Textiles 3: Personal Specialism: Part One Reviewing Your Work

Textiles 3: 

Personal Specialism: Part One Reviewing Your Work

Project 1:1
Review, Select and Edit

Exercise One
Your Working Process

Review - to look at previous and current work as a whole entity and see what elements I like and wish to progress with and those which may need more work and those ideas I want to leave behind.

Evaluate - to understand what is interesting from my findings in my reviewing, why I have chosen the way I have, why do I like something and want to keep it and why do I want to discard something else? What is behind my reasoning and challenge myself to look again. Have I been fair and honest in my evaluation ?

Select - pull out the work that means something, whether good or bad, needs building on or doesn't work. Have a range that makes sense in what has been selected and not just random picking. Should you discard the work you don't like or keep it to build on ? Are there themes in what you are selecting  ?

Engage - to feel something for the work I have selected whether it be pride, happiness or dread or under achievement. To feel that even if something doesn't work it is worth building upon and seeing why it didn't work and what happened to make it go wrong ?

Edit - reselect with an intention of being objective and removing empathy for the piece of work. Review again and select again if needs be to understand and edit until the pieces of work make sense as a group or themes together. Look from an outsiders/curators viewpoint and not the creators view by doing this do you edit differently ?

At each stage imagining that I am not the artist but someone who is completely new to the work may help me and take me away from remembering how and why I produced something and the amount of effort I put in to create something. The curator is not interested in minutes and hours but how something looks and draws visitors interest.

'Think 8 hours, work 2 hours'

What does Illic mean by this phrase ? This is a very reflective statement, it is to review and edit in our minds before going straight in to work or create. If we think we can reflect on different ways of doing something. It is to try to be more analytical and edit ones thoughts before jumping in and putting them out there for everyone to see.

Would this balance of work and thinking be a positive or negative thing for you ? Is it too much thinking and not enough working ? This balance is very much a departure from my usual way of working. I am usually very conscious of deadlines and timings. In my day job I have to find solutions very quickly and move on due to tight deadlines. Therefore stopping myself and thinking prior to solving and acting is a challenge for me. However I can recognize the benefits in doing this. It has help me relax and understand a more clearer way forward and it is something that I should practise and build on as it is not my natural way of acting in many situations.

Would it work at certain times in your creative process, but not at other times ? I do believe it would work to think more and evaluate and then put my thoughts down on paper. I have in the past thought a lot but not actually put my thoughts down for people to understand my process of getting to a finished outcome. So whilst thinking is not the issue it is ensuring that the thinking is finally shown to others and not still in my head.  I also can become worried that I have thought for too long and just diving in and seeing what happens is also of value so there is a challenge to adapt to the situation and see what suits.

How much importance do you place on your thinking time ? Not enough, very much less than the 8 hours mentioned. When deadlines are close my anxiety becomes more and more about work and less about thinking and this has a detrimental effect as I have no time for reflection. This is a challenge which I know I have to improve on to ensure I enjoy looking and seeing things as I would do if I wasn't doing the course.  I also think it is good to have thinking time in a quiet area where you can drift off with ideas and not have interruptions and this is something that I need to proactively put time aside for.

Based on the Introduction to this course, do you feel you need to make more room for thinking in this course than you have previously ? Yes I do. I don't think I should rush my thought time. In my past learning I have dived in to projects in order to achieve the timescales but it actually has had a detrimental effect leading to me not seeing a clear vision of where I wanted to get. I did not have this issue initially on Level 1 as I was like a sponge and wanted to soak all the information in. However certain delays happened in Level 2 due to external influences and I was on catch over time and raised my anxiety levels.

Exercise 2: Reviewing and Editing work

Lucie Rie: Ceramics and Buttons exhibition at York Art Gallery.

Lucie Rie is a renown Austrian potter who emigrated to the UK in the early 20th Century setting up her own business designing and producing buttons at first and then later moving in to tableware.

I was not aware of Rie's work at all so it was fascinating to learn about her and see her work. The pieces I found most inspiring where those also seemed the most contemporary. It was amazing to think how a button nearly 60 years old could still add excitement to a garment.

The buttons I felt worked best were the strong collections from the metallic looking rope circles, Roman-inspired golden coins to the beautiful coloured pebble collections.

