This piece is an exploration of the physicality of each of its components, being mostly on a “flat” surface like my object, translated and interpreted with diverse ranges of color. I wanted to challenge myself and choose a demanding project while also exploring apparel design and the creation of garments. It is an exploration of material features: a translation of ideas. This garment looks like a mosaic and is reminiscent of textiles. The process included first measuring a base size for the poncho on paper, then cutting around the outline, collecting materials, parsing materials, grouping together materials based on color, delineating spaces for each color on the sketchbook and then on the actual piece. The big swatches of color make it seem a focused composition. The object of choice was a distorted collage, with zoomed-in parts and distortions in placement and orientation. Questions I would have include how to glue these without a glue gun? The flamboyant colors made me want to turn this into a garment. I had to fill a few gaps and use a slightly different or similar color, and some things get lost in translation, but I acknowledge that as part of the process. The diverse materiality and much bigger scale makes this piece effective in translating colors, materials, textures, ideas.
