Definition: “Design of horticultural material and objects used with ingenuity. The design should be composed of diverse elements which may or may not be fastened together. Natural resource material should be incorporated. The objects are related through form, colour and/or texture. This is one of the few design styles where plant material need not predominate the design”
There are three ways of presenting an Assemblage for judging –
1. A panel with material attached or hanging, with an arrangement placed nearby to complete the assemblage;
2. Above mentioned items arranged in a niche or frame;
3. A sculptured effect achieved by a grouping of several items as above.
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Class title: Assemblage – My Interpretation of Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh.
Staging: bench, space allowed 70cm, judged from front
My first thought was to do stars in various materials but on closer inspection of the actual Van Gogh painting, I realised I would need to incorporate some swirling material as well. Here is the result:
I have used a free standing plain timber frame painted a dull gold as the outline for the assemblage. A tall distressed bronze candlestick with a moon and star shape is used to hold a single yellow gerbera. This is backed by star shapes on bamboo skewers. These star shapes appear in other places in the design and are made by shaping some decorative wire into a star and gluing this to nori (seaweed) sheets. Once the glue is dry, trim the excess nori so that the wire becomes the outline of the star shape.
The candlestick is draped with some black velvet fabric with gold highlights. This fabric extends over the frame and also has some of the decorative wire spiralled around it. There is a single star shape (Christmas ornament) hanging from the frame at right angles to the rest of the design. This ornament is made from wire and paper twists which enhance the swirling effect I wanted to relate to the original painting. Three pasta birdsnests are glued to the top of the frame again for relating back to the original painting and its swirling colours.
Judging feedback: A good example of an assemblage design with both found objects and plant material following the class title. Clever use of plant material in different forms such as the pasta and seaweed add to the overall effect of the design.