The collection below reminded me of marbles with their glazing creating so many different shades of colour and the smoothness of form. It is hard to recreate in the photograph below, however the impact of the glaze is just stunning and looked as though the buttons were made of glass, I would have loved to have seen which garments they adorned. It was nice to see the collection in a range of different colours.

Marble looking buttons with several shades of glazes

Metallic sheen on the buttons below creates a totally different look but they still create a bold statement, the rustic metallic glaze make the buttons look pre-worn and almost pearl like as the glaze looks iridescent. These have a very common 1940s shape, flat and round, however their thickness of the rim and glaze also makes them feel very contemporary.

 In the photographs below we see the wide range of designs that Rie produced. There was a sculptural quality to her work which isn't surprising given her background as a potter who initially worked mostly on the wheel.

What I really like about these pieces are that on one had the golden shield discs are very reminiscent of Roman coins and decorative objects, but Rie creates these with such beautiful glazes to make them sheen and shine creating buttons to look the most lovely pieces of art. It would have been a real please to have these fastened to one of my coats.

Roman inspired collection in gold

In wartime and rationing when fabrics were rare and expensive beautifully crafted buttons became a means of decorating utilitarian garments and expressing the wearers own style.

Sculptural buttons creating opulence to any garment as a sought after accessory

I like the small collection of buttons to the right because of their tactile look which seems to be based on nature. They also remind me of shells on the left and ornate rings on the right.  Strong glazes to enhance their shape and turn them from fragile ceramic buttons in to pure art with a strength to be the focal point of a garment. My favourite here is the gold lozenge with aqua in the centre. I do prefer the rounded/oval shapes of the buttons in Rie's collection which is a personal choice but this seems so smooth and opulent about this particular one in a very grey time in history.  I really would like to know about what inspired this little collection, as I can surmise but it is an interesting collection to the right I feel they look like shells. The shell style buttons are not my favourite but I can appreciate the unique shapes and how they lend themselves to the two different types of glazes.

The silver round rope buttons, whilst not to my taste, are exquisitely made and the glaze just looks incredibly metallic, so much so that you would believe they were metal work. In the photograph below there are many on exhibit and I think they are put next to the hand moulded black buttons to show the difference in glaze and process. The knotted silver buttons will be moulded. The amazing shine on these silver buttons is really amazing and incredible nearly 60 years after they have been made. 

Replicated from a 1940s Simplicity Pattern

Alison Welsh (Head of Fashion at Manchester Fashion Institute) has added one of Rie's buttons to a dress she made following a 1940s Simplicity dress making pattern. This shows a metallic glazed button in context on a garment. However I don't think the dress compliments the button. I realize the idea is to keep the fabric very plain to show the piece off to its best but I think the the hanging of the piece makes it look flat when it should have been bringing it to life. I would have preferred a vintage dress from the time or at least something made from vintage fabric.

This rectangular button looks different from the rest of the collection with its Art Deco feel, but it it has a beautiful glaze really good thickness and coating to make the button so solid and yet luxurious at the same time. 

The buttons in the collection that don't engage me as much and feel a little drab are the ones below, the colour is not my favourite however this may be due to a limited colour palette at the time Rie was producing them, however there is nothing to say this was the case. 

I feel that the matt square button in the middle right of the photo to the left is too recessive and would not 'adorn' a garment but just feel functionary.  These buttons are my least favourite in all the exhibition, the matt reddish square is almost like a roof tile in colour and form and does not inspire.
 When a gloss glaze is added to brighten to the round buttons unfortunately they still don't capture anything near the quality of the buttons I have previously spoken about in either design nor execution. 

The yellow buttons in the photograph below are beautifully made and very much of their period. My feeling is though they are nothing different from buttons around at the time. They are a very good example of a retro 1940s button and very nice but they do not push the boundaries either when they were made or now. They are not adding very much to the exhibition and using space which is very tight in the hall so I would have left them out of the exhibits.

The buttons below are very contemporary with individual glazes and unique shapes this is something that Rie does not shy away from in her pieces. The different use of glazes and imaginative shapes is what comes through strongly in the exhibition.

The interesting use of glazes and shapes make the button special and with the limited resources in wartime Britain these would have been especially eye catching whilst also functional.


