Design Visualisation: The Struggle

After each 3 week workshop in Textiles, we have to select our favourite samples, display them and then visualise them in either a fashion, interior or art context.

We are not designing a product though, we're applying our fabric samples to a garment or a space, which is where I'm getting lost.

My theme is play and I'm 'toying' with areas of fantasy and child-like behaviour in terms of my concept:

- Creating a surreal environment -  fill a room with block shapes, changing the space so its unexpected - fairy tale, futuristic.

Obliteration Room by Yayoi Kusama at Queenland Gallery of Modern Art, Austrailia. This initally started out as a completely white room in the exhibition and then children we allowed a stuicker to put whereever they wanted in the room. After time this was the effect. I like the way the the 3D space is suddenly really hard to distinguish..almost like its been flattened. Surreal. Interactive.

- Creating shapes on the body (jewellery or garment) that loosely relate with figures from fairy tales - woodland creatures, half'human qualities, red indians, tim walker characters, or simply over-sizing almost like a child dressing up in her mother's clothes. Imagining.

Eglingham Children on Beach - Tim Walker. Love the Nisser Hat.

- Mixing the old and new. My whole project was initially inspired by the Post Mod exhibition at the V&A and having learnt more about it in DVC, I've learnt that play is what this era is now about. Mixing high culture and low culture, good and bad taste...

Pelodrilli: Studio Fludd Post 19 Oct 2011

Few Shots from our fitting in Spazio Pedrilli, Treviso -  a new creative space for handmade and young design ideas.

Meant to post these photos I came across from Studio Fludd a while ago but I think they're particularly appropriate for my current project..so here we are..

Threaded up :)

Only took a week :) Let the weaving commence! Eek. Exciting.

YARNS. Chunky. Plastic. Strings. Fine.

Threading the warp through a 12 (EPI) reed in pairs.

Threading through the heddles following our threading plan. Very satisfying but fiddly :)

Tied on and complete ready for weaving to start on Tuesday!!

Weave!!!

Completely neglected blogspot but for good reason :) One term of Textile Design at Nottingham Trent completed and as of tomorrow I'll be starting my second textile rotation in WEAVE :) It's been very busy but that's the best way...
I was feeling in need of inspiration.

Although these are woven on traditional vertical tapestry looms, the bold block shapes in repeat and use of vibrant colour against neutral backgrounds are what appeal. There must be a way to weave shapes rather than just stripes and checks on a table loom.

My samples that came from my first embroidery rotation consisted mainly of coloured embroidery threads and plastics stitched onto calico and they all look a bit samey on my presentation boards. These bright colours against the dark hues also works well. Very dramatic. Want to completely change the proportions of my colours in these next samples.

These were all created by illustrator and animator Carolina Melis. Pixelation is a key theme in my work at the moment and I think translating my geometric diagramatic drawings more directly into weave will be perfect. The process will pixelate my designs without any extra effort. May be setting myself a bit of a challenge though :)

Links: http://www.designsponge.com/2011/12/galinanova.html

Working with Clare Gage: Day Two

Didn't get to do any making today but did have a good old chat with Clare about the more business side of things. She's been to London this weekend, queuing to get into Liberty, a name I'm sure you've heard of - reknowned for their 'Liberty prints' and links to Mr.(coolguy) William Morris :)

For three years now, Liberty have held an open call for designer makers to show off their products. Each person gets three minutes with a Liberty 'panel' to discuss their work and the potential to be on TV. Clare queued for 4 hrs and initially anyone who wasnt a jeweller i.e. Clare, was called up. Clare said she walked past a staircase full of jewellers who, because the industry is flooded with jewellery makers will probably have been there twice as long.

She had her three minutes and was told that they really liked her work and she obviously knows her market but that Liberty are looking for products that involve printing on ceramics - which isn't suprising, but they did give her a contact card so that really IS something. They also give you feedback and the panel suggested 'the shop at bluebird' for Clare and guess who...ANTHROPOLOGIE!! I was really excited when she told me and even more astounded when she said she'd already been approached by ANTHROPOLOGIE twice! :O

the shop at bluebird, 350 King's Road, London

http://www.theshopatbluebird.com/about/

So why isn't she selling her cups to them already?

Because Anthropologie want to sell her cup say for £30 pounds but have a set mark-up of around 28% so instead of getting £16 pounds from each sale like normal if she were selling directly to a shop, she only gets £11 and Clare can't afford that difference. Surely there is a way round this. Anthropologie sell her cup for a little extra? In order for Clare to get her £16, Anthropologie would have to sell a cup for £45 :O That is getting expensive and if they can't sell her cups to the public, then there's no point in stocking. Its tricky.

