Essay

Other artists which I am talking about in my essay....and love....

Chris Ofili at the Tate Britain

I love Chris Ofili. I have always loved Chris Ofili. YES!

When I first started thinking about surface design and textiles he was an artist I was really interested in. The layers of intricate and beautiful marks on his canvases create an incredibly unique, tactile surface and to weirdos like me so delicous it actually makes me salavate. I don't think I'm going too far.

I never went to the upper room last time, and I loved it. I felt like I couldn't talk in there, the air was a bit heavier and it felt special. Twelve individually coloured rainbow paintings (blanco, rojo...) glow against the dark walnut walls of the rectangle small room, leading down to the daddy painting in multi-colour and decadent gold. The paintings are exuberant and magical.

But the upper room was not all there was on offer. Other paintings with wide influences from Zimbabwean cave paintings to funk and hip hop icons to vaginas stuck onto his paintings cut from porn magazines. It was interesting to see how as an artist he has developed, but for me his innovative use of materials excited me the most. Glitter, poo, resin, map pins.... a little bit of everything. With the use of weird materials and rather graphic painting, some of the paintings like 1997's Blossom below still looks pretty, with fresh colours and a flirty expression in the ladies eyes. Its this healthy mixture not necassarily in every painting, but in the collection over all at least of shocking dung with vivid lady bits and admornment and flowers that make this exhibition so glorious.

Despite my obsession with bumpy lovely bits, my favourite paintings are infact a collection of rather flat water colour paintings. They are lyrical and mesmirizing and really beautiful. I have two of them on my wall. I think these are more subtle but have alot of character.

Essay - The Messengers

I have chosen an Annette Messager exhibition as my object to analyse for my stage one essay. It was held at the Hayward Gallery Southbank 4th March-25th May 2009 and it was one of my favourite exhibitions I've ever been to, I can always rely on Hayward. They are smart. My favourite piece was Anatomy, hand knitted jumpers and other hand knitted garments picked up at second hand shops had been unravelled to string together drawings of parts of a human anatomy.

The link between yarn and the fabric it creates really interests me. I like the comparison between sculptures made out of fabric and those made out of yarn. Fabric sculptures tend to sit in a space whereas yarn sculptures fill a space and become part of it. Is a yarn sculpture a fabric?

Blythe House

On the day we went to Blythe House it was absolutely freezing, and I felt ill. I walked up a hill and bumped into stella also lost on the windy roads. We knocked on the wrong door and spoke to a really posh and smiley young man who pointed us along to the next door of a building which was for the most part concealed by a big old fence. With pointy bits up the top. On the inside, despite everyone there being jolly, I still felt like I was visiting a high securty prison. We were escorted to a little cold room, where we all sat around a large, grey, primary school looking table. From there we were taken to another room to view the books. The corridors were decorated in the most random ways, some had tiles on the walls, and most had big iron staircases going downwards. I felt as if I was walking around the haunted hotel in the shining and i kept expecting to see the sisters asking me to come and play.

In the viewing room there were plenty of huge books, some covered in plastic sheeting, some just falling apart slowly. We were given an introducation to what Blythe house is, how to use the facility and about the bits and bobs we were about to look at. Alot of them were more fascinating in a general sense rather than something i could see actually helping along my work. Alot of records of big stores fabrics they had stocked throughout the years, and trend forecasting from the 60's to the 80's. The only book that i would have wanted to grab and take home was an odd, small in comparison book on the wall next to the door. It had tiny bits of every type of fabric imaginable, stuck in by glue which now looks more like dark wood varnish. It had no order, and i couldn't really understand what it was for. It had pages empty with just the horrible glue marks. It had pages so full of random materials it took me a good while to sufficently stroke them. I loved the velvets, i want to make velvets! This led to a very interesting conversatin about how to make velvets and how it is possible at college. Oh yes! From another book i learnt about how the blurry floral prints ive seen are made. It is by printing on the warp.

Overall it was a fun and i learnt alot. I can see how it would really help if you had a very certain idea of what you wanted to research otherwise you could just end up getting lost in there and never coming out.

Global Sourcing Marketplace

Eden studio caught my attention at the fair because of the dress laid out on the table. It was really beautiful and clean and such a constrast to the other stalls. i didnt find out too much infomation at the stall but just enough to make me want to research it. What i gathered was that this company would make samples of your clothes, and basically do the designing that you may not have the skills and knowledge to do. This reminded me very much of jennifer Ballie's lecture that we had heard a few weeks prior which really really interested and confused me equally. So i set out re-reading through my notes and trying to get my head around why co-design is infact a sustainable and green way of designing. I think what it has to do in relation to Eden Studio is making a garment personal so therefore more precious and less likely to be replaced quickly.