The sculptural handles below where prototypes for Heals store and they are full of fun and imagination whilst being fabulously executed. The fact that all the handles are different shapes and colours assuming they could have been intended for one piece of furniture or a whole range.  We do not know from the exhibition if these were ever put in to full production. It is a shame that the exhibition doesn't give any further information about what furniture they were intended for.

In the photograph above there are several stoneware neutral coloured buttons and many of these appear in the exhibition, whilst lovely buttons and show how a Rie has developed as a great ceramicist there do seem to be a lot of them and they are given prime view in the cases. I would have edited how many of them needed to be on show and retrieved some of the buttons hidden in the drawers.

I didn't know what to imagine from the Ceramics and Buttons title of the show what to expect, I think I had envisaged more stoneware earthly glazes than I actually found and I was really pleased and excited.  The layout of the exhibition started well with informative boards with a couple of photographs and text setting the scene of Rie's early life and coming to England and starting her own business and talking about influences and contemporaries.

I was very interested to be lead in to the early work and just how she designed the buttons and turned in the the exhibition to see where I could find the information, sadly it was cabinets of clinically laid out buttons sometimes with a smattering of fabric in glass cabinets. The only point where the buttons came alive was with Alison Welsh's use of them fastened to the garments she had made.

It was so disappointing that some of Rie's best work were put in drawers which were very difficult to open and one which I, and some of the museum staff, couldn't even open.  The gallery had a fine array of her work and they could have found garments either as photographs or on loan from vintage shops to fasten some of the buttons to.

Some of these buttons had lain in drawers for over twenty years when Issey Miyake took an interest in Rie's work in in the 1980s and sadly the curator felt they should go back in the presentation draw for this exhibition. I was really happy to see the photos of how Miyake had used some of the buttons in his 1984 collection, I felt this really bought Rie's work to life and bought an extra context to it.

The fact that Rie exhibited at the Festival of Britain was really interesting and it would have been great to understand what exhibits were there but unfortunately there was not that information.

There was constant mention of her use of glazes which she developed but no sketchbooks or information on what she used in them, it would have helped to really bring these pieces alive. I would have been happy for cabinets of non-exhibition relevant potters to have been moved out of this hall and space made for sketchbooks and fashion/textiles collections from the period. I realize that York Art Gallery is now a centre of excellence for pottery but this was a fabulous body of work that was displayed with very little flare and understanding of bringing in a new audience who weren't ceramicists.

The shame is the curator didn't look at Rie's art and think of displaying more of a body of work through out the 20th century which gave a fascinating angle to the time. From pre-war through to 1955 Rie was making designing and making fabulous art as buttons, these are fascinating for a fashion student or textiles student to study and see how they worked with the shapes. They are pieces which need to be alive and live with garments and not placed statically under glass with very little information about them on folded fabric.

What does work in the exhibition is the post-button work when Rie moved in to making tableware. The cabinet of work from Bernard Leach and Rie's next to each other so the difference in their styles is great to see clearly how she was influenced by him but went her own way. In the cabinet on the right of Rie is the work of one of her employees Hans Coper, and the development of his work can clearly be seen too.  The admiration of the contemporaries to each other lead to development of their art form and more creativity. Rie's designs are more light weight and delicate than those of Leach's.

The tiny cup in the photograph below is one of my favourites, it is very delicate with a lovely pale blue inside and bronze glaze on the rim dribbling down in an uneven manner. It's base is a rounded stand which makes the vessel seem like it is floating. It is very simple but executed beautifully with a great touch of delicacy.

The bowl below is very minimalist in form and colour that the position of the colour has to be perfect, the bottom of the bowl with a much thicker rim again creates the effect that the main structure is floating in air. I really like the specific positioning of the lines and the choice of less is more, the structure does not require filling with lines all over just in certain areas to enhance it.

The larger bowls in the photograph below look very contemporary, this is due to their irregular shape. They are not perfectly round and the rim is deliberately mis-shapen. The form is accentuated due to the clean line of colour used and the white inside.







Rie's tableware pottery is very different to the buttons she had been making. The buttons were often chunky with a solidity to their form which was there to standout strongly and make a statement on any garment. The tableware is different it is fluid and light and whilst still makes a statement doesn't need to stand out from a garment therefore is more understated.  The two collections contain very beautiful pieces and have lasted the test of time, with the tableware the form comes before function. However in the buttons the function is very much evident and that does effect the form has there are limits however creative Rie could get as they still had to adhere to their function.

