Education · exhibition

Summer Term at Morley

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Last week was the first week back at Morley College after the Easter holidays for the summer term and I’m looking forward to learning a lot from tutor Mary Spryou who is an all-round textiles guru. We started the term off visiting the Ainu Stories exhibition at Japan House. The exhibition has now finished (we were lucky to catch it in its last week), but there is a virtual exhibition and more information on the Japan House website. The Ainu are an indigenous people mainly living in the northern island of Hokkaido. The exhibition focused on one particular community and shows various aspects of their culture that have been passed down for centuries.

The Advanced Textiles course is very flexible and there is no set structure that we have to follow, but as inspiration Mary encouraged us to think about the exploration of the theme ‘Expressions of Identity’ whilst visiting the Ainu Stories exhibition and how we could respond to what we saw in our own personal way.

I was really inspired by the woodcarving. There were five symbols representing various aspects of the Ainu culture which could be used interchangeably in numerous combinations to create new patterns. I watched an interview with a woodcarver who explained how the patterns were designed using symmetry. I was thinking about how this process could be translated to textiles and the woodcarving made me think of Linocut. I’m thinking about developing my own symbols to create carved printing blocks that can then make repeating patterns.

After the exhibition we headed back to the studio. There were some lovely examples of hand embroidered robes in the exhibition made from hand woven cloth. Back at the studio Mary showed us some of the appliqué and decorative techniques so we could have a go ourselves. A lot of the decoration was made using chain stitch which is quite versatile as the stitch length and width can be changed to give different effects and designs.

Lastly we began some natural dyeing, but as we only had the afternoon we unfortunately ran out of time before we could see the results. Dyeing isn’t a particular area of interest for me (mainly because I don’t like getting messy!), but I’m looking forward to seeing how the colours come out this week when we are back in the studio.

Event · workshop

Craftcation 2024

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So I’ve just about recovered from my jet lag after a whirlwind trip to California! For the second year in a row I attended Craftcation, the crafting conference for creatives run by Dear Handmade Life. I only flew out for the week this year, with just one day to adjust to the time difference and it was a real struggle!

It was so great to see lots of friends that I’d made last year and also meet so many new lovely crafty people. It makes such a difference when you can meet up with other people who have the same interests as you. I didn’t sign up for as many craft workshops this year and decided to attend more business focused ones, but that was a bit of a mistake. I really needed those creative times in my schedule to relax and unwind a bit. Once I realised this I did manage to attend some of the walk-in sessions to get my fill of crafting!

The business classes I attended were full of useful information. I started the week with two Instagram sessions which went into details about how best to use all the different functions available (some of which I didn’t even know existed!), and how to get the most out of stories (which I never use but am thinking about doing more of now!). I also attended two iPhone classes; the first one was a photo walk that included hints and tips on how to take good photos, the second one also included camera tips but went into detail about how to create good reels. I’m hoping I can put some of what I learnt into practice. I went to a panel discussion on publishing a book and now I really want to have a book of my own, even though I have no content ideas at all! The last business session I went to was called ‘Managing a Maker Schedule’. It was a really small group and it was more of a discussion than a taught session. I found it really helpful to talk to others about the physical and mental barriers I sometimes have when it comes to actually getting down my studio and making art. It was comforting to find out that everyone was in a similar boat!

My favourite creative session was the ice dyeing. It’s such a simple process, but gives such interesting and variable results. There were so many colour options to choose from and how you distributed both the ice and dye powders had a real effect on how your piece came out. You had to wait 24 hours to rinse the material out after applying the dye and I was so worried about staining the sink in the hotel bathroom! I rinsed it for ages and I thought the water was never going to run clear but it did eventually, and luckily it didn’t stain the sink. I absolutely love how it turned out and I think it would be so nice to use this as the base for an abstract embroidery, maybe embellishing it with beads as well.

For the other crafty workshops I did some Bargello stitching, made some beaded bracelets, and painted a little ceramic pot, all of which I enjoyed thoroughly. Those were the times I also got to sit and chat with lots of different people and hear all about their creative journeys.

