Audition Monologes and Character Breakdowns

I have done some character analysis and breakdowns from the audition monologues which have really helped me in working out what the personalities of each characters are. I feel that this was really important for me to do before sourcing the costumes as I need to know who the characters are. This work is in my film file/production journal. These character breakdowns, along with research I have done in my sketchbook into the era etc have helped me to do initial sketches of ideas for the costumes. I feel very positive about this project still and I am now ready to start my costume sourcing.

Flower Ideas

I've found a lady who uses free machine embroidery and fabric to create flower brooches. I will use these as a source of inspiration and try to recreate some flowers like this to embroider onto my cloak. She uses wool against chiffons and a variety of contrasting fabrics to create flowers of different textures which I find really interesting.

Wool Fibres

I've just bought some wool fibres from http://www.winghamwoolwork.co.uk/ in the hope that I can make some of my own felt to then Free Machine Embroider onto.
I found a website called Art Wey which features an artist called Sally Pepperell (www.artwey.co.uk/ person.php?person_id=152). She creates work made from wool, cotton, silk and other plant fibres.

Inspired by her designs, I have ordered a variety of different blues and greens to create not only the background for the cape but also for the flowers. It says it may take up to 14 days to be delivered but it should come sooner. Fingers crossed I don't have to wait too long so I can get on with my cape!

Free Machine Embroidery Technique

I really love using Free Machine Embroidery and have used it and developed my techniques a lot over the years of studying Art and Design and Textiles at school and doing my Art Foundation at Central Saint Martins. I am going to use this technique in my SDP as it is a really fluid, quick and easy way to create really intricate designs which appear to have taken a lot longer than they really have. I really want the cloak to feature a lot of details and layers as I stated in previous posts.

The images below are of a witch costume/ instillation I made for my Final Major Project at Central Saint Martins. It was inspired by Shakespeare's witches in Macbeth and by the history of medicine women and men. I sewed onto a basic cloak all of the witches 'spell' ingredience and collected objects. I was given a big box of my Grandpa's fishing tackle collection when he died, which was a random collection of lots of feathers, (real) furs including squirrel, fox, goat and badger, bird capes, squirrel tails and sheeps wool. I combined these with other feathers I bought and collected and natural materials which I sewed onto using the free machine embroidery technique. In some of these images you can see the use of this technique. For some of the patches I tore hand dyed natural fabrics into strips and sewwed them together in this way which was really effective. I even used it to sew real leaves onto squares of fabric.

The image below is a detail of a small area of a skirt I made for A Level Art and Design project called 'Transitions' and is made entirelly from collected and recycled pacaking and old fabrics and items of clothing. This also shows the type of embroidery I am intending to use on the cloak I will be creating for my current project. For this I used a combination of purple and gold threads given to me by friends, family and other donators.

Other Free Machine Embroidery inspiration I have found is a blog by a nice Welsh lady named Karen: http://artistsgardenstudio.wordpress.com/2007/10/

I absolutely LOVE the different colours and materials she has used and the intricate designs she has created using the Free Machine Embroidery technique; like I did for my A Level Art and Design 'Transitions' project, she has used a gold thread on a few of her samples. I will attempt to create some samples like these to test out the different effects I could acheive.

Ophelia- Flower Symbolism

This is the extract from the text of Hamlet in which Ophelia gives away the flowers and herbs she has collected:

OPHELIA
There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue
for you; and here's some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,--

I have done some research on the language of flowers to determine what the flowers and herbs Ophelia gives the other characters in the court symbolise. I found this research on http://www.ehow.com/.:

Shakespeare often used flowers to symbolize emotions of characters. In "Hamlet," Ophelia---the love interest of the title character---hands out a series of flowers that are rich with meaning when she learns her father, Polonius, has been killed.

1. Rosemary

   • Rosemary is a well-known symbol of remembrance, loyalty and fidelity.
     

     According to an article written by Katarina Eriksson, the former head gardener of the Huntington Library, Museum and Botanical Garden in San Marino, California, when Ophelia gives her brother, Laertes a flower and says, "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray you, love, remember," Shakespeare is citing rosemary as a symbol of faithfulness and remembrance. Ophelia, Eriksson says, is urging her audience to "remember what's been happening" and encouraging her brother, Laertes, to "examine where true loyalties seem to lie."

   Pansy

   • Viola tricolors, the traditional Victorian-era pansy, are also known as Johnny Jump-Ups. When Ophelia says, "And there is pansies, that's for thoughts," she's calling attention to the notion of faithfulness and thoughtful recollection. Eriksson tells us that the pansies Ophelia is referring to are the viola tricolor variety.

   Fennel & Columbine

   • A Shakespearean audience would have remembered the old saying "sow fennel, sow sorrow."  When Ophelia presents fennel and columbine to the king, a Shakespearean audience would have recognized the pairing of flattery and foolishness. She knew the king loved flattery, so she first presented fennel and then columbine. The latter, known as the "emblem of deceived lovers," is a symbol of ingratitude, male adultery and faithlessness.

