I began this project always knowing that I wanted to take full advantage of the opportunity to push myself out of my comfort zone and try the unexpected. I knew from day one that I had to further develop myself as an artist and that my work needed to be at a much higher level than L4. The weeks I had ahead of me seemed somewhat daunting, but I was excited to grab the project with both hands and run with it.
At the start, I was gathering information and research from African textiles, however as my project progressed I started to discover a lack of direction within my work, and felt that I had too many options and ideas for me to pin point what it was that I wanted to further develop. It was almost overwhelming for me. Adding in another aspect into my work helped me hone in on what it was that interested me the most and what I envisaged for the future. It seemed silly at the time to be throwing an alternative route into the many that I already had, however it gave me the connection I was looking for between my pieces and where I was to go next.
Reflecting over past projects, I've always found that a limited amount of initial inspiration and visual research has reduced my ideas and development; putting me at a disadvantage within myself to work effectively and to my full capability, so this was a vital thing for me during this project. I wanted to try my hardest to have multiple choices and options from the very beginning, and I think I have been very successful with this. I hope to continue this into the future.
Last year I found myself holding onto the more secure options and processes that I knew would always produce a positive outcome, therefore there was all the more reason to push myself and take risks.
Colour became an important concept during my design development, and as a person who prefers to stick to more natural and organic colours, this was already a new experience for me. During the start of the project, I also found myself working with a variety of medium and techniques, not all textile based, to broaden my skills and learn from the weaker areas (marbling, printing, drawing styles etc).
Ikat is a subject which I briefly researched into and discovered artists such as Ptolemy Mann and Mary Restieaux, who later influenced my work in other ways, however over future projects I'm hoping to further my understanding in this area and try to incorporate it in my work. The idea of combining print with weave really interests me, so although this hasn't been a suitable project to work with dyes, I'm excited to experiment with painting straight onto my warps or dying hanks and cones, in the future.
Having only briefly touched on weave, I knew there was a vast quantity of technical progression to be done and therefore many new programmes and information to work with, but documenting a record of everything enabled me to refer back to processes and re-read anything I was unsure about. Creating links between my initial sketches, my drawings on graph paper, my designs in Scotweave and then finally translated onto the loom, helped me visualise the process so that I could re-create them in the future. It took me a while to feel confident within my specialism, however overtime and perseverance, I found my knowledge and understanding of weave begin to grow. If it hadn't had been for the mistakes I made during week one on the looms, then I wouldn't have realised what it was that I needed to alter to create what I envisioned. It has been clear to me that it is from the mistakes, the many experiments, the risks and minor fails that has helped me the most during this project - I don't think I would be as strong within my assignment otherwise.
I feel that contextualising my practice has always been a strength of mine, however I believe it to be important to start focusing on areas of the industry which interest me the most, to help me imagine where my practice could fit in the bigger picture. Throughout this project, I have taken massive inspiration from a wide range of artists and practitioners, yet what I found to be the most insightful was our visit to the Lancashire mills. Having the opportunity to see textiles within the world and the impact it can have, not only motivated me even more, but also pushed me once again to answer the question 'who would be interested in MY work?' Taking on board everything I saw that day, as well as my previous research and the Tribal Collection by Margo Selby, allowed me to finalise my views as to where I could see my work and who my market audience was.
I feel throughout this project I have broadened my experience and creativity within Art and Design. It has given me so many opportunities to learn which areas I enjoy working with the most, as well as teaching me ways to contextualise my studies, to give my work more stability and enable me to develop my understanding of what the future may hold. I'm looking forward to working on a live project alongside Wallace and Sewell as I feel this will be even more of an insight into the textile world.
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