The evenings were filled with fun activities too, from an enchanted forest themed dance party to the Iron Craft competition to a fashion show for everyone who had made clothes or accessories in the sewing workshops throughout the week. It seemed like everyone I spoke to was having a fabulous time and I’ve come home feeling refreshed and ready to get back to work.

exhibition

Visions of Paris

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At the beginning of the year I decided to enter the Madeira competition hosted by the Creative Craft Show. I’m really keen to get my work seen in exhibitions and all the entries for this competition were put on display at the Creative Craft Show at the NEC in Birmingham.

The theme was ‘Visions of Paris’, so in keeping with the theme, but also sticking to my own favourite subject I embroidered a croissant. I’d been thinking about making a croissant anyway; it has been on my ‘to make’ list for a while, and everyone likes a croissant! It was a bit of a rush as I only heard about the competition about a month before the submission date, but I worked really hard and got it done just in time. 

The show was this weekend so I went up to Birmingham with my mum to see my croissant hung with all the other submissions. It was a really great day out seeing everyone’s work and interpretation of the theme, and spending lots of money at all the stands! There were three prizes awarded by the judges, one for each category (hand embroidery and machine embroidery) and one for the overall winner. I didn’t receive an award, but it was still great to see my work exhibited next to everyone else’s.

I thought that was the end of it, but a couple of days after the show had finished I received a phone call to say that I had won the Visitors’ Choice award! People could vote for their favourite piece, and had voted for mine! I am so pleased to have won and feel honoured that strangers looked at my work and loved it enough to vote for it. My work will be shown at the rest of the shows this year – Farnborough, Exeter, and Glasgow – so I won’t see my croissant for another year! I feel like it’s a really exciting moment in my art career, and I’m looking forward to getting involved in more competitions and exhibitions in the future.

Education

New Project for the Spring Term

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So, it’s already half term and I’m back on the Advanced Textiles course at Morley College. In term two we have been working towards a brief looking at how images and words can be used in textiles to signal ideas. I was keen to continue with the theme of food as mentioned in my previous post. Although the majority of my work so far has been just the food itself, the Cheese Puffs included the packaging as well. I thought this would be a good route to take and started to look at packaging ideas.

I remembered that back when I did A Levels I had done a module looking at consumerism and I found the original pen and ink drawing I made for that to use as some inspiration for this project. Drawing with pen and ink meant that the packaging I had drawn was pared back to its basic shapes as I was restricted to only two colours – black and white.

When I was making the Cheese Puffs I wanted the packaging to be recognisable without using an actual brand name, so I looked at all the existing products and put together a colour palette and a design that would resonate with the viewer and clearly indicate what the product was inside, including designing a font. The product I have chosen for this project is orange juice. I went through the same process of researching existing products and thinking about what I wanted to convey with my design to show the viewer what to expect; a fresh, healthy, refreshing drink.

At the recommendation of my tutor I also visited the Museum of Brands in London (right next to Ladbroke Grove station) to have a look at packaging from the past right up to the present day. It’s a very interesting collection to view and well laid out. You begin by walking through the time tunnel where you can see packaging dating back to Victorian times and travel through seeing the packaging evolve as time moves on to the present day. It was a bit weird to see things I remember from my own childhood in a museum though!

So I’ve got my design and I’ve started sewing it, I just hope I can have a completed 3D juice carton in time for the exhibition!

Creative blog

Bring On 2024!

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In February 2023 I took a moment to take a look at my creative journey and set myself some goals for the year. I had a disappointing start to the year with the course I was on not living up to expectations, but withdrawing from that course not only vastly improved my physical and mental health, but also led me to make decisions about my work that means I’m ending 2023 in a very positive frame of mind.

