Soft Art
FishNet
These fish were crafted for - Fishnet: The Great Lakes Craft and Release Project (www.projectfishnet.org) and displayed at Harbourfront Centre, Toronto, from 2 May to 22 June 2008.
View these fish in the FishNet artist gallery.
Project FishNet was supported through a $20K donation by Fresh Ground, Harbourfront's funding commission.
The fish below are made from silver lame fabric for the bodies and various reused materials, like plastic food containers for the transparent fins, bicycle innertubes for the eels, and silver chocolate wrapping for the sclera of the eyes. The bodies were stuffed with old polyester pillow stuffing that has the advantage of wanting to clump together, making the bodies somewhat positionable into curvy, swimmy shapes.
Brook Trout
Emerald Shiners
Eels
Three Spine Stickleback
FishNet Installation at Harbourfront
For more photos of the installation and other project news, visit the FishNet news page.
FishNet Installation at the Ontario Science Centre
From January to April 2009, FishNet was exhibited in a revised format in the Idea! Gallery at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto, Ontario.
The installation consisted of graphics highlighting key fish species related to the development and sustainability of the Great Lakes; digital and video displays from the Harbourfront exhibition in Spring of 2008; the display of the 52 fish species used in the project; and an explanation of the crafting process.
Approximately 700 fish were hung outside the gallery in the Hot Zone area. An additional display of some of the smaller species were in a separate corridor.
Three Spine Stickleback Commision
Additional three spine stickleback sculptures were commisioned by fellow Flickerite Frenquency to commemorate the end of his PhD studies of this fish species.
Like the other fish, these are made of silver lame fabric and stuffed with polyester, acrylic paint, fins made of recycled plastic and spines and armour plates from a can of anchovies. The eyes are made from clear rubber stick on nubs, designed to be little non-slide feet on lamps, electronics, etc.
I used a leather punch to cut the black iris opening out of a plastic bag of frozen berries and sandwiched that between the rubber nub and some silver foil.
Crazy glue was used throughout, as nothing else seems to stick metal (spines and plates) and food container plastic (the fins) to the fabric (the body), nothing environmentally friendly or non-toxic that I could find..