Kissing Birds

Im a true beginner with Photoshop and still very much learning my way around. Its frustrating having a vision for a drawing, being able to see its potential, but lacking the skills to make it happen! I will persist and keep learning! Here are some tests of my Kissing Birds amongst other little designs.

Lovely Marks.

I have just finished the first week of my print technical block and I love it! So far we have drawn lots of designs, created marks and generally experimented with design all in black and white. I cant wait to get screen printing and adding colour to bring my marks to life!

                                                                                                      Marks Marks Marks

Little and Lovely 

Pre-Raphaelites Exhibtion

After my Friday morning lecture on Museography I visited the Pre-Raphaelites exhibition at the Tate Britain with fresh eyes. Mueseography is the study of the contents of museums, looking at how they interpret the things they hold. I was particular interested in the debate between the public and private. The public being the fact it is open to everyone, and the private being each persons individual experience of the museum.  Do museums allow you to have a personal experience? And even when they do, how personal is that experience in reality, as the museum has selected the art work they perceive as being a correct representation of, e.g a certain period.  When walking round the exhibition I thought about the paintings that had been selected to represent the Pre-Raphaelite period, who decides what to show, and more importantly what not to show.

The exhibition was divided up into 7 categories, for example Beauty, History, Nature ect, all meant to summarize the Pre-Raphaelitie period. The categories defiantly made the exhibition easier to follow, giving you clear indications of the next category of time you were in, people even invested in £4 to listen to an audio tour of the exhibition  It was all very straight forward and clearly labeled. However I couldn't help but notice how difficult it was to take any sort of personal interposition of the exhibition  What if the categories were all mixed up, in the wrong order, how would it be perceived then? Would each person take a completely unique inference of the Pre-Raphaelite period? To me it felt in someways that  the Museum was giving you your thoughts and telling you what to think. Not only that but the numbered chronological categories made it almost impossible to walk your own way round the exhibition, and  if you did so, you felt a definite sense that you were interrupting the current. The audio guide made this even more impossible as you were literally being told where to go and what to see. People were queuing in straight lines around the paintings, all with headphones on being directed like sheep in a pen. Having said this, its important to have context of a period so alien to modern culture. The context makes the art work more accessible and enables people to relate to the painting and gain a greater understanding of what they are seeing. But to what extent can the labels be trusted? In the 90's art photographer David Hamilton's work was removed from every gallery everywhere almost overnight, as his work showed young children in 'unsuitable' photographs, conveying pictures representing pedophilia. Regardless of Hamilton's intentions, the fact that the entire narrative had been rewritten, as if Hamilton's work had never existed, shows the power institutes have to rewrite history. It is more evident to think about not what the museum is showing us, but what they have choose the miss out, and why.

Super Human Exhibition

My recent visit to the Wellcome Trust Gallery to see the Superhuman exhibition was both shocking and compelling. What I found of particular interest was the Manowar Legs created by artist, filmmaker and cast double amputee Mathew Barney. The cast acrylic legs were created for the film Cremaster 3, a collaborative art project, and were worn by Aimee Mullins who takes on a number of roles in the film, wearing a different set of prosthetic's for each identity, ranging from blades to Cheetah Legs. The Manowar Legs are both  elegant and beautiful, glass like in appearance the legs have no feet and curl up at the end to resembling what looks like jelly fish tentacles. In their delicate and light appearance the prosthetic legs are completely dysfunctional but are pieces of art that completely ignite the imagination.

The Manowar Legs are not only a piece of sculptural delicacy on their own, but aslo symbolize a modernistic transformation of prosthetic stereotyping. The legs are an adornment rather than a replacement to the body, they do not infer a loss but a gain. In a world where amputee’s are often perceived as being at a disadvantage, Mathew Barney’s legs create possibilities where there never was before. They give the wearer power to be whatever they choose to be and challenge ideologies of what beauty is. In a world obsessed with beauty, a person with a disability doesn’t fit into societies assumptions of what beauty should be. However Barney’s work acts as a symbol for change in the way it transform the idea of a prosthetic, turning everything we have ever thought about the purpose and appearance of prosthetics on its head. Since the 16^th century people have worn artificial limbs that resemble the body part it is impersonating so that the wearer appears to look ‘normal’. Having said this, prosthetics do serve a main purpose of improving the quality of the wearer’s life by helping them function better, but could prosthetics also serve another purpose to make the wearer look ‘normal’. Other parts of the exhibition showed leg prosthesis for children which did not benefit the children wearing them and actually made is harder to function, thus inferring the idea that the prosthetics can also be there for the rest of world and not just the wearer.

Although the legs are completely dysfunctional, they hold a light towards to future, signifying a change in the way disabilities are seen. No longer does disability seem to be a limitation but an opportunity for creative and artistic enhancement. The transparency of the legs highlight this change even further as it suggests that a person’s disability doesn’t have to be covered up or hidden in anyway. This is not to suggest that the disabled amputees of the world will turn to wearing transparent resin legs, (it would be both impractical and expensive) however it does impose a change in the way society looks at disabilities. Aimee Mullins speaks widely about the changing idea of beauty and identities. In her TED talk in 2009 she said; ‘ the conversation with society has changed profoundly in this last decade. It is no longer a conversation about overcoming deficiency. Its a conversation about overcoming augmentation; its a conversation about potential...so that people society once considered to be disadvantaged can now become the architects of their own identities..’

Pop Up- Textures

Dried gouache and the end of a pen to convey the rough and raised texture of a glittery shoe. I used tones of blue, a colour i picked out in the glitter, so that the object was taken out of context and the texture was enhanced. 

I wanted to convey the floppy and soft texture of a small bean bag, so socked a piece of fabric in pink ink and dropped it onto my page. I like the splashed edges of the shape and think it reflects something soft and tactile. 

