Textiles in Art has been a very enjoyable course involving many different techniques and materials. Below is a step by step list of the different methods we practiced during the course followed by the reasons behind the idea of the final piece and the making of it.
Lino and Transfer printing. This involved creating prints that could be used several times. Transfer printing involved making a design on a piece of newsprint and using the iron to transfer the design. Lino printing (or a form that is similar to Lino printing) involved imprinting a design onto a foam board, then painting the board and pressing onto fabric.
Suffolk Puffs. A very relaxing session where we made our own little Suffolk puffs by cutting fabric into a circle and then stitching around it and pulling in the thread creating a puffed ball-like effect.
Fabric distressing by methods such as bleaching and burning. This project was given to us as homework. The aim was to cause distress to several different pieces of fabric and this proved harder than I had imagined.
Photo to fabric transferring. At college we were taught to transfer images from photo to fabric by using a product called Image Maker but before this I had researched this method and found out about using a Gel or Gloss Medium. Basically covering the newly printed out image in medium and then pressing onto cotton fabric. I was very pleased with this method and used this method in my final piece.
Making a 3D model. This was achieved both at home as homework and in the classroom in groups. The cube was my homework and made from rough firm fabric. Basically I cut the fabric into two pieces and sewed them together making a cube. The sphere was created in class with Hazel and Cara and proved extremely tricky to achieve.We had to choose a building to copy to some extent and we chose a sphere like building. It had crossed my mind that perhaps we should have chosen a more simple building to copy.
Fabric designs using paint and a roller. This was one of my favourite sessions as I was able to let myself go and keep creating. I used some of these designs in my final pieces.
Some Textile artist research involved meeting Susan Sydall who proved to be a very inspirational artist. Her work was quirky and beautifully made. I also researched artists on the Internet and found many inspirational textile artists including Joan Schulze, Jennifer Solon, Cindy Kearney, Louise Baldwin and Sarah Welsby. I had come to realise that I leaned towards the more abstract style of art and I preferred the gritty distressed look to clean and pretty.
My 3D piece of art was made using a soldering iron and copper wire. I created a frame and stand which I soldered together and placed a piece of crochet that I had made around it in an attempt to create an abstract piece of art. I may experiment more with 3D art and wire but I didn't want to choose this as my final piece as I feel I need to improve in this area.
Making the final Piece.
I decided that I wanted to create a collage for my final piece involving many little pieces, some of which had been created in college sessions. I wanted my theme to be centred around the social and economical landscape involving the mood of the people as regards the ongoing Austerity and the cuts to public services, NHS and Welfare State. Through use of my sketchbook which I used for jotting down my ideas, I began to have ideas involving bar codes to represent consumerism, tally charts to represent statistics, graffiti to represent a dissatisfied mood of the people, the game of noughts and crosses to represent winners and losers and the haves and the have-nots. £20 notes and Euros to represent the current problems faced in these times as money is always most usually the root of most problems other than health, love and relationships but even money affects those things too. Also Newspaper headlines as the landscape is covered in the Media bombarding us with news, sometimes truthful, sometimes manipulating and cunning. I also wanted to use abstract patterns in my collage that reflected the type of mood I wanted to project. One of those pieces came from a project we did at college that came from mixing rusted screws and old rusty door hinges with tea. The result was gorgeous. I wished that I had made more of these pieces, but I only had one. As my ideas evolved I decided that I wanted to create more than one collage so I could present my work as a group of ideas instead of one big piece. I bought three canvases and placed my fabric pieces on to them which involved batik deigns, photo to fabric transfers, and painted fabric, some machine stitch over the batik and some hand stitch also. When placed in the desired positions I then filled in the gaps with plaster moulding roll which works by placing in water and then fitting onto the canvas. When dry paint may be applied. I used acrylic paint over the plaster mould. Basically I wanted my collages to speak but without coming across as 'in yer face'. If my artwork appears to be a collection of fabrics and nothing else than that is fine but I also want a meaning to my work, if the observer is looking for one.
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