobbin seat several times.  Ironically, it could have been the sewing machine that ended up being the broken tool and I contemplated displaying the two side by side; a half- clothed hatstand next to a tired sewing machine. It struck me as almost surreal.  However, it did survive thankfully and the cape was finished, complete with hood.