I learnt a lot from the exhibition and came away wanting to know more and a little frustrated about the layout and how it could have been pushed further to make it more interesting and alive.  There were some easily reminded issues which could have been to reposition the television to an area where more people could have sat and watched the Omnibus documentary from 1982. This was 20 minutes long and informative with an interview of Rei and people were having to stand due to not enough seating.

I would have positioned the cabinets in more of a chronological order, and had lots of photography from the era, I would not have filled the cabinets and drawers so much, I would have looked at similar collections and chosen one out of them to exhibit, there were groups where this method could have been used.

The fact that these buttons were the only adornment to a wartime garment makes them such a powerful statement piece the curator could have done more to make this come alive for the viewer. It would have been important to bring in a younger audience to set the scene visually. I have seen other exhibitions where the artist exhibited at the Festival of Britain and the curators really make this a feature explaining what tools, paints, glazes, inks were available to them at the time and how they could have have limitations in making what they did compared to present day.

This does cost money to do but may be on a limited budget all they needed to do was spread the work out and remove the cabinets which had no relevance in to a different area of the gallery and then drape the fabric they had and show how the buttons could fasten and enhance the fabric. Some black and white prints of the day would help, like the Issey Miyake one which would not have been too expensive to recreate.

I would also have showed glazes that Rie used even on pieces of card as swatches and any pages from her sketchbooks that are available.  I realize that keeping exhibits safe is important but these were too clinically placed in cabinets which were generically designed and it feels a little bit of a shame when by looking towards a new audience the curators could have gone for a retrospective exhibition which would have drawn in crowds rather than the few that were visiting when I went.

It is also interesting for me to look at how this exhibition could effect my future work, Rie found a niche in an area when she wasn't really looking in that sector of her work and made creative work from would could have been assumed was merely functionary. However what does resonate with me is how much context I wanted around her work. There were books in the shop I could have read but I deliberately wanted to review the exhibition and not get influenced by external factors so I have based my knowledge of her work from the exhibition alone with makes me frustrated that I don't know  more about her thought process, techniques and sampling prior to her finished pieces. This has shown me that these things are important to bring the final pieces alive and understood more.

Exercise 3: Reviewing and editing your own work

I think there are themes in my work especially when I have really connected to a subject and it has been come a clear influence.

Collection of work inspired by different range of buildings

What I hadn't realized is the influence of buildings on my work but there is a theme which touches alot of my previous projects in different ways but they are present. Influences from The Shard, Salts Mill, Historical Italian Buildings, Tokyo Tower and the one remaining building standing in Hiroshima they are all in my work and represent some of the most strong work.




Recycling is also a strong influence re-using fabrics in a different way and creating something new, or using fabrics with a history which can be built upon and the meanings added to, for instance my purse made from scarves or my code breaking jumper.

Strong influences have been from travel both in the UK and abroad and museums or attractions which have captured my imagination. I was very strongly influenced when I visited Bletchley Park and this interest is still present although I did explore a lot on code breaking at the time of the project.

I had one module which was painting due to there not being the full amount of textile modules at the time so this is work I would reduce significantly, whilst enhancing my drawing it didn't really lead in to anything with textiles. At least that was what I thought until I placed some of my sketches for my Matterhorn scarf next to them and I do think they developed my painting style which actually moved more in to a style which was more flowing and abstract which helped when I was planning and producing my batik work.

In my last module I delved deeply in to Japanese culture and discovered a lot of different techniques. It was somewhere I had been on holiday and visited Miyake's exhibitions at the V&A, however I would say it was too large a subject. Whilst some of the areas were very close to my heart the huge subject matter meant I didn't have a clear voice through to my finished piece which is disappointing. I put so much effort in to something that I don't feel very attached in the end. Unlike some of my earlier work which I have on show in my house or would wear.

However I may be disappointed with the final outcome of the work but there are elements within it that I found creative and exciting to pull out and may be look again in a different way. The Tokyo tower mark making was taking me in a different direction and may be I should have just kept going with it rather than returning back to the overall concept.

With my buildings link I looked further into my work and there is definitely something about revealing the space within the building, either through the window or through the iron work or how to make the reflectiveness. The space between or in the structures is coming out as being something that I am drawn too. In my project which initially was based on The Shard I wanted to look at reflections and hadn't considered anything 3D. Then the grid pattern and how to treat it in textiles became a strong theme which I can see in my latter projects of Tokyo tower.