   Rue

   • Continuing with her insults and insinuations, Ophelia presents the bitter herb rue to the queen saying, "There's rue for you; and here's some for me. We may call it herb of grace a Sunday's. O, you must wear your rue with a difference." Eriksson explains that "rue was the major cause of abortion in its day, which is also why it was tied in with adultery."

   English Daisy

   • English daisies are best known for representing innocence and faithfulness.
     

     Ophelia then sees an English daisy, which represents a gentleness, innocence and righteousness she feels has been lost in the court. When she picks up and admires a daisy, only to sadly put it down, she is making a statement of a loss of innocence and loyal love.

   Violet

   • Violets represent simplicity, fidelity and faithfulness violet viola. Ophelia closes by saying, "I would give you some violets, but they wither'd all when my father died." This openly questions the faithfulness, modesty and integrity of the king and queen, Eriksson asserts.

Read more: The Meaning of Ophelia Flowers | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_6766640_meaning-ophelia-flowers.html#ixzz1HKvSfiuT

I found this research really interesting. Despite these flowers not being included in Redon's painting, I may include them in my design. I really think that it is important for the message Ophelia was giving in Hamlet to now transfer to a modern audience in my recreation.

Textile Technique Research

I've been researching different painting and dyeing effects to create interesting textures, patterns and layers to the fabrics I use for the cloak. I want to be extremely experimentative and bold and be daring with the kind of techniques I use. I want the cloak to have extreme detail in it and have loads of interesting layers. The choice of fabrics and the dyeing and painting techniques are the absolute basis for the entire thing. These links are from YouTube and are the kinds of effects I want to acheive.

Work Thus Far...

So far I have collated some fabrics together from boxes of scrap fabrics I have collected over the years and and my Nan's collection of fabrics (some of which date back over 50 years!). I am going to now take these fabrics and test out some different dyeing techniques on them. I've picked a variety of fabrics because I want there to be loads of layers within the cloak. There are silks, heavy cottons, chiffons and nettings and even some upolstery fabrics (I'm not sure if i will use these yet though as they are covered in floral patterns... They may prove to add an extra dimention to the piece but they may prove to just be too complex and busy). I will now research into the kind of different dyeing effects I could apply to these fabrics.

Ophelia's Character

I have been researching into Ophelia's character in Hamlet and have found a nice summery on the internet on http://www.shakespeare-online.com :

Ophelia

Of all the pivotal characters in Hamlet, Ophelia is the most static and one-dimensional. She has the potential to become a tragic heroine -- to overcome the adversities inflicted upon her -- but she instead crumbles into insanity, becoming merely tragic. This is because Ophelia herself is not as important as her representation of the dual nature of women in the play. Ophelia's distinct purpose is to show at once Hamlet's warped view of women as callous sexual predators, and the innocence and virtue of women.
The extent to which Hamlet feels betrayed by Gertrude is far more apparent with the addition of Ophelia to the play. Hamlet's feelings of rage against his mother can be directed toward Ophelia, who is, in his estimation, hiding her base nature behind a guise of impeccability.
Through Ophelia we witness Hamlet's evolution, or de-evolution into a man convinced that all women are whores; that the women who seem most pure are inside black with corruption and sexual desire. And if women are harlots, then they must have their procurers. Gertrude has been made a whore by Claudius, and Ophelia has been made a whore by her father. In Act II, Polonius makes arrangements to use the alluring Ophelia to discover why Hamlet is behaving so curiously. Hamlet is not in the room but it seems obvious from the following lines that he has overheard Polonius trying to use his daughter's charms to suit his underhanded purposes. In Hamlet's distraught mind, there is no gray area: Polonius prostitutes his daughter. And Hamlet tells Polonius so to his face, labeling him a "fishmonger" (despite the fact that Polonius cannot decipher the meaning behind Hamlet's words). As Kay Stanton argues in her essay Hamlet's Whores:

Perhaps it may be granted...that what makes a woman a whore in the Hamlets' estimation is her sexual use by not one man but by more than one man.... what seems to enrage [Hamlet] in the 'nunnery' interlude is that Ophelia has put her sense of love and duty for another man above her sense of love and duty for him, just as Gertrude put her sense of love and duty for her new husband above her sense of love and duty for her old. Gertrude chose a brother over a dead Hamlet; Ophelia chooses a father over a living Hamlet: both choices can be read as additionally sexually perverse in being, to Hamlet, 'incestuous'. (Stanton,New Essays on Hamlet 168-9)