The first goal was to sort out a proper space to work, turning the summerhouse/storage shed into a proper studio. I mainly worked on this during the summer as I had to empty the whole shed, sort through everything in there and do a lot of decluttering, donating, and discarding. Once I had done that I discovered that the floor had collapsed in one corner of the room. There was also a bit of a damp problem which isn’t so good for textile work! I had the floor ripped up and replaced, the walls painted inside and out, better guttering and downpipes put on, and the roof re-felted. The whole place has had a spruce up and it looks great now. I kept a section of the old work bench with the sink and cupboards in, but wrapped the worktop with a sticky-back vinyl wrap in a lighter colour to brighten up the room as well. Once I’d done all that I bought a big table to work at and some good old IKEA shelving to store all my supplies. I’m so happy with the space now, all my equipment and materials are neatly put away and I am always eager to get down there and work now. No more taking over the dining room table!

The second goal was a byproduct of clearing out the studio. Over the years I have been signed up to many craft subscriptions in order to learn new crafts, build up my craft knowledge and review them here to encourage others to craft too. However, I haven’t always had time to complete all the kits, especially when I was receiving four or five a month, so I ended up with a big pile that were waiting to be done. I dedicated a big part of the spring and summer months to completing as many as I could. I chose crafts that I was most excited about first and have put them all up on my blog over the course of the year. I have worked my way through the majority of the pile, but still have a few boxes left that I would like to complete at some point, so keep an eye out for their reviews some time in the new year!

The third goal was to develop my own art practice through courses and workshops and start creating my own work. I began by going to Craftcation in California where I met loads of amazing people and came back fired up about my textile work, followed by a fantastic five day artistic embellishment course at Hand and Lock in the summer where I learned loads of great techniques. I have now completed my first term on the Intermediate and Advanced Textiles course at Morley College and am signed up for the spring and summer terms. I can’t wait to get stuck back into that creative environment. I also made an effort to go to plenty of art exhibitions this year, it’s so great to go and be inspired by the creativity of other artists.

The second part of the goal, to create my own work, has been the most important to me. At the beginning of the year I made ‘Biscuits’, which I entered into the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. It didn’t get in to the exhibition, but it really sparked my passion for embroidering food. I find it such a fascinating subject and I am always thinking about the next project I can make and how I can recreate the textures and shapes of different foods through textiles. I really began this theme in earnest in the summer making a series of ice creams and have continued, making a bag of Cheese Puffs, a Battenberg, and an avocado so far. I am also in the process of making a fry up. I cannot wait to keep on sewing and see what else I can make. I also got some real validation for the work I was making by being included in the exhibition at the Morley Gallery for the celebration of 25 years of the Textiles Foundation. I originally submitted one piece but was asked to provide more to be displayed in the gallery for a whole month. It was the highlight of my year and I really hope that there will be more opportunities in the future for me to show my work.

I gave myself two weeks off over Christmas because I had lots of family and friends to see, but I’m excited to get back down my studio and get to work on some new creations. 2023 was the year that I found my passion and I cannot wait to see what 2024 brings. Wishing you all a Happy New Year!

Education

Print, Print, Print

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College has finished for the term and I’m looking forward to getting into lots of festive activities in the run up to Christmas now. We spent most of the second half of the term doing various types of printing so I thought I’d do a round up of what we covered. To finish off the term we had an exhibition in one of the smaller galleries at the college displaying the work we’d made over the course of this first term entitled ‘Tests and Samples’. At the beginning of the term I decided that my original pieces reminded me of textures on the water and I have carried that theme across all of my work, repeating the same motifs and colours where possible to give all my work a cohesive look.

We kicked off after half term with mono-printing. I’ve had one go at this before, but couldn’t really remember what to do, so I was pleased that our tutor Jo gave us a very in-depth demonstration! She had lots of different tools that we could use to create marks and textures on the paper, and we also used cut-out stencils to mask sections of the work and overprint on top.

The following week Jo was away, but Debby Brown was our substitute teacher. Debby has been teaching at Morley College for years and has a huge amount of knowledge about textiles. She will be the tutor for next term as well. With Debby we played around with creating textures in paper by creasing and crinkling the paper and then ironing on interfacing to give it strength. I later sewed into the pieces I had made, and these turned out to be my favourite things I made this term.

