Networking

W O R K   E X P E R I E N C E 

I have spent the last couple of weeks emailing potential work experience designer makers/ artists and I have been surprised at how many actually emailed me back as I didn't expect this at all. I have printed out all of my emails and conversations and put them in my development sketchbook as there are too many to put on my blog. I have instead shown my initial emails below. 

I am also delighted that from contacting these practitioners I have now received two work placements. My first one begins in Easter where I am going to work with Ismini Samanidou for two weeks in her design studio. The second placement I have received is with Margo Selby and this will take place for a week or so over the summer. I am both excited and nervous. I also hope to gain one more placement for the summer months, as well as one for my third year easter break. 

Design Development

D E S I G N I N G 

To generate some more ideas I have tried various ways of working within my development sketchbook.  I have thought about the idea of making a hank, dying and bleaching it. When woven this may then show gaps of light where the bleach has taken out the dye. 

In the third and fourth images (from left to right) I have also thought about how my brocade can come up and down within my weave. I have designed the brocade to move in and out of the ground cloth based on my initial street photographs where the light produces lines. 

Development Sketchbook

    D E V E L O P M E N T   

    T H R O U G H    W E A V I N G 

As usual a development book when weaving is essential, even if it only helps with ideas and I don't use it exactly, it allows me to think of lots of different outcomes which then enables me to test them and try the ones I'm most excited about.
I have been thinking about the difference between 'warm' and 'cool' light. I'm not sure if this is something which even exists or maybe I'm not describing it right. Some light has a warm white glow, and so to represent this I have done some development with warm golds, pinks and copper. The second  image in shows the warm light weft yarns. However they look a lot brighter than they would on my warp as there is no grey back ground to dull it down. I also found that some light is cool and it gives off a blue tinged glow, and so to represent cool light I have used silver reflective yarn, silver wire, antique blue and teal.

Samples

U N C U T    S A M P L E S 

These are a selection of my samples so far, and I am quite pleased with how they are looking. I am now deciding how to cut them and planning ahead. As I have been weaving, I have been leaving gaps between each sample so I have plenty of room to potentially make tassels. I have also used some waste yarn and plain weave either side of each sample to try and stop my samples unraveling. So far I have thought about two ways of constructing my jewellery pieces and this includes folding over one end and threading a cord through, and also possibly making a pocket in my weave to allow a cord or chain to be threaded through.  

After experimenting a bit in my sketchbook, I am going to make my samples into necklaces pieces. Some of the samples will be kept just as they are but cut and finished neatly into rectangles. Some of them will be made into finished jewellery pieces. 

More Samples ..

E X P L A I N I N G   H O W    MY    S A M P L E S 

   A R E  D E V E L O P I N G 

I thought it would be a good idea to explain how my samples are developing and my thought processes in case they aren't clear. As I have been looking at iridescent colours and light, I have chosen to use shiny yarns which I feel reflect these key themes. I have chosen a charcoal ground warp as this came from inspiration from Karen Nicol, and also most of my photography features a grey background including the image above. I am using wire as I feel it is quite an urban material, and making it urban is one of my key themes running through this project. I am also using wire to enable me to shape my weave if I want to. I am choosing pleats and I would like to make my weave more three dimensional. I have also decided on pleats as my photoshopped photographs reminded me of movement. I am using glass beads to represent the artists I have looked at who use light to colour glass (Bradley Basso) and also because I think it makes my samples feel more hand made and jewellery like. I am also using interesting yarns such as light grey rubber, black matt rubber, reflective gold and silver yarns, and this is because I want my samples to feel edgy to fit in with the Urban Outfitters brand and also because reflection fits nicely in with my theme of light. 

First Samples

T E S T E R   S A M P L E  

Above is the first sample that I have woven on the loom. I am quite happy with it and I definitely prefer it to my last projects samples. It still amazes me how many thousands of variables there are when weaving, and how many millions of outcomes you can get by just changing a few crosses on a peg plan or a couple of colours. I am definitely enjoying weaving more this time and feel much less stressed.  Below are the next few samples that I produced using my guider sample at the top. I chose to use wire in my first few samples quite a lot. Ive also tried beads, pleats and rubber as well as shiny and reflective yarns. 

