My first year of TIP has certainly been an interesting one as I have learnt so much in such a short space of time, I have also had access to more facilities than I ever have before. For my first Unit of the year I chose to do Construct (Knit & Weave), I felt comfort from that as I was already a keen machine knitter. Although I had already used knitting machines before I was shown such a wide variety of new techniques and process that I had no idea about, I found this to be such a great experience and I really enjoyed my 3 weeks of knit sampling. I also found doing Weave to be a very interesting experience as in this case I was a beginner, I struggled to grasp the numbering system at first but I came to a point where I became almost a natural at the weave machines. Although this is a much more time consuming process in comparison with knit I find them both thoroughly enjoyable and somewhat therapeutic. I then moved on to doing Embroidery and I feel that by this time I became more confident in my work and I wasn't as concerned or weary about what my work looked like, if I liked it then why did it matter if others didn't? I developed so much as a person and I learned how to take criticism in a positive way rather than a negative way. When looking back at both of these units I feel very pleased with how I worked and how I managed my time to stick to deadlines without exception, If I had to chose between Construct and Embroidery I can honestly say that I cant pick a preference as they have offered me individual learning experiences. As I start to think about going in to my second year I think I would like to continue both of these further and see where they take me maybe as a combination, I have already incorporated them both into a project but I feel that I could show them in a much better way if I had an enjoyable and more interesting project. I feel that I have a preference for the Art and Craft areas of the Textiles industry and I would like to look into career possibilities that I could pursue, I do also think it could be a good experience to look at the interior side of things and maybe gain some knowledge about the interior world of textiles. Over the summer I plan to research into these areas within the textile world to ensure I have a clear mind in terms of what I aim to achieve.
Unit X summary
For me Unit X has been a roller coaster of an experience! At first it was pretty slow but it then picked up once my creative juices started to flow, as we got further into the project there were so many ups and downs that I began to confuse myself due to having mixed messages from tutors and not having a clue about what was okay to do and what wasn't okay. I started to feel like my work wasn't going in the right direction and changed paths a few times which just added to the confusion, after various tutorials I began to have a more clear understanding of what I was doing which made me start to think positive about this unit. I was then told to change parts of my project for certain reasons, I was then told by another tutor that I didn't need to change anything (again adding to the confusion). Once I had finalised a direction I felt much better about the project but I wasn't necessarily enjoying it, I wish I had a clearer idea in the beginning as I probably would have enjoyed it much more!
In the beginning I don't feel that we collaborated very well as a group as we didn't put an equal amount of effort in to meeting up and actually doing things together, this is not to single out anyone in particular as at some point each group member has had this problem. I believe that this was purely down to the fact that we all had no idea what we wanted to do or what direction we wanted to go in, Once we all had our projects going at a good pace we seemed to collaborate more effectively, it is however a shame that this wasn't the case from day 1.
As an experience I feel that I have learnt a lot about myself as a person and an artist. I do not work well digitally! and I don't work well when I dislike the project/theme, I also don't seem to have worked well as a group initially but I think if I was put in a group again I would make sure that I gave myself clearer ideas and expectations. Overall I think this unit was not very well organised or thought out as it never seemed to have much structure to it.
If I was to do Unit X again I would follow my initial ideas and back up my progression in such a way that would not enable me to be lead astray. I would also be more involved with my group and be sure to collaborate in more ways than what we did this time.
Presentation of my piece
For the presentation of my piece I decided that I was going to have it up on the wall next to the work of the other students in my group. This image shows how all of our work was initially displayed:
After having some input from the tutors our work was moved around to give it a more professional look. My personal work was taken off the piece of wood and hung from a pipe in front of the window shown in the above image. I then made two small cage like scupltures and attached some of my shells to them, these were placed alongside my 'hanging structure'.
These two images show my piece from different angles, unfortunately I forgot to take a picture front on so I will have to upload one in a separate post! I think taking it off the wood was a great decision and I am really happy with how it was finally presented in our exhibition.
These are the sculptures that I displayed alongside my 'hanging', I feel that they themselves show quite a good contrast between the natural and man made objects. Over all I am very pleased with my exhibition display and I hope that people have enjoyed looking at my work.
Large scale 'map'
I completed the 'map' idea that I explained in a previous post and I photographed it before dissolving it, I feel that the my drawings and the lines I created with stitch have very similar qualities in terms of line control, movement and structural elements. These images show different angles of the fabric:
Full length Piece, (fabric was water damaged when purchased so is rather curved)
A section of the piece to show the linear patterns better.
Two close up images showing the detail in different parts of the piece.
I dissolved half of this and left it to dry on the piece of wood but as I didn't think it was drying quick enough to do it in separate parts I used cable clips to secure it on to the wood. I then put it in my shower to hose it down and dissolve the remaining fabric, below is an image of the piece at the half and half stage.
As you can see in this image when the fabric dissolves the stitch loses its firmness and becomes somewhat stringy. Although this is not how I wanted it to look I think it will work well with my knitted pieces.
Group meetings?
Throughout Unit X we have met up multiple times, I have not mentioned them on my blog as I kept forgetting to do it after the meetings as I am still not used to doing blog posts. I also feel that as a group we have still not collaborated in a very good way, I would rather not mention some of the meeting we have had as not a lot about or work was mentioned as we were too busy discussing why we had not all been to certain tutorials/meetings/lectures etc. This in mind I don't feel like it is suitable or relevant to my personal blog space.
Final Piece idea...
After using the water soluble fabric I have had a great idea for my final piece. I am going to create a 'map' of journeys from memory, transferred on to the fabric using machine embroidery. I am going to make this on a large scale to fit the piece of wood which measures 19 inches wide and 55 inches tall. I will do multiple layers of stitching and then dissolve the fabric. Once I have done this I will attach my knitted pieces using objects from my pound shop task, I will also use my found objects to add a contrast to my knit pieces . Once I have done this I will either hang this piece in my allocated gallery space or prop it up alongside my groups work.
Keeping on top of my blog!
I have found this project much more stressful than usual as I really do not like keeping a blog, I believe it is a great way of showing my work but I personally much prefer keeping a physical record of my progression rather than in digital form. I have struggled a lot with my blog so far and I don't think it seems to be at a professional level. I am finding it really hard to get my head around keeping a blog and using blogger itself, as I am not on my laptop very often I sometimes forget to upload things straight away and have to back track a little, unfortunately I think this may have an affect on my project as a whole but I will keep pushing myself to try and understand the process of blogging and I hope that I will soon be able to show a good level of understanding and have a professional standard within my blog.
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