Third Year Practice - Sampling

Third Year Practice - Sampling

Having finally got an idea pinned down and started to really run with the idea and experiment with different types of fabric and threads. These are some of the samples that I have created.

I am really enjoying experimenting with the idea of a thread not being an actual thread. Although it did bring challenges as certain materials, such a electrical wire, was quite hard to bend into the shapes that I wanted. I really like the different types of line quality that I am getting out of the different materials and fabrics. Using the transparent, clear and soft materials as backgrounds are making the line the main focus of my pieces.

For my colour palette, I have decided to stick to the monochrome, black and white. I feel that it doesn’t take anything away from the line and distract the audience from what I want them to see. Perhaps further along the project I could introduced a third colour, but for now the black and white is working how I want it too.

Third Year Practice - Individual Tutorials

Third Year Practice - Individual Tutorials

Having an individual tutorial with Sally really helped me to pin down a specific idea and be able to push that idea further. We discussed that I should focus on the bus movement drawings as my main source of primary research. However, still collecting data to run along side with my samples and also give me a wider range of ideas. I have decided to focus on the moving line within my samples; using very transparent/clear fabrics in order to make the audience just see the line. We also discussed the idea of the thread not necessarily being a thread, to experiment with this and push it further using things such as wire, plastic threads, pipe cleaners, etc, etc. I felt confident with my tutorial with Sally and finally feel that I have an idea pinned down.

Third Year Practice - Sampling

Third Year Practice - Sampling

When I began sampling, I looked back over all the work that I had created or collected through out this brief. What struck me the most were my bus movement drawings, which I had printed onto acetate, I did this because I wanted the line to be the main focus and not the background. I loved that you could only see the line on the transparent paper, making the audience focus on the movement within the line giving it a new quality. This was my starting point for my samples. These particular samples are created using a mixture of hand stitch, running stitch and chain stitch, with ordinary black thread. I decided to run over these stitches on a domestic sewing machine in order to make them less rigid and neat, as I was trying to create movement in my samples. I think this worked very well as it gives off the same shaky effect that the original bus movement drawings do. These samples are literal translations of the bus movement drawings, I lay my fabric over the top and traced the movement. 

The circe is something that has come about by accident, originally the circle was just the fabric that I cut out of the embroidery hoop, however, I think that the circle works well and I have been trying to find a way to relate that idea back to my work in order for it to make sense and relate to my brief. 

Third Year Practice - Research

Third Year Practice - Research 

(Art Bin, 2010 installation view, South London Gallery, London - Taken from www.thomasdanegallery,.com)

('Sweep To Victory' 1996 -Michael Landy- Taken from www.tate.org.uk)

This artist was suggested to me in a tutorial and I was told that he would be very inspirational to my work. Michael Landy created a piece called ‘The Breakdown’ where he took an inventory of every single item that he owned, created drawings of items and writing little notes about why he has then and what they meant to him, and then burnt everything so he was left with nothing. I found this work very inspiring, if not a little odd. I loved the idea of taking an inventory of things, perhaps not on the scale that he has, but perhaps an inventory of things I see at that exact moment, or things in my bag or pocket. I could take this further by taking an inventory of other peoples things, making a list and creating drawings of them. I liked the idea of things meaning different things to people, one mans trash is another mans treasure idea.