My second favourite thing was a quick project we did one week making slides from scraps of materials. Seeing these enlarged in the projector was amazing! You would never guess that such interesting images could come out of these little slides and the effect of the glue was fantastic! I think there could be a lot of development with these images using digital manipulation and it would be interesting to see what could be done with them.

Next, we moved onto collograph printing and Chine collé – two processes that combine collage and printing to produce images using ink and paper to create layers, colours, and textures. These processes were quite technical, and we used a printing press to achieve the right amount of pressure needed to get a clear print. I liked one of the blocks I made, but not the other so I cut it up and tried rearranging the pieces to create different images.

The last two weeks we spent making stamps; using simple shapes to make interesting prints through repetition, pattern, and rotation. We also used the stamps to create tags for our work that was going into the exhibition so it could be identified. I really enjoyed these two weeks. The creation of the stamps was very satisfying and then the actual printing felt quite mindful.

This term has been quite a whistle stop tour of various techniques. Although we have mainly worked in paper, the majority of the techniques could be applied to textiles going forward and as always, I like building up my bank of techniques and knowledge because you never know when they may come in handy for a future project! I’m looking forward to seeing what we get up to next term.

exhibition

Morley Gallery – 25 Years of Textiles Foundation

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I’m so excited to be part of the exhibition at Morley Gallery celebrating 25 years of the Textiles Foundation course. Joining this course back in 2021 was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. Before this I had been back into crafting for a few years but felt like I was starting to drift along without any purpose. I knew that textiles was the creative discipline for me, and completing this course really helped me to focus in on the direction I want to take.

I embroidered my biscuit piece right back at the beginning of this year to submit to the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy. Obviously, it didn’t get accepted, but I knew then that I had really found the subject I wanted to explore – food. It feels like a subject where I will never run out of inspiration and there’s so much to think about in terms of textures, colours, and construction. Stumpwork or raised embroidery is my favourite technique and I’m always thinking about how to make things 3D. 

I originally made and submitted my Cheese Puffs for the Morley exhibition and was very kindly invited by Zoë Burt (Head of Textiles and curator of this exhibition) to submit more pieces to hang as a group. I spent the summer making a series of ice creams, so I also submitted these along with the biscuits too. I can’t explain how exciting it was to see all my work hung together in a proper gallery space, rather than just laid out on my dining table!

The private view was such a great event, so many people came to support all the artists that had been included in the exhibition and it was so strange (in a good way) to see and hear people I didn’t know looking at my work, taking pictures of it, and discussing it. It made me feel like a proper artist! There were so many other textile artists included in the exhibition who had attended the foundation course over the years; there was a lot of talent in the room! The Morley Gallery is near London Waterloo station and the exhibition is on for another couple of weeks until 14th December, so if you are in the area do pop in and check out all the amazing work.

Education

Playing with paper

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I had great intentions of writing about my adventures at college every week, but of course life (and a bout of Covid) got in the way! So now I have a bumper blog post of all the things I’ve getting up to over the last few weeks. Last week was half term, but we are back to school on Wednesday.

Going all the way back to beginning of October we had a session of book binding learning a couple of different techniques and then using them to bind together some of the textured samples we made in previous weeks. It’s quite a nice way to collate pieces, thinking about how you will group things together and why. 

Following on from this the class experimented with inks, using the books as a surface for mark making, as well as creating negative space. I missed this week due to illness so I had a little go at home on my own. I cut down some of the books I made into graduated pages and then inked over the top. I tried to use marks that were suggestive of the swirls and eddies you get in water, continuing the theme I started previously with my concertina book. 

I also did this with the loose pieces of paper I had cut from the books, just laying them over the top of each other and inking over the top to create interesting patterns and negative space.

