Professional Project - Done!

Apologies the blog has gone pretty much the same direction as normal home life, limited cooking, no cleaning and just loads of hand stitiching.  In summary this is about teeth, bones and isotopes!

 

 

 

Professional Project

My Learning Agreement for this years final project!

 

I have decided to create a submission of textured and layered design craft pieces, based on the life and death of Eadgyth, a Medieval princess.  I will be using my preferred textile techniques of hand and machine stitch, along with fabric manipulation and embellishment. 

I plan to create a collection of stitched textile and manipulated fabric samples.  Within these I intend to incorporate some of the textile ambitions I had before I joined the course, juxtaposed with a selection of techniques learnt during the FdA years one and two.                         

What?  I have chosen to base my project on Eadgyth, a historical Medieval English Princess and German Queen who lived in the 10th Century AD.  The story of her life journey, the rediscovery of her remains in 2010; and the subsequent scientific identification of her mortal remains, will provide me with the parameters and scope for my project.  I intend to design and create a collection of textile craft pieces inspired by Eadgyth’s story.

The sample pieces will be hand dyed and embroidered by machine and hand.  They will include appliqué and other fabric manipulation techniques.  I may also use complimentary techniques such as screen printing, stump work, flocking, and devore.  I also intend to experiment with alternative methods, including fabric decomposition by burying or rusting. 

I will use natural fabrics: linen, cotton and silks; with natural muted colour tones based on Medieval artwork. 

I intend to create a series of highly textured pieces, using multiple layers of fabrics and materials and overlaid techniques, to create surfaces incorporating a series of images and text; representing the life, death and identification of Eadgyth’s remains.  I will take inspiration from artists such as Shelley Rhodes, Alison Mercer, Cas Holmes and Gwen Hedley.

Why?  The subject matter of Eadgyth’s life, death, burial; historical insight; juxtaposed along with the modern day scientific methods of identifying her remains provides me with a wealth of broad and varied inspirations and resources to draw upon.  This subject is an extension of previous burial and historical pieces I have worked on.

Before I joined the course I had a vision of the type of samples I would like to create: very organic in nature, using multi layers and images and surface techniques.  For this project I want to explore the fabric surface creation aspirations I had envisaged, applied alongside further experimentation and application of several techniques learned during the FdA, and by doing so bringing these two elements together to create a new and exciting collection of work.

Although I am not able to access Eadgyth’s remains as a primary resource, I intend to seek out human bones and teeth at Dorchester County Museum or Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford for sketching and idea generation.  Additionally, I intend to visit Cathedrals associated with 10th Century Monarchs at Malmesbury or Winchester; as well as looking generally at effigies and sarcophagi from this period at the V&A Museum and Christchurch Priory.   I hope to also look at chemical compositions of Isotopes, teeth and medieval diet which all aided in the identification of Eadgyth’s remains.

How? The work will be presented as a textile collection of mounted stitched, manipulated and embellished fabric final pieces.   I intend to create a collection of 10 to 14 intricate complimentary samples for the hand in. Samples will be no larger than A3 and I anticipate that the collection will comprise of one or two main stitched and manipulated pieces along with several supporting / complimentary samples. 

I intend the samples to be textural in nature and reflect the historical influences of Medieval times overlaid with modern scientific elements.            

The final samples will be presented with supporting work in my sketch book containing all investigative and exploratory work and experimental pieces, digital work.  I will submit two mood boards to demonstrate colour and collected inspirational imagery; as well as my visualisations of my chosen design craft samples photographed in an appropriate Cathedral, Church or medieval building; I will also prepare a completed plan of project objectives and deliverables vs. target, bibliography, costing summary and a written evaluation. 

Come Tie with Me!

Quick kill collaborative project with other students from Fashion and Architecture.  Our subject TENSION.  We chose to create a small oasis of colour on Poole High Street, asking them to join our initiative and tie pieces of fabric to lamp posts, benches and trees.

 

 

 

Contemporary Textiles for Professional Practice.

Hand-in on Monday, all finished bar the final review of my written evaluation. Hurrah, always the best and most satisfying part of a project!

Hand and Lock Prize for Embroidery Design 2013

‘The Past is the Future’ | Group One | Tudor England & 1970’s Rock Concert

 

I selected the brief from Hand and Lock Prize for Embroidery Design 2013 as I felt it was the most suitable to, and in line with my preferred study pathway of fabric manipulation and stitch. In order to meet the set brief for the Contemporary Textiles for Professional Practice module, I planned, designed and executed final samples that explored and embraced the defined and influential elements of both the Tudor age and 1970s Glam Rock era.

 

 

 

 

Finalised Samples

With Christmas rapidly approaching and university term now officially finished, I've been at home beavering away endeavouring to complete the main hand stitched samples.  There have been a few distractions to say the least, but fortunately I've managed to keep on top of the sewing and finished the main four samples and created a couple of Photoshop repeats and visualisations using my lovely Mary Quant 1970's Daisy Doll as the model!

Orange

I think its really difficult to update my blog whilst I'm experimenting with ideas, as much of this process is recorded in my sketch book and difficult to repeat and reflect upon digitally.  So, in summary the project is progressing well, and as intended I've continued with my sinamay spheres and used them as a central point of my main sample.  I've also been playing with scale and created much smaller versions of the half spheres using different embroidery techniques as well as applying Canadian Smocking to some of the pieces, which creates great manipulated Elizabethan style fabrics.  Colour is distinctly orange so I do need to include some more yellows, reds and blues in the final samples.  I've included more screen prints than intended, and in particular I've used the screen to pre-print the fabric prior to smocking with pigments, and adhesive for flocking and foiling.  We've now reached the end of term and after this weeks crit I think some of my ideas may have been a little overworked and over the Christmas holiday I need to incorporate some simpler fabric designs into the overall collection.  Part of the process is to visualise the final fabrics using PhotoShop. Here I've taken a small hand stitched sample and repeated it into a pattern form to demonstrate what the piece would look like en masse.

Spiders from Mars

I've now just completed week three of our new Contemporary Textiles for Professional Practice project.  This time the assignment is defined by exterior parties and I have chosen the Hand and Lock Prize for Embroidery Design 2013 competition, inspired by 'The Past is the Future'.   For this I need to create hand stitched samples inspired by a juxtaposition of 1970s glam rock and Tudors.

 

Specifically I have decided to take inspiration from Ziggy Stardust and Elizabeth I.  I've been looking in detail at the design of Elizabeth's dresses how they were embroidered and embellished, all being hand made.  I've noticed that a lot of the clothes worn by her and others such as Henry VIII have lots of puffs on the surface, where fabric has been slit and another layer pulled through to make a puff. I'm trying to base my designs on this construction concept, and I've decided to continue my work and development of my sinamay spheres from the innovation project, as well as looking at Canadian and North American smocking to create puffs and surface texture of varying sizes.  

 

All of the samples must be hand stitched and I'm intending to screen print some of my fabrics to create additional depth and surface pattern.  My colour palette is derived from the Ziggy Stardust artwork, as well as my own 1970s Mary Quant Daisy Diary with lots of reds and oranges.  Finally I've tried to look at the lyrics from the songs go Ziggy Stardust as well as the visuals, although I have to say the words don't make a lot of sense, although based on my colour palette and initial stitch ideas I am immediately drawn to 'Spiders from Mars' which Mark thinks is a bit too obvious!