I am happy with what I have produced so far, and I cant wait to get back in the weave room to continue with some more samples. I also feel much happier on this ARM machine to the Texel, it feels like it comes more naturally, both programming it and using it. 

Putting on my warp

T H R E A D I N G  &  T Y I N G

I have spent the last couple of days making my warp, threading up and tying on. This time around it didn't take me as long. I got my threading up done pretty fast as my warp is only 5 inches wide. I had to make two warps this time which I thought would be more time consuming but it luckily wasn't. I put each warp on a separate beam, the ground cloth going on the bottom, and the brocade went on the top beam. I then threaded them up together following my threading plan.

Now I am all tied on, i'm really excited about the prospects of this warp. I feel like I have so much more knowledge this time around, and I have so much more to experiment with. Even though I have only just tied on, I am already confident that I am going to prefer this plain warp with the option of bringing my brocade up and down.

Karen Nicol's Lecture

I N S P I R A T I O N

Today we had a lecture with designer and artist Karen Nicol. Karen is an embroidery and mixed media artist, and works with both fashion and interiors. It was really interesting to hear about all of her experiences both in the industry and through her self employment. Her lecture was really exciting and I felt that she was very genuine. It was completely invaluable and I have learnt a lot today. It was both daunting and exciting listening to her stories of her experiences, working to deadlines and feeling overwhelmed with work, having only 24 hours to both come up with an idea, and make it a reality.
Karen gave us a lot of advice, a couple of the main points were, stick to deadlines and be a good time keeper. Organisation is key. Experiment and try lots of new things all of the time. Test and Sample. I really enjoyed her lecture and I loved how she was able to work all over the world. This is definitely something that I want to be able to do in the future and it was inspirational to hear that she could do this as part of her job.

http://www.karennicol.com

Jewellery Artist Research

E R I N    C O N S I D I N E

Erin Considine is a New York based jewellery artist whose work I really love and have found influential. I find her work inspirational to me as she combines textile materials with metals and her work feels very urban.

'By marrying two such diverse materials, Erin is able to continuously experiment with technique and form. Her natural-dye baths make use of ingredients like madder root, logwood, and onion skin. She tests new textile construction methods with every collection, incorporating weaving, crocheting, and the Japanese braiding style of Kumihimo into an ever-expanding roster of creation tools. Her metal forms are mined from the dregs of industrialism- whether it by repurposing dead-stock jewelry findings or sculpting models inspired by the antique metier. Her commitment to sustainability ensures that almost every step of the production process is completed by hand in New York, primarily by Erin herself.'

Erin's work is always unique as she makes everything by hand and also uses lots of found object from the street. The necklace shown in the right hand side image reminds me of the drawings I have been doing using bleach and dye. I have also found her colour palette inspirational and I have used this to inform my colour choices for my brocade warp. I have now decided to use a peach cotton yarn, a natural linen and a grey cotton yarn .

http://erinconsidine.com

Artist Research

K A R E N  N I C O L' S   I N F L U E N C E S   

I have been searching through one of my friends new books which happened to be 'Embellished' by Karen Nicol. I came across this piece of embellished textile jewellery which I really liked. I found the colour palette inspirational and so I decided to base my colour palette on this piece of her work. I have chosen the colour for my ground warp based on this deep smokey charcoal that she has chosen for her ground fabric. I then intend to use similar iridescent colours and shiny yarns through my weft to give it a shine. I am really excited about the prospect of this colour palette, and I finally feel like I am getting the gist of how to plan and design a warp. 

Artist Research

K R I S T I N A   

W I H E R H E I M O

I have been looking into some more artists for some more inspiration and I have found this artist who uses shadows. Space and function are crucial in her approach to the work. Each piece is a response to a particular space and must fulfil a specific purpose – for example acoustic insulation and the texturing of space. Much of the work is assembled from modular elements, giving maximum flexibility.

The idea of flexibility then gave me some new ideas. I realised that I may need to use yarns which allow me to create movement with samples. I have thought about using some wire, as i can then use this to shape my samples when they are off of the loom. After looking at Wiherheimo's work, it has also encouraged me to think about shadowing and the effects of light on objects.