What kind of Imagery and symbolism has she used?

As previously stated, the main focus of Stuntman's narrative works are women and she therefore relies on a lot of imagery which will depict the various aspects of created womenhood in order to express her narrative. 

Figure 26 Figure 27 Barbara Stutman, (1996) Stacking Reality Brooch. [ONLINE]

In her series entitled "Stacking Realities",  as seen above; she has created a womanlike figurine with a tray attached to her. 

Figure 28 Stutman, B (1993). One Being Female. Brooch [ONLINE]

Her work is a creative collection which uses a vast number of imageries all centred on that specific subject matter. An example of this is the 4 part brooch taken from her "One Being Female" series. With these Brooches, she has incorporated the use of tampons alongside fine silver, Spandex, colouredcopper wire, brass and copper. 

Figure 29 Stutman, B. (1998) It’s a girl! 2 Fine silver and coloured copper ring. [ONLINE]

She sometimes also used shoes, specifically high hills in order to mock media for their false idea of their ideal women.

As seen in the three examples provided, she has relied on the usage of various imagery based on the specific subject matter, but all pertaining to  women. 

The tulip

After completing the Platafrica project, I had decided to explore and expand on the tulip concept. I therefore made replica domes from copper, brass and silver;so as to see what else could come of the concept when give the chance to grow.

The pictures will follow at a later post. 

The design

The black tulip is a story of commitment, devotion and the forsaking of all else in order to achieve one’s goal of having something unique and refined as we see displayed in this couple’s love. Since the husband hopes to remind his wife of how their love has cross pollinated, comparable to the tulip flower; I have tried to use this idea within the design.  I have therefore tried to capture the idea of cross pollination by incorporating beadwork in between the domed petals, as it is symbolic of how their love has cross pollinated into this unique product of love.

Since the cross pollination involves the fusing of various aspects into one new being, I had thought that the design would better depict this idea if the beads flowed from each petal. This would also be representative of how they have given off from themselves in order to flow into the others’ life, hence having a love which has cross pollinated over the years owning qualities from each individual. This has ultimately lead to a love which has been cultivated over years, yet is able to retain its unique quality of purity which like platinum remains pure from sunrise to sunset.

Figure 1: Ndongeni, S (2019). Drawing and silver base of ring.

Figure 1 is a picture of the design development before creating the final shank. In order to commit to the narrative, I decided to incorporate the leaf and stem design of the actual tulip, which would act as the design anchor.

Black tulip

I was busy looking at tulips in order to refine my platafrica design and I came across the purple tulip in the picture below and I just was drawn in like a fish caught on a hook. I just liked the shade of purple as it reminded me of the sunrise from the previous post. I won't be using this shade of purple for the platinum design, as I started looking at the various shades in which the tulip can be found and I came across black tulips and I was settled.

 As I dived in to investigate the validity of the black tulip I found that there was an interesting history to it, one of patience, striving for something that the eye has not seen, yet the mind could envision. Which reminded me of 1 Corinthians 2:9

"But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

I found this to be so true as we sometimes limit ourselves to what the eye has known and what we have been told rather than believing and striving for what could be, I feel that as designers we should strive to look beyond what has been done, and the restrictions we have or we too will never reach the day where we can create our own black tulips, 11 years is a long time to work tirelessly towards what eyes have not seen.

PlatAfrica Silver prototype

Over the weekend I managed to add the bead work section in order to finish off the design. I had decided to make two piece, one ring and a bangle as I was curious to see how a ring version of the piece would look like. 

Abstract flower ring prototype

Abstract flower bracelet prototype

‘Til death do us part (part 3)

The following growth point of the suicide concept was having all these little beaded headless female figures hanging on the noose. I however, found this concept and layout to be a little too troubling so thought that I should keep them on ice, until I could find a less disturbing design composition for the beaded women.

Til death do us part (part 2)

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I then decided to use actual rope, so that I could play around with the concept further, I melted the bottom, added beaded work, I got creative with it. This then gave me the idea that I should use some form of imagery which would represent a women, without it being too graphic in nature. I then thought of the most obvious symbol for a woman, which is a flower.

I then  though that instead of just having the flower hanging at one end, I could tell a story or make my comment by having this flower image at one end of the rope, and a beaded female figure beaded onto the other end.

 I still have to work out the actual poem, but the idea behind it is that, she started off as a flower, and the ground she was forced to live in was the death of her. Something along those lines, I still have process it and the design itself.