But, to the rest of us, Ophelia represents something very different. To those who are not blinded by hurt and rage, Ophelia is the epitome of goodness. Very much like Gertrude, young Ophelia is childlike and naive. Unlike Queen Gertrude, Ophelia has good reason to be unaware of the harsh realities of life. She is very young, and has lost her mother, possibly at birth. Her father, Polonius, and brother, Laertes, love Ophelia tremendously, and have taken great pains to shelter her. She is not involved with matters of state; she spends her days no doubt engaged in needlepoint and flower gathering. She returns the love shown to her by Polonius and Laertes tenfold, and couples it with complete and unwavering loyalty. "Her whole character is that of simple unselfish affection" (Bradley 130). Even though her love for Hamlet is strong, she obeys her father when he tells her not to see Hamlet again or accept any letters that Hamlet writes. Her heart is pure, and when she does do something dishonest, such as tell Hamlet that her father has gone home when he is really behind the curtain, it is out of genuine fear. Ophelia clings to the memory of Hamlet treating her with respect and tenderness, and she defends him and loves him to the very end despite his brutality. She is incapable of defending herself, but through her timid responses we see clearly her intense suffering:

Hamlet: ...I did love you once.
Ophelia: Indeed, my, lord, you made me believe so.
Hamlet: You should not have believed me...I loved you not.
Ophelia: I was the more deceived.

Her frailty and innocence work against her as she cannot cope with the unfolding of one traumatic event after another. Ophelia's darling Hamlet causes all her emotional pain throughout the play, and when his hate is responsible for her father's death, she has endured all that she is capable of enduring and goes insane. But even in her insanity she symbolizes, to everyone but Hamlet, incorruption and virtue. "In her wanderings we hear from time to time an undertone of the deepest sorrow, but never the agonized cry of fear or horror which makes madness dreadful or shocking. And the picture of her death, if our eyes grow dim in watching it, is still purely beautiful". (Bradley, Shakespearean Tragedy 132-3). The bawdy songs that she sings in front of Laertes, Gertrude, and Claudius are somber reminders that the corrupt world has taken its toll on the pure Ophelia. They show us that only in her insanity does she live up to Hamlet's false perception of her as a lascivious woman.

References
Bradley, A.C. Shakespearean Tragedy. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1966.
Burnett, Mark, ed. New Essays on Hamlet. New York: AMS Press, 1994.
Evans Lloyd Gareth. Shakespeare IV. London: Oxford university Press, 1967.
Granville-Barker, Henry. Prefaces to Shakespeare. New York: Hill and Wang, 1970.
Loske, Olaf. Outrageous Fortune. Oslo: Oslo University Press, 1960.
Muir, Kenneth. Shakespeare and the Tragic Pattern.

How to cite this article:

Mabillard, Amanda. Ophelia. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. (date when you accessed the information) < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/hamlet/opheliacharacter.html >.

I've highlighted in red the most relevant aspects of the character anaylsis. I do see Ophelia as the analysis states:  "Ophelia is the most static and one-dimensional (character)", but I do think she adds a lot of depth and a sense of instability and scares the audience with her total lack of mental sanity. The flower picking scene is especailly unsettling. I will further research this scene to gain a greater unsderstanding of the relevance of the flowers she gives to the other characters.

National Gallery Trip

Today I went to the National Gallery and searched through the many rooms to find the painting that I was most inspired to recreate. I found it was quite challenging as most of the paintings are quite traditional and posed which is not a route I wanted to go down. I eventually found a pastel piece called Ophelia Among The Flowers by Odilon Redon which is very etherial and abstract.

Information next to painting: 'This pastel is one of several compositions by Redon of this subject from Shakespeare's 'Hamlet' which date from this period. The flowers seem to be of no identifiable species, resembling lilac and strawberries, and with blue leaves interspersed with the green. The garlanded head of Ophelia is turned towards the flowers as though in contemplation of their beauty.'

I am very familiar with Hamlet by Shakespere as I studied it at A Level at school so know the text and characters well. This piece inspired me the most as it immediately made me think of all of the different textile techniques I could include in it. I think I am going to interpret the mass of flowers next to Ophelia as a design on a dark blue cloak or cape she will be wearing. This means I will be able to do lots of experimentation with fabrics and sewing techniques and be very innovative and resourceful as the brief stated we should be. This would work on the skills that I already have and enable me to enhance and experiment with these skills to create new ones appropriate to this project. I am very happy with my choice of painting and looking forward to starting the experimentation with fabrics and textile techniques.

Further Inspiration

I have done some further research on painting recreations and have found a series of recreations including famous actors and actresses faces which seem to have been Photoshopped onto the paintings.

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/galleries/celebrities_and_famous_portraits_collide

I also found an article called Recreating Famous Paintings With Photography which also features famous actors and actresses but this time they are full recreations; just like the brief we have been set. They are not Photoshopped afterwards. These include:

I love these recreations as they are not exactly the same, they are strongly influenced by the original paintings but have not been taken too literally which I like. I especially like the Gustav Klimt recreation but I would have put a lot more detail into the dress and perhaps embroidered onto it to create the effect Klimt achieved in his painting. I would really like to create something like this for Part 1 of the project as it will enable me to enhance and use skills that I already have. These reconstructions have really inspired me; I feel I could create something really successful.

Inspiration

I have researched on the internet, different recreations of paintings and I have found a music video by Hold Your Horses called 70 Million which features several recreations of famous paintings including Van Gogh's Self Portrait with Bandaged Ear and Andy Warhol's Marilyn. I absolutely love this music video, it is cleaver, witty and well thought through.