Anthropologie, Regent Street store, London

Stores buy items from a wholesaler or distributer and increase the price when they sell the items to consumers. The increase in price provides money for the operation of the store and the salaries of people who work in the store.

A store may have a rule that the price of a certain type of item needs to be increased by a certain percentage to determine how much to sell it for. This percentage is called the markup.

If the cost is known and the percentage markup is known, the sale price is the original cost plus the amount of markup. For example, if the original cost is £4.00 and the markup is 25%, the sales price should be £4.00 + £4.00*25/100 = £5.00.
  
A faster way to calculate the sale price is to make the original cost equal to 100%. The markup is 25% so the sales price is 125% of the original cost. In the example, £4.00 * 125/100 = £5.00.

ENOUGH MATHS!!

Whilst we were packing pieces with purple and gold shreddies into Clare's purple branded boxes, emptying the kiln, wiping down the glazed pieces ready for firing and training to be a clay dustBUSTER..we got talking about Clare's upcoming shows and it looks like I'm gonna get to come along to help!! YEY! She says it'd be good for me to see how she sells and interacts to the public :) Conversation lessons! Woop! So I'm going with Clare to the Wirksworth Festival on 10th-11th September and I'm very excited!!

Here's a list of all the shows Clare will be at in the coming months:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Clare-Gage/124906477537590?sk=events

It's gonna be hard work x



Selvedge Autumn Fair

My friend Ellie Evans is selling her work at The Selvedge Autumn Fair this year. When she's not working with me, she's sewing and cross-stitching pin cushions, hanging pockets and all manner of other lovely things out of all the fabrics she's been hording in her studio :) Very tempted to go!! It's relatively cheap to get in, the first 300 people get given an awsome goodie bag APPARENTLY and if everythings as good as Miss Evans's work then it'll definitely be worth a look. Bigging you up big time Ellie! Haha x

Landaan 19.08.11 - 20.08.11

So I had a great weekend away in London :) I got to The Vorticists exhibition at the Tate Britain which was fantastic - so much so that I bought a rather expensive exhib catalogue for £20 just so I could get copies of all my favourite pieces :) And I also got to the Print and Design NOW show which hence the name was a space full of flat prints on the walls, many of which I thought were okay but not amazing.BUUUTT, I did discover a few gems of work which I've thankfully been able to track back to their artists on one very handy bearspace catalogue online :)

http://www.bearspace.co.uk/index.php?orderby=product_name&DescOrderBy=ASC&Itemid=7&option=com_virtuemart&page=shop.browse&category_id=23&manufacturer_id=0&keyword=&keyword1=&keyword2=&limit=1000&limitstart=0&vmcchk=1&Itemid=7

They have photos of all the print work on the website but I'm popping my own photos of my favourites on instead because my camera has (hehe) picked up the colours better than theirs did!!

Ian Chamberlain - visited the BT Goonhilly Satellite Space Station where over 60 giant satellite dishes are busy sending and receiving TV pictures all over the world, while simultaneously handling thousands of international phone, fax, data and video calls. The prints he showed at the SW1 gallery were all etchings :)

Sat.5

Sat.3

Sat.6

http://www.ichamberlain.co.uk/index.html

Dawn Cole: has a fab website where she's got images of quite a few of her prints like these. I'm not really keen on the rest of the work she has done, it's much less colourful and although I generally love bold and simplified, it's this more detailed work that I like the best. These two photos are mine taken at the exhibition and the third is my favourite of her experiements from her website :)



Slipovers and Pullovers, Solar Plate etch, 2010




Want to be in her good books, Solar plate etch, 2010



Our cover model, Solar plate etch, 2010

Dawn is based in Birchington on the North Kent coast and works primarily in print. 'Dawn creates thought provoking works which are, at first glance, not always what they seem'. These prints are from her collection Knit 1 Purl 1 and I've not really figured the concept but I like the way she has used fragments of photographic imagery and then repeated them radially to create the doily lace-like prints. From a distance they appear to just be a geometric pattern but on closer inspection you then start to see glimpses of recognisable features; faces, hats, clothing.

Most of  Dawn's images have radial symmetry.
Other objects that have radial symmetry: Spirograph, Snowflakes, Starfish (pentamerism), Jellyfish (tetramerism), Corals (hexamerism and octamerism), fruit -  it basically pops up a lot in BIOLOGY and MATHS :) Plates!! Anything loosely bottle shaped or cylindrical from above :)

Two other artists that spring to mind that also work with radial symmetry are body jewellery maker Nora Fok and Natalie Langley - a Notts Trent graduate this year who works illustratively :)

Natalie Langley - 'inspiration is gathered from studies of practical objects, of which the aesthetics are regularly overlooked.'

Nora Fok's beautiful 'Mathermagic' (2005) wristpiece :)