My work of revealing something from beneath the initial exterior or cutting away fabric is a theme that has come through a lot of my work, rather than considering the subject matter, it is actually what it has led to which is the most interesting.

When I took my project further following more inspiration from different buildings around the world I discovered the Dancing Buildings in Prague and then my work suddenly became 3D with a sail-less windmill shape out of felt. I really love how this followed through my research and ideas and going back to this after several years I can see how it developed and the thought process I followed.

Matterhorn inspired scarf

I also looked at my use of colour and greens and blues are hues used strongly in my work, especially when it is nature inspired work. This is strongest in my Matterhorn scarf but also in my paintings and samples of Designing for a Living space. The latter ideas of weaving and revealing layers also over laps with some of the work I was mentioning earlier which was inspired by buildings. When inspired by nature I don't feel as though I am confident to become as experimental, it almost feels as though I have too much respect for the elements to dismantle the image in front and reshape or remould it. This is something I have started to realize once I have reviewed my projects next to each other. It may be that nature seems to overwhelm and I cannot focus in a particular area enough to really deep dive into it. I think this is something I need to bear in mind and may be challenge myself with in the future.

History has always been something I am interested in and therefore looking in to Salts Mill, Bletchley Park and Japanese Textiles History were projects I could come engrossed in, however I think I found it difficult to keep the creative flow going through out these projects as I focused more on fact and less on interpretation and therefore I feel my work did not achieve enough empathy to the subject matter. In Bletchley Park my feelings about the work they did and there achievements with the knowledge that it had be kept secret for so many years didn't really come out in my pieces. There is not enough empathy and warmth, they feel disjointed.

My work inspired by Bletchley in which I developed patterns focusing on the Bomb and Engima Machines were worked much better as I looked at a smaller area rather than a huge body of work. It by doing this that I can see my ideas develop further and the colours and circles of the Bomb machine worked well in producing minimalist designs digitally. I also really like the final pattern from the Enigma machine whilst it has a retro content it still has a contemporary feel. The colours and sketchy feel of the design are more reminiscent of the 1940's and 50s as are the colours I used but the sizing of the image is smaller and the spacing of the repeat pattern is helped by developing this digitally before completing the final design.

In editing my work I would remove the final pieces from the Bletchley project but keep the work I have done on the digital patterns as that shows minimalist use of colour and pattern work. The Bletchley elements I would looks are the final Jumper and the finished bags as these are weak, the bags in particular don't seem at all connected with their subject matter and I feel poorly executed so I would rather focus on the pattern work.

There are some other elements of my work which just don't work, the felted tower vessel just didn't convey what I wanted. The bubble wrap skirt is looking at new, non-traditional fabrics and how they could work together but whilst there are some interesting things in this piece like the fusion of leaves and embroidery and the colours used, the piece does not work. The colours of the leaves and embroidery are rather subtle and other-worldly which I rather like so this is something I will look to build on.

The felt tower was supposed to translate an idea of lines and structure flowing from an object, it didn't work due to the materials I chose, they were too static and didn't complement each other or feel opulent. So by doing more sampling I would be able to understand what materials worked together to achieve what I really wanted from a final piece.

So going forward from my body of work, if I was to be my own curator I would have a section on buildings and look initially at influences and monochrome sampling then moving in to the colours of my building inspired work. Following in to more coloured inspired pieces and what colours excite me and pieces I have looked at.  Within these two distinct ways is my work with recycled fabrics and how to combine them with newly formed fabrics such as a piece of new felt or woven materials. Also within this work are my ideas and sample of reveal which, when I look back over my work are rather numerous.

The project I have chosen for reviewing in greater detail is one from my early work which has a strong coherent link through to the final piece. I had forgotten I had done this work so I was pleased to find it and look at it again. There are points of duplication in the work but the influences and development are clear. I like the clarity of my thought process and hope this comes through to others who may see the work.

The Turning Torso, Malmo

The project was inspired by The Shard and its imposing presence in London, the building had just been completed when we visited London and I liked sketching the building. The difference in shape and reflective palette of colours making the windows was really interesting to me. I produced several sketches of the building and it started to inspire my thoughts on colour too. From there I wanted to look around at other unusual buildings in the world which had unusual shapes and/or interesting treatment of windows.

