KATAGAMI STENCILS AND LASER CUTTING TECHNOLOGY

EARLY CARDBOARD PROTOTYPE OF THE KATAGAMI STENCIL MADE USING LASER CUTTING THAT WAS UNSUCCESSFUL AS THE LASER DID NOT FULLY CUT THROUGH THE CARD BUT SCORED THE SURFACE. 

LASER CUTTING PAPER TEXTILES FOR COSTUME USING A KATAGAMI STENCIL FROM MoDA'S COLLECTION THAT WAS PUT INTO A DIGITAL FORMAT TO BE READ BY THE MACHINE.

HAND PAINTED LASER CUT TEXTILES THAT USED PRINTING INKS IN SHADES OF BLUE AND GOLD. THE PAPER STENCIL WAS MOUNTED ONTO A SEMI-OPAQUE TEXTILE BACKING.

THE PAPER STENCIL MOUNTED ON THE SEMI-OPAQUE TEXTILES HELD UP AGAINST LIGHT TO SHOW THE TRANSPARENCY.

THE TWO DIFFERENT PAPER TEXTILES THAT WENT INTO MAKING THE FINAL COSTUME: PRINTED STENCIL PAPER AND THE LASER CUT PAPER STENCIL.

THE PRINTED PAPER STENCIL AFTER IT HAS BEEN FOLDED USING MULTIPLE WATERBOMB FOLDS TO MAKE THE SLEEVES FOR THE COSTUME.

I've reached a major milestone in my katagami project by fully realising the textiles for a paper costumed performance that has been filmed by students at Middlesex University. I'm looking forward to the final stage of this process which will involve carrying out post-production work to make a short film from the footage and finesse my costume for exhibition.
I shall be sharing some stills and maybe even a short clip from the filming in my next blog as I am still awaiting the footage. But I thought I would share some more stages of the process I went through in making the textiles for my costume. I used a combination of hand techniques and laser cutting techniques to realise the textiles. There were a few technical problems to overcome before the paper stencils could be fully cut: the machine was initially unable to read the digital files; scorching of the paper textiles being cut resulted in unusable textiles; and the machine did not fully cut the paper. Once these problems were overcome it proved to be a very exciting and successful way of creating cut paper designs. The mulberry paper used to create these textiles was very strong and robust. The main issue though was that the stencils themselves had to be mounted onto a textiles for them to hold their shape. The original katagami stencils used a fine silk net structure to keep the stencils in shape. I decided to mount these stencils on a transparent fabric so that the cut paper technique could be appreciated and stitched together to make the final costume.