Eden Studio itself doesn't have a website, that i can find, so i looked at Catharina Edens website and her jewelled spine collection. The collection is influenced by her childhood memories and photos which remind her emotions and events from when she was young. Working with the artist Rob Burton who creates beautiful prints from these images, she has made a collection of beautiful very feminine and whimsical gowns. She wants each dress to be unique and like a work of art, so each dress will be comissioned and the clients own photos and memories will be interpretted by Rob into an exclusive print and then made into one of Catharinas dresses. I think this is a lovely idea, and the dress you'd get out of it would be a one off, keep forever, pass down to your grand children type of dress.

We were asked to think of a company doing the same type of thing but less sustainably, two popped to mind whilst i was researching, New Look and Topshop for their celebrity endorsed ranges. I know many high street shops do collaborations but these two-the lilly allen and the kate moss-stayed in my mind. In the same way these collections are designed for people who may not have skills in designing clothes with the help of those more experienced. However, it is not personal for the people who actually buy the clothes, they are just buying a celebrities idea. I think this does the opposite of what the Eden Studio are doing, and cheapens the clothes instead of making them something very personal to adore.

Co-design in this way may not be, to me atleast, as obviously sustainable way of designing as with fairtrade organic fabrics (which im sure this project would use i just dont know) but it is an investment and a way to make clothes your own, precious and something to cherish re-work, and look after instead of getting bored of and replacing.

Telling Tales

On first walking into the space, I was surprised by the size of the room. Tiny, crowded, and even dingy. There were strips of fabric falling from above our heads, the segments between them forming dramatically lit booths enclosing a collection of curious objects.

This was the forest glade. A few items immediately caught my eye such as the boat/bath...bath/boat on my left, and the beautiful cow bench, both of which are clever and intriguing. However, what held my eye the longest was the 'fig leaf' wardrobe. It was magestical, it's height was imposing and the curved edges like a canopy from a tree in something like fantasia. At first i thought that the leaves would have been much nicer intricate, but for the purpose the bold and chunky leaves of the wardobe's served well. It reminded me of being little and flicking through old fairy tale books round my nans house and those films you occasionally caught the end of on TV, but never knew the name or had the video, so remained mysterious and much better than those you watched all the time. (For me that was water babies)

Leaving the crooked and devious glade we entered the enchanted castle. Bright and glowing, this room is regal, impressive and rich. There are odd shaped things on my right hung on mirrors bouncing golden rays throughout the room. Despite this room being slightly more roomy, though large it was not, there was plenty to look at in every direction, and you really did have to look to find it all. My favourite in this room was the cinderella table. It had a significant impact on the room, despite being in a corner. It was oddly shaped, and magnificent being made out of plywood but look so expensive, it's quirky lines being those of 11th century tables. I thought it was clever and gorgeous and i couldn't take my eyes of it.
Walking into the last room was like taking a leap of faith, there were few lights in comparison to the gloss of the castle. Plunging into darkness i can see windows and pools of light showing eerie and scary items which alot of the time require the descriptions of them to be understood fully. Its stuffy and hot in here, im squeezing past school children sitting on the floor drawing the pools of blood and getting rather claustrophobic. My favourite in this room is the star of the exhibitions leaflet, Do you hear what i hear? because of my slightly in-appropriate love of taxidermy. A happy, startled looking fox stopped in its tracks has shiney gold maggots growing out of its pricked pointy ears. Its creepy and wrong and enchanting and i love it. This whole room emphasises the 'weakness of flesh' and the 'certainty of death'.

The titles of the different rooms are very interesting and it is odd that they picked those particular names. The items in them are so varied, and sometimes you really cannot tell why they are linked to that room. The forest glade makes me think of nature obviously, and items such as the wardrobe and the honey coombe vase link to that. Forests also conjure up thoughts of old knarled trees mixed with new young sprouts! And i suppose this room also mixed the two. New, strange and innovative ideas with roots in old and complex stories and ideas. The enchanted castle was full of granduer, I always imagine castles filled with furniture and artefacts accumalated over hundreds of years. It looked into old design and re-interpretted it. What was enchanting about this room was the knowledge, it was enchanting to find bits and pieces hidden in the corner and to stare at something and wonder how it was made.

These exhibition has inspired my collection as i like how you have to look for the connection. It's fun there is such variety and everything in it is so beautiful which i really like. Also all of the items meant something on there own as well as in a group, it would be nice to have a collection of lots of beautiful pieces which all have a meaning.

Sir John Soane Museum

Well, I love to collect, I am a hoarder so this place is my idea of heaven. I unfortunately only got there half an hour before the place shut, but I enjoyed a quick dance around. It was wonderful inside, dark wood and bits and bobs everywhere. This place hasnt changed very much since 1837 when Sir John Soane died, it was his wish the place be kept as near as possible as it was left, and that it should be free to students and those who wish to come and learn. It's a wonderful idea, and a really wonderful and intriguing place. You must go!