a fistful of *designs*

I have finally scanned in all my designs so as to make up my website, but I thought I'd post a few here too. So here is my Mack the Knife! And below a pair of his trusty whores and the vulgar Mr Peachum. I really did enjoy creating this project which was very much character-led. Hope you enjoy them...

degree *show*

So not only is my website up and running - www.jessicagelpke.com - but so is my degree show space. It closes this wednesday, but if you get a chance, it's at Wimbledon College of Arts on the Merton Hall Road, Wimbledon, London. All the work on display is uploaded onto my website, but there are so many great designers and makers on show, it'd be a shame to miss their work too. Above you can see some of my cards arranged in a pair of decorated shoes, ready to be plucked!

{coming soon}

I have been so very busy this week, finishing up exams and now preparing to set up the degree show... the show will be open to the public Saturday 19th June, and, skipping Sunday, will end on Wednesday 23rd. It will be displayed at Wimbledon College of Arts on Merton Hall Road, and there are so many exciting things being put up besides the costume department, so come if you are nearby or interested! And last but not least, I'm assembling a rather rudimentary website too. Here's a little peak at of one of my designs that will be on the site. Coming soon!

the {splendour} only a beggar could imagine

For my last design project at Wimbledon College, we were given 'The Threepenny Opera' by Bertolt Brecht and allowed to have our way with it. Once of my first leaping points was this quote from the prologue:

"You are about to hear an opera for beggars.

Since this opera was conceived with the splendour only a beggar could imagine,

and since it had to be so cheap, even a beggar could afford it, it is called: The Threepenny Opera".

I set my version of Threepenny in Wilton's Music Hall in east London. It's the last remaining intact music hall in Europe and has a thoroughly and suitably bawdy history. I went along and tool thousands of photographs and literally fell silent when I was shown in. Allowed to roam in the semi-dark alone for 15 minutes, I took in the many textures - rough wood, crumbling gilt plaster, burnt and water damaged murals - and tried to imagine the feasting, drinking and lechery that must have taken place there 160 years ago.

This image - originally gleaned from dear Flroizelle - captured the heart of what I wanted to create in the hall. I imagined that a hoard of beggars moved into the theatre with their animals and heaped stolen goods, to find an abandoned costume closet (after all, i am doing a costume design degree). From there, they decide to put on a show, and mix and match all they find to put on the Threepenny Opera.

I was looking at old Victorian London - a massive construction and demolition site of the many 17th and 18th century buildings that once stood, ramshackle and imperfect to the Victorian eye.

Images found here, here and here.

Old mis-matched shoes and gloves, make-shift hats and torn stockings, and mud. Real mud - and lot's of it. A stable transformed into a wedding feast, attended by the glamorous filth of London's Soho. The overpowering stench of horses and chickens mingled with the finest foie gras from Fortnum & Masons, and the Duchess of Somerset's rosewood harpsichord sawn and remade into a crude bench for the happy, happy couple...

{the kensington palace project}

And here's how I made it! This is the workbook I have to compile for my course, including all the samples and descriptions of how I made the costume. It's taken three times as long as it should have, but it was so much fun to do a bit of scrap-booking and have a break from all the designing we've been doing lately. I'm also in the middle of building a website, so more on that soon!

Patterns blocks...

Samples of the raw fabrics i used. Only six! including what i used on the crown!

These were taken at the college show in february, where we had to present a costume at a wearable stage. As you can see, it was no where near finished, but i'm still quite fond of the simpler, plain linen version. Especially the skeleton crown where you can actually see my spot welding work!

Screen printing the meters and meters of linen...

I altered a pair of vintage white kid gloves, and then embroidered into them with a contrasting grey running stitch.

The shoes were so much fun! i bought a pair of white silk wedding shoes on ebay for £3.50 which were consequently tea-stained, sprayed and glued. The tea didn't really do anything, as i couldn't leave them in for very long with out melting the glue that's holding them together! So i sprayed them, then covered them in distressed metallic organza.

And the final result in the palace gardens...

*faded glory*

Hello! More on the costume. It's been a very long and fruitful day at Kensington Palace. I thought i'd share some of the final shots in the rose garden (sadly lacking in roses) from the end of the show, so you can se the full effect of hair, make-up and crown! There were many other costumes besides this one which I would like to share, but first, I need permission from the designers so mine will have to do for now! Now, time for some sleep...

A royal ghost of the palace? This one looks a bit Alice in Wonderland, with red roses spilling out of a marble fireplace and a white queen inhaling their fragrance...

{little preview}

Here's a little glimpse of what i've been working on for the past few months. Hopefully, it'll all be ready by next friday in time for the costume's debut at the Palace! I took these today during rehearsal, and my model Jenny did such a great job I thought i'd post a few...

* * *

shake your tail feather

Finally, I have managed to photograph my feathered headress! It's made from pheasant, macaw, peacock and wild turkey feathers. Thanks to my mother for hopping out of the car to make the most of a poor roadkill pheasant, and also to Marion, the proud owner of Custard the macaw. Couldn't have done it without you! Merry christmas everyone x

{blood wedding}

Taken from a Life Magazine from the 50s.