The Turning Torso in Malmo, Sweden and The Emirates Towers in Dubai where particularly of interest, they both where white exteriors which I was interested in developing in to a felt structure. When I looked back and reviewed my work I could see how this developed. With having a white structure the windows could become more prominent and use of colour would be stronger in those areas. The Turning Torso in particular brought the idea of movement in buildings whilst having a very structured grid pattern for the windows.

The Dancing House, Prague

The way I had previously presented this research was via a sketchbook and mood boards but these did have a lot of duplication so I cut everything out that didn't move my ideas on and then laid out drawings, images in a sequence of events to tell the story.

I pulled all the relevant sheets from my sketchbooks and mood boards and put them on the wall for reviewing but I couldn't seem to get them in order to tell the story. So I realized if I was struggling then someone not familiar with my work would too. So I realized the story of what I was doing was worth time and attention for others to understand how I came to the final piece.

I sectioned my A1 mount board (see below) in to 9 separate rectangles just under A4 in order to keep me within a space to review and streamline my thoughts again. This was an interesting method as it gave my thoughts more structure and I became more ruthless.

I stepped back and re-arranged countless times before finally taking the plunge and fixed the work down. I also re-drew some of the sketches to make them more prominent when on a larger board. I have written explanations about the work in handwriting which I think is the correct amount.

The exercise was very interesting for me as I loved doing this work I was very hesitant to cut up my mood boards and discard some of my work and be brutal with editing but in actual fact I feel as though I can see the progression much clearer myself and I still feel the same way about the project. It has shown me that I need to step back and keep reviewing what I want to tell someone else.

Project 1:2 Reveal

I found it really challenging to look and curate my work in to a comprehensible format, I kept going over and over my portfolio, placing pieces and artwork on the walls and floor, looking for elements with a common thread. When at last I seemed to find them, I then broke them and re-evaluated. So finally I sat down and went through all the work again with  'like' and 'dislike' piles.
Then looked at the work and evaluated why I liked that particular piece, colour, material, and the same technique for the work I don't like.

I decided to work digitally and create a portfolio of my work, this meant that I had to relook at my work in a clear way and photograph the pieces carefully to show them off to their best advantage and also take the images from different angles for the viewer to see what I was looking at. Showing someone how I see my work and thought process. If I had left this on boards I don't think I would have been as tough with myself to look at what and why I enjoyed something.

I have reviewed the digital portfolio many times a conservative estimate would be twenty times and also looked back to the aim of the portfolio. Photographing my work again in different light helped me significantly in reflecting on the piece, what it still said to me and how it could represent my work were questions that I continually asked myself.  In order to put structure around the portfolio I added a contents page which again helped in focus to ensure work was divided in to subject matter and also enabled my to look at the same work under different headings and perhaps making this more valuable to me.

Putting an introduction in the portfolio was important to me to create my journey and inspiration, this is by no means the full extent of my inspiration, I tried to pull out different artists and designers to show the range of work I have been looking at but also they are ones I consistently think about and refer to.  By keeping in work with natural dyes and recycled materials I wanted to pull out of my portfolio ways of working which were important to me.

By showing projects I wanted to show how I worked and what projects had inspired my different work, from a simple easy flowing project like the felted tower, to a more complex Bletchley Park one which had multiple facets leading to using many substrates and thoughts within the work. The large projects are a challenge and it was still a challenge to distill the Bletchley Park one down to two pages. These pages are the ones I am least happy with in my portfolio and re-did them over again, however I was proud of tackling the subject and some of my favourite patterns came from this research so it is important to me.

For many days I wasn't sure how to end the portfolio, but when I limited myself to one slide with recent ideas, I didn't just want to include course work. Since finishing Level 2 Textiles I have still worked on my own textile ideas so therefore it made sense to talk about and evaluate these as well. Also talking about future project work has helped me put my ideas in writing better and enabled me to become more focused.

The challenge of creating beautiful photographs was interesting, I rigged up spotlights and photographed on white card to enhance the pieces and this has really been a good project for me to approach, I am very pleased that I have had the confidence to re-evaluate several ways and not feel pressured by time in order to get something I am proud of.