I really enjoyed creating the texture of the barnacles on a muscle. The barnacles were the most interesting part of texture on the muscle.

The rough strip on a match box, I experimented using sand paper, scratches and inks. 

TED

Today I had a great and eye opening lecture from the Textile Environment Design research team TED. Being an up and coming textile designer it important to be aware of the climate we live in today, and realising that as a designer, I should see myself as an agent for change by considering the life cycle of the products and how to minimise the life cycle of the product and how to get the ample usage out of my creations. I really do believe that there is a huge market in recyclable  sustainable textiles that has yet to be exhausted. TED talks about the research their team do into developing textiles with a reduced impact to the environment  where they focus on ten strategies to help reduce wastage in the textile design and making processes.

It is important for me, as someone new to the textile industry, to be aware of some of these issues when designing and creating my fabrics. TED's Ten are a good guideline to ensure I am environmentally aware, and could even enhance my work by using ideas from sustainable research to take my work in a new direction. For example, the consideration of TED's number two rule of Design for Recycling/Upcycling, could completely alter the direction of my designs, or even my initial drawing. I could use recycled paper to do all my drawings on to try eliminate the vast wastage of paper in the early development stages, it could also give me an interesting and surprising result.  

Windings and Wrapping

Andrea Duncan

23 Pairs

I found Andrea Duncan's work in the Medicine Man exhibition in the Wellcome collection gallery. Duncan uses 23 pairs of socks to depict the shape of the different chromosomes. Using socks as a visual representation made the idea much more appealing for me. Science is something ive never found easy to get my head round so seeing Duncans playful yet highly accurate print was something i found easy to interpret  One the one side Duncans work has a sense of humor, and infers a lighthearted and friendly message. On teh other hand, using socks in representation of chromosomes has humanistic connotations, reminding us of  our individuality. 

Psychogeography

Today I had a lecture on psychogeography, a concept which i was completely unfamiliar with before, but an idea which i found a fascinating way of looking at society and my own way of life. 

“Psychogeography is the study of the precise laws  and specific effects of the geographical  environment, consciously organized or not, on the  emoLons and behaviour of individuals”. Guy Debord [An introduction to a critique of urban geography,1955]. Psychogeography is the idea that we are controlled both consciously and subconsciously by an invisible power within the city. It argues how we are constantly regulated and told what to do and where to go. For example, as a tourist entering in to a new city we are given maps with the 'places to see', telling that these are the only places worth looking at. It doesn't enable us to ever get lost in a city, or find things and areas for ourselves. We are constantly given suggestions of the 'must see' areas. But what about those areas that are not so polished? The quaint, real life areas that no one sees because we are not told to. We are given little freedom and we somehow loose all intuition.  Psychogeography encourages us to re imagine the city in our own minds. To explore the city avoiding the invisible power. Avoiding all signs and maps and encourages you to decided where you want to go, relying on your own sensors. This creates a much more personal and unique view of the city.  We were encouraged to be Flaneur and walk around the streets like detectives of the city but with no purpose. We walked aimlessly round the city to try get lost and discover undiscovered things. What i found shocking was how difficult it was to get lost! Any time i thought i had got lost and didn't know where i was, there would appear a map telling me exactally where i was and how to get to the next 'must see' destination. It enhanced this idea that the city is not run by the people but run by an invisible power, constantly telling us where we should be.  It is an attitude which i want to try instill in myself, getting lost more often, walking, observing and looking at things with fresh eyes. I think its not only a more liberating way of seeing the city but also a highly creative and inspirational way of seeing things.

Rough Guide

Brick Lane

Our first project was a collaborative project with the aim to create our own, beautifully unique, 'Rough Guide' to London. We were designated into groups of about 15 and each group was located an area within London to document. I've only just moved to London from Yorkshire so the project was a good excuse to really get my bearings of London, of one area anyway!

Brick lane was my area, which fortunately for me was one of the only areas id visited in London before moving here, so i could imagine the sort of things to be looking for before i set foot. I imagined getting immersed in the graffiti, or the vintage shops, but what surprised me, and particularly fascinated me, were the areas surrounding Brick Lane that were a contrasted with the bustling atmosphere of Brick Lane. A lot of my research stemmed around the residential parts and the areas that are not conventionally desirable for tourists. I found myself sitting in lots of parks, opposite schools and next to houses.

There was a part to brick lane that seemed fun and artists. Full of weird and wonderful people from all walks of life. It was the people of Brick Lane that seemed to capture the essence of Brick Lane.


Leopard Print Hat Man

A weirdly wonderful character I met just off Brick Lane. Him and his band were paying hand made, eclectic instruments in a small band stand in a park, I joined in with the playing of the instruments and made friends with Leopard Print Hat Man. This was a truly bizarre experience, one that reflecting the essence of brick lane.

The culture was an inevitable part of brick lane, packed with colour, curries and mosques it contrasted again with both the small parks and the urban scene of Brick Lane.

I particularly found the doors a fascination, they seemed to symbolize the contrast that was evident in every street you walked up. I drew and took photographs of doors that I found particularly interesting and seemed to represent something about the area. 

Brick Lane is an area full of intense diversities from cultures to ages to houses. I really enjoyed documenting the area as there was so much going on everywhere you looked. I was overwhelmed with the amount going on everyday which could be seen as a good and a bad thing. The positive thing about that was I documented vastly, recording through photographs drawings and colours  However, a negative thing about the amount going on was i found it difficult to focus my documentation and it could have appeared random at times. Next time it could be helpful to choose a few certain things to document and really explore that area in more detail. Having said that i feel my research reflected the busy and jumbled area of brick lane and reflected the lack of order that Brick Lane presented.