Assignment 3 Reflections

I have very much enjoyed this part of the course.  It was such an enormous relief to be finished with Assignment 2, which made me feel, for quite a long time, that I should just give up.  This project though restored my faith and I really loved doing it.  I also suddenly felt like I was getting to grips with working in my sketchbook in a more textiles focused way.

Another badly timed trip to France has meant that at times I have had to rush parts of the project, for example I would really have liked to have had time to work more with stitch in my applique.

I've been thinking about my themebook almost continually for the last few months.  My problem is never that I can't think of an idea, but always that I have too many of them.  I thought for  along time that i would choose something from the natural world and thought about beetles, caterpillars, bees, animal nests and coral reefs before I decided that the  natural world had been done to death.  Then I decided that I might use a book as my inspiration, but I have at least 20 favourite, favourite books on any given day and so I just couldn't settle on that either.  Then I thought I would use a place, as I hadn't seen anybody else doing that for their themebook and so I decided on New Orleans as somewhere I know quite well and is full of a huge amount of inspiration.  After I'd avoided starting it for quite a long time I realised that I just wasn't connecting to the topic at all and so my final, final decision is Cryptogams, which at first I thought meant crosswords, but turned out to mean all those plants that don't produce by seeding, things like ferns, lichens and fungi.

You can click here to share in some Cryptogamic inspiration.

Research Point 3

Think About the Diversity of Textiles Which Are Craft-Based in Their Production

Moving on from the previous research point to this one it begins to seem obvious to me why craft-based textiles, and other crafts-person produced goods, maintain their place in a market which like any other is mostly cost driven.  

I believe that even in economically tough times people are willing to pay slightly more for an individual,  handmade, professionally finished product which will leave a lighter footprint upon the earth an won't be found in every single home they go into.

More and more, people are coming to realize that we cannot continue to consume our natural resources thoughtlessly and damage and pollute as we go without giving anything back and this is the attitude that I believe goes a long way to supporting craftsmen and women in their  many professions.

I believe that as more people turn to this way of thinking it will become the norm and when it does we will be on the right path to protecting our future.

The Fibershed project started by Rebecca Burgess saw her commit to an entire year of dressing omly in textiles that had been made by local craftspeople from locally produced fibre, within a 100 square mile area of Northern California, and she achieved it, along the way inspiring many others to make changes to their clothes buying habits.  To my mind this is an ideal way of living and a reason that we should all support our local craftsmen and women as much as possible.

Joseph Alanen (1885-1920)

All images via A Polar Bears Tale

I can see these as woven picture, I think they would look absolutely beautiful.

Awesomeness and Project 6 Reflections

SUPAKITCH & KORALIE - VÄRLDSKULTUR MUSEET GÖTEBORG from elr°y on Vimeo.

I've really enjoyed this way of working with fabric.  I find it hard to compare it to working with stitch because they seem to be one thing to me rather than an either or.  I do enjoy this way of manipulating fabric directly because it achieves such immediate results and for someone as impatient as me that is always going to be a good thing.

The shapes and movement created with these techniques of manipulating fabric in different ways were really interesting to me.  Applique gives so much control whereas the other methods of manipulation were far less predictable to me.  Perhaps that comes with practise though, I'd like to be able to take some time and go back through the book trying out all of the manipulations it mentions.

I like the way that my pieces work in relation to the drawings that inspired them for the most part, but I think that the techniques you choose to employ in any given piece give it a whole new feel and takes it beyond any result that can be achieved using two dimensional techniques.

In the applique exercises I liked working with my drawings and found them to be a good leaping off point, but when it came to trying to recreate a picture I found it a bit frustrating, perhaps I was restricting myself to much, trying to recreate things exactly as I saw them instead of interpreting them in a new way.

I feel incredibly positive and excited working in this area.  Its such a huge area, full of possibility and potential to create in so many different ways.  I can't wait to pursue it in more depth and far from feeling restricted by its boundaries I feel like the opportunities are boundless.

Small Wonderland

KEITARO SUGIHARA

Inspired Today by.....

Lyndie Dourthe

BrodonsFacile

Elintm

Miga de Pan

Amy Gross

Permacouture Institute

Inspiring Me Today

Emilie Faif

Carnovsky

Oliver Jeffers

Tugboat Printshop

Mahonia

We picked the berries off of these bushes last Autumn to die some cotton with, they gave us a gorgeous winey purpley colour, but I don't remember ever noticing these pretty, pretty flowers before, they remind me of the French Knot piece I just did, I love these colours together.

Mesmerised Like Fireflies That Are Falling To A Flame

I want to walk through that forest tonight.

 Time-lapse photos of fireflies by Tsuneaki Hiramatsu

Project 3 Colour - Stage 6 ,Exercise 1

I have loved Seurat's work for a very long time, ever since I saw this painting , A Sunday on La Grande Jatte when I was living in Chicago about a thousand years ago.

So I was really eager to start exploring a stitching technique that offered the opportunity to recreate the technique of pointilism in textiles.  I realised quite quickly that it wasn't going to be as easy as I had imagined.  The French Knot and I do not get on very well at all.  

This is my attempt at the first exercise in this stage, it took me a very long time, I don't think it's very good and I really don't like it.  The only good part was when my tiny boy said, from the other side of the room, whilst looking at it, 'Ooh, it's all purpley.'  so I'm pleased about that.  I think the patch of knots in alternate blue and red work really well to create the illusion of seeing purple, the tripes less so, but I think over a larger area they would also be effective.  I also love the texture that using the big chunky tapestry yarn created.

Texture in the Park

Looking for interesting textures in the place I like least proved quite fruitful :)

French Knots

I found this incredible picture on Pinterest.  

It's called One Thousand French Knots and it's by Jeana Eve Klein

I think the way the colours mix is just breathtaking.

I'm trying to draw some inspiration from it before I attempt the next stage of Project 3.

I'm not very good at French Knots :(

So gorgeous I could just.....

......pass out, is what I said, vomit is what Beardy said.

This awesome sugar, pigment and 'stuff' creation by Australian artists Pip & Pop blows my mind but the photographs on their website are a squillion times better, I just long to be able to shrink down to the size of a lego man so I can live in one of their wonderful worlds!

Check them out and then go and play in the most gorgeous interactive web experience I have ever seen We Miss You Magic Land

Great Expectations

Ice Palace

The Ice Palace from Dr Zhivago

Wish I hadnt looked it up on wikipedia.

It was filmed in a hot Spanish summer.

Created from frozen beeswax and marble dust.

:(

Holidays

 Well, I'm not sure I really deserve it, but my beardy man always takes his time off at the beginning of December, and so I am taking it too.  I have done virtually nothing for the last ten days and intend to keep up the inactivity for at least another week.  Normal service will be resumed shortly, in the meantime, aren't dead roses beautiful?

Seedheads

Seraphine de Senlis II

I love Seraphine de Senlis' work.

I had never heard of her until we came across the Seraphine movie on BBC4 one night.

Her work is so beautiful and her story was just such a sad one.

I found it very moving and reccomend that everyone see it.

Seraphine de Senlis

Odilon Redon

I've only recently discovered Odilon Redon but I am absolutely crazy about his work.  His vibrant colour choices and his pastel technique gives his work an incredibly magical, ethereal and dreamlike quality that I just find breathtaking.

You can see his catalogue of work here