This review is on a separate page in this learning log as a JPEG but has been provided separately as a PDF as an addition on email to allow for better resolution.

1.3 Engage

After a lot of thought I settled on my audience being a group who did not know about felting, this meant I would focus on the felt work that I had previously done, however it would mean that I would need to show the audience how to felt. In order to get a wide audience and gain as much feedback as possible I decided to create this digitally too.

I had thought about demonstrating how the felt was created but felt the time for wet felting would be an issue and instead I thought I would photograph the steps to explain more easily. My audience is not all in the same town so this was also a consideration.

It was important to look at my language and terminology in my portfolio, to ensure I was pitching the information correctly and not going too much in to process. I therefore bullet pointed some information about the subject and decided to focus on one project. The idea would be to hold the audience's attention as much as possible.  The majority of the audience will not be familiar with textiles never mind felt so I need to give examples of inspiration that they can relate to and not go too much in to specialist areas too early.

I think it is important to engage with an introduction and help them see what I like from textiles and ensure they are on board with further information.

I initially focused on felt at the beginning of my project but then felt this wasn't showing the full breath of work I had done and not giving an oversight of other things I had worked on.

Some of the people I asked were wary as they felt their textiles knowledge was limited, but when I explained that was why they had been chosen to be part of the group, they were willing much more willing to look at the project. I am glad that I have incorporated the workshop in to my slides, often people have no idea how felt is made so it will be interesting to see how people react to this section of the presentation.

By incorporating these slides it meant that I had to lose some of my Bletchley Park work which I had put in the presentation of Project 1.2 otherwise I don't think I would have captured peoples attention. By using digital format it really challenged me on my photographs and captions to be very succinct and informative.

My change of approach in this presentation was to be more informative about creating textiles and let people see how I had worked through projects which meant I had to choose one project and final piece.  I am looking forward to gathering the feedback to see what people felt.

My method of feedback was via Survey Monkey which I hadn't used before. It took me a little time to get used to how to use it and also work out what questions I wanted to ask and I am still not sure I crafted all of them correctly. But it will be interesting to do the survey again at a later stage. The step by step diagrams about felt making were received well with most people feeling that I had given the right amount of information and not requiring too much more.

This was a project out of my comfort zone in many ways, as I had to think about a long distance audience, I knew them but they didn't really know my work. I think it was really beneficial to me to have them fill the survey in on their own and not within a group, this way I got their direct thoughts without them influencing each other.

The only problem with this was that some people had to be reminded to fill in Survey Monkey as I knew they had read the presentation but forgot to fill the survey in so there will be a delay in their thoughts for feedback which is a shame as I would rather have instantaneous thoughts whilst they were fresh in their minds.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/stories/SM-SWB62FM/

I have added JPEGs of the PDFs to another page in this blog however for better resolution I have also sent a copy of the PDF.

Following the outputs of the survey I realised that it is important to look at a clear development of my work and ensure that the stages are clear and this engages the viewer better.  What I would have liked is for people to have seen threads running through my work but I find this difficult to find myself so I shouldn't actually be surprised that there is no overall look to my work.  This is something I would like to build on and may be it will come more naturally as I develop my personal specialism.

Project 4. Don't Stop Moving

My mini project has developed from my original thoughts about the York Wall, although this could still be something I look at for my final project. The ideas of beetles, in particular ladybirds was something developed over the summer, I saw the Mr Finch exhibition at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in June.

The textile work produced for the exhibition was fantasy led and intriguing, I wanted to look at different inspirational ideas. The ladybirds came to mind and I wanted to see how I could work on different studies and move drawings away from a very cartoon, childish feel to a different feel when drawing them.

Aims:

To develop my drawing and observations on ladybirds.

Brief:

Obtain a limited selection of reference material that will provide and inspiring source. To produce a sketchbook of drawings, paintings, collages and samples. Working on a wide range of materials and differing scales.

Outcome:

To improve my looking and recording skills by looking at ladybirds, a subject I haven't really studied at all. To build an exploratory portfolio of drawing. To consider the colour palette. To work in pencil, paint, collage and mixed media to see where my strengths lie.

Pages from my sketchbook

It was difficult to keep this as a mini project even though I kept the subject matter very tight, I had thought initially of insects and bugs but then the more I studied the ladybird the more I just wanted to continue with this particular bug and even the seven spotted red species.