I have been designing for Blood Wedding as part of my costume design degree, and I thought I would share some of the images from my moodboards. It's been an intense process! Written in the early 1930s by Federico Garcia Lorca, Blood Wedding is saturated with symbology and themes that are still very relevant today. It is all the more poignant as this very month the Spanish authorities have allowed the mass grave that supposedly holds Lorca's body to be exhumed. Lorca was tragically murdered just before the Spanish Civil War picked up momentum, thought by many to have been targeted for being a radical and outspoken left wing writer who was very popular in the Spanish arts scene of the twenties and thirties. He is also well known as Salvador Dali's lover and a fim was recently made titled Little Ashes about Dali and his love affairs. All in all, it has been fascinating! Hope you enjoy the images below...

The Bride afloat in the current of her passions... and can be found here.

I love the pleating and the make up in this shot. Really inspiring... and can be found here.

So beautiful, and so haunting. More can be found here, which I found via here.

When I can remember how to track this down I will post it again! Isn't it wonderful?

A mold spore under a microscope - surprisingly beautiful, but then, decay is at the heart of the cycle of life so how could it not be? More can be found here.

A wonderful home photo of a 1930s bride...

I have a feeling that I found this still life either on Florizel or Ullabenulla, but unfortunately I gathered it for my image files a long, long time ago! It's one that has inspired me time and time again, so thank you whomever posted it!

Brave woman.

More underwater angels from here.

Terrible Beauty

I've been assigned a new project on my costume design course based on Lorca's play 'Blood Wedding'. In my research, i've found myself looking at the myths of the Greek goddess Persephone and of course, the wonderful fruit that is the pomegranate. I immediately thought of the work of Jane Wildgoose (my post titled 'Cabinets of Curiosity', March). Her fascinating on-going work a the Wildgoose Memorial Library is dedicated to:

Persephone, who delighted herself in contemplating beautiful views, flowery meadows and limpid streams*. And to Ceres, her mother, who successfully interceded for Persephone’s safe return to earth for six months each year, after her daughter had been ravished by Pluto and abducted by him to reign as Queen in the infernal regions.

During my research, I stumbled upon the moving-image work of Ori Gersht. Below you can see a still from a piece entitled Pomegranate. You can watch it here {it only takes seconds}. It actually shocked me at first - it's so simple, so obvious, and yet very brutal despite it being incredibly slow. Here's a description below...

In a carefully composed scene reminiscent of a Juan Sanchez Cotan sixteenth-century still life, a pomegranate fruit stands out from a muted, theatrical backdrop. After a few moments, this highly symbolic fruit is exploded by a high-velocity bullet; seeds spilling from its disintegrating carcass in extreme slow motion, and with an eerie and terrible beauty.

Terrible Beauty somehow captures it for me.

Take a look!

{Crying Gold}

I just found the costume I made last year on my college website! Ok, ok, so I googled my own name, but I haven't done that for a very very long time. Check out my fellow classmates' creations here. We made our designs based on characters from the medieval play of Everyman, and then put on a costume parade at the National Gallery this past May. It got pretty hectic before that final happy day, probably because a week before the show I decided to remake/weld the skirt and shoulder panels from copper rods instead of the plastic I had used initially. In the last photo, i've got a hideous plaster on my arm where I gouged out a hole with a random piece of sharp protruding metal in the workshop. Brilliant.

I also want to say THANK YOU to my model and friend, Lisa, for sustaining many months of prodding, tight corsetry, heavy armour and of course her favorite - the latex mask. All in all, a cumbersome ordeal, but i am ever grateful.

Spraying the 'bodice' breast plate, after having removed all feeling from my fingertips by spreading hot plastic to create the 'hammered metal' look. Trust me, there are more efficient techniques out there.

Lisa models my second attempt at the hip panels, which I then covered with two layers of silver and black metal-shot organza.

The mask was a cast of Lisa's face and painted to resemble a death mask with liquid gold pouring out as tears. Macabre, I know.

Strolling out in Trafalgar Square - happy and relieved (perhaps due to the insane painkillers I took to treat a sudden back spasm that had me twitching on the floor moments before the show). I was pretty out of it for a few days after!

Thanks for reading...

Bottelicious {Two}

A charming gift {above} proffered by the lovely Florizelle at Le Divan Fumoir Bohemien. Aren't the multitudes of blue simply delicious? They remind me a lot of my great grandmother's glass collections which she grouped mostly by colour {below}. The photo above is "...a picture of Elephant House, Edward Gorey's house, by  Kevin Mac Dermott." From what I read, Edward Gorey lived an isolated life in his house which he very rarely revealed to others. In a new book of photographs, Mac Dermott, a close confidante of Gorey's, opens the doors to the inner life of Gorey and his fascinating collections. I really must track down this book... thank you Florizelle!

 

Elephant House.

A close up of one part of the installation which I blogged last March in "{Twisted} Stories".

Do take a look at some of Gorey's illustrations, they really are magical...

Thanks for reading x