I took the pieces and collaged them together thinking about how I would overlay them. I particularly liked using the tracing paper, because it gives the sense of layering without losing any of the design, and can sometimes create new designs. I also stitched into these collages. We have worked a lot with drawing materials and paper, so it was good to do some stitching and it made me think about where I would place my stitches to highlight certain parts of the collages, especially as once a hole is made in the paper there’s no going back, unlike with fabric! I used basic stitches to imitate similar marks that I would make when drawing; back stitch, blanket stitch, and feather stitch.

Just before the half term break we did some observational drawing, however we didn’t have to be too strict about being true-to-life. We were looking for patterns and lines and transferring these onto various different papers, using a variety of different drawing materials such as ink, graphite, pencil, and wax resist. We also did some hole-punching, creating patterns by piercing the paper from both the front and back. The object I chose was a shell that had an amazing spotty pattern on as well as the swirl at the top.

At home I then took the little pieces we created in class and sewed them together in different ways to make little bundles, thinking about composition and juxtaposition. It was interesting to see how they all sat together and the use of the different papers added texture and volume to the pieces.

I’m not sure where all this is going at the moment, but I’m interested to see where its heading and in the meantime its quite fun to play around with all these bits that I wouldn’t normally do.

Education

Graphite and Wax Crayons

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The second week of term was a continuation of last week, although instead of using ink and rollers we used graphite and wax crayons to take rubbings of textures. I enjoyed this a lot more; I thought the graphite especially picked up finer details of the textures and further textures could be achieved by moving the paper around to overlap the rubbings. Also by doing this you could create a dark to light shaded affect along the piece of paper.

Using the wax crayons and drawing ink or water colour paints we did some wax resist samples. Using the white crayon was very effective because you couldn’t see your marks on the paper until the application of the ink or paint revealed the image. These samples felt really dynamic and lively, and it was refreshing to introduce some colour after working in grey tones.

After lunch some other people in the class brought in some leaves that they’d foraged in the college garden, and kindly shared with everyone. The leaves I thought were especially pleasing because there were so many fine textures on there that you don’t even realise. It was a more delicate process to pick out these details and the edge of the leaf than it had been to create the larger sheets of textures earlier in the day.

The last technique we did was using a cut edge of cardboard loaded with graphite to make these really soft motifs by gently pushing the graphite off the edge of the cardboard with a piece of cotton. You could really play with the shading on this and control where the marks went, creating quite a three-dimensional effect.

Our homework was to use the textures we had made during the class to create little books. I felt like a lot of my textures reminded me of the different kinds of ripples you get on a body of water, so I tried to reflect that my compositions, particularly in the ‘zine’ style book.

The concertina book I kept simpler, just including one sample per page. I started to add more pieces to it, but felt that it detracted from the idea, especially as I think of water as quite calming. Sometimes simple is best!

Education

Back to Morley!

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I started my new course at Morley College this week and it felt really good to get back in the classroom. I’ve joined Intermediate and Advanced Textile Practice, which spans an academic year but is split up into three terms, with a different tutor for each term. The autumn term is being taught by Joanna Veevers, who has a background in textiles, ceramics, and drawing. This course is a little more flexible than the foundation; we are welcome to join in with the techniques being demonstrated to us each week, but there is also the freedom to work on your own projects. The benefit of joining the class is the expert input from the tutors and being surrounded by like-minded artists, all with their own wealth of making experience. 

My plan is to join in with and test out all the techniques I can as I love building up my skills and knowledge bank, because you never know when something could be useful to your own work, even if it doesn’t seem to fit in right now. After a morning of introductions, course briefing and of course health and safety, we spent the afternoon diving into taking rubbings using oil-based inks, rollers and a variety of textures. We tested out different papers and fabrics, and different compositions; overlaying textures and colours. 

I definitely had some results that I felt were more successful than others, but by creating these textures we are creating a catalogue of materials that can be used in other ways. They don’t have to stay in this format – they could be torn or cut up, photocopied and multiplied, or altered with other mark-making materials. Who knows what they could turn into!

I’ll be interested to see where this term takes me and my textile practice. I’m not a huge fan of messy arts and crafts, but I think it will be beneficial for me to get out of my comfort zone. I’ll just have to remember my apron!