From my work the idea of pattern came through strongly which I hadn't envisaged. Often ladybirds gather together in colonies and therefore they are multiples of the animal often in a small area. This gave me the idea of the March of the Ladybird and how powerful that could be. I played around with sample patterns layering on top of work which is something I would like to build on further in to my personal projects. The obvious image of spots is important but I really wanted to ensure this did not overwhelm the pieces, therefore I kept the spots very much to the background.



All along in this project I have been concerned that the choice of ladybird was not childish therefore I wanted to stylise in a different manner and by creating abstract marks in the colours and elongating the spots this helped me feel more confident with the subject matter.





I want to try and get a message behind the lifecycle of the ladybird which is why I have included the the larvae in my work. This has lots of different texture which I can build on and develop. I feel as though the project is only a mini project it has given me plenty of ideas of how to go forward. It has also been a project which I have reviewed regularly and deliberately worked on individual pages without placing them in a sketchbook until I had completed Project 1.5. By working this way has meant that I can move the sketches in to different groups and not have them cronalogically which has helped with moving in to sampling.

I gave myself a limited time period to work on this mini project as, whilst I don't think it is anywhere near finished, I don't actually want it to be, as I have lots of ideas from the work I have started.

I didn't want to paste my pieces into a sketchbook prior to producing Project 1.5 Connect and Communicate as I thought I would need to move them around to make sense with my story. Once I had completed the project it was much easier for me to make up the sketchbook.

The more I worked on this project the more I became engrossed by it so I do feel I made the correct choice in limiting the subject matter and challenging myself to look at it from different aspects.

I also feel that I had to set a time limit on working on the project to ensure that this was kept as a 'mini project' as the temptation is to go on a lot further.

What I have learnt is that there is still more work that can come from this small project and I would like to develop it further. This is why the sketchbook is not finished and is still work in progress.

Project 1.5: Connect and Communicate

This was a really difficult project to do as I felt that I had only just got started with my mini project and it was by no means finished. However I did want to leave the project with areas to go to so it should feel incomplete even though this is concerning for me as I am struggling to know what to hand in at the end of this assignment.

At first I thought selecting 10 pieces would be easy, it wasn't. As always with my work I develop favourite ideas and it was difficult to discard them for this exercise in order to keep the story in the 10 pieces. In order to keep my focus I stuck to the story idea of how the work developed and also linked with the subject matter of ladybirds.

The ladybird in action and socially came in to my work. The image called the March of the Ladybirds was a simple sketch I produced more as a doodle rather than anything. I think it is my weakest piece of artwork but it is my biggest link between starting the project and its end. In my final portfolio I have called it together as there seems to be an idea of 'marching together can change something', or there is 'strength in numbers'.

The March of the Ladybirds - Image name: Together

Because this is a mini project, I did find it difficult to keep to the brief written in Project 4 as I wanted to move from painting and sketching earlier than I should have done. I am glad that I made myself do more and more sketches so I could really study elements of the bug and how it flies. The lifecycle of the ladybird was of interest so I wanted to keep the larva stage in the artwork. I do have ideas how this could develop in to a bigger project but would like to combine my work with more of a social element to the work.

Some of my samples were just about working with textiles rather than bringing in social ideas, I want look at how the ladybird can promote women's health and wellbeing. The ladybird is a universally liked bug and it is often portrayed in a very childlike manner but the more I observed its shape and body it became less childlike and more realistic. From the realistic sketches I then wanted to stylise the images and through out collage and paint make them more abstract.

My first portfolio is a pared down idea, colours are black, white and red as the seven spotted ladybird. This gives a very simple story of the work I have developed. I like it but worry that this could be construde as over simplistic in not blending the work together enough.

I also made my first animated video which was a challenge but did give me a different perspective on looking at what I had produced. Unfortunately the link here doesn't work so this will be sent in an accompaning email. I have created a separate page in this blog for the JPEGs from the static PDF and will send the PDF with the video in an email as well.


Overall I think the projects in this first assignments have been really interesting and challenging to work on. However it is still rather ambiguous to know how much is required from a mini project which does cause anxiety. I realise that nothing is every finished completely to an artist but it is difficult to know how much of a balance to leave some threads for the project to continue looking at for the future and how much to finish off in a mini project.