Academy of the Arts, Liverpool, 23rd February

We stumbled upon this gallery whilst trying to find the Open Eye gallery. It is a community based art project which exhibits its students work, but there was also another exhibition of vintage clothing integrated in. Unfortunately I was unable to take photos, but there was one garment which stood out for me; a 1940s silk blouse made of parachute silk. It had been made in the war from the silk of a German Parachute. This intrigued me because the essay I am writing for Contextualizing Practice is about creativity through World War 2.

Walker Gallery, Liverpool, 23rd February

Today I visited the galleries up in Liverpool. It was a very busy and tiring day, however I feel like I have gotten a lot out of it.

Firstly I made my way to the Walker Gallery. I was impressed by all the architecture up there, it was beautiful and reminded me on Edinburgh with the dark yellowy stone and the long columned buildings. Also the stone flagged pavements and square made me very happy.

In the Walker there were a few exhibitions on. The first I looked round on the ground floor was called Feathercut and Flares, which included a variety of outfits and films from the 70s. This interested me a lot because I was with my mum and she remembers people wearing these clothes. To me they almost look like a costume, and it is hard for me to imagine my parents wearing these because they seem like they are from another time. On the ground floor of the Walker there was also an exhibition of pottery which was intriguing because I am from near the the Potteries in Stoke so I feel a connection to the stone wear when I see it. In the far corner of the room, there was a necklace which was made up of Rhino horn and butterfly wings from the early part of last Centuary. It was interesting because it played with my morals somehow. Because on the one hand it was beautiful and the craftsman had used all natural components, and one the other those animals were most likely killed just for this accessory.

Upstairs were exhibitions by Henry Matisse, and John Kirkby. I found these to give me polar opposite responses. I loved Matisse's delicate and flowing lines. The drawings seemed to ooze confidance and I couldnt understand how the artist had managed to represent a recognizable form in so little marks. There were also pages from Matisse's Jazz book. The colours were so bright that they draw you in. I'm not a fan of using colour in my own work, however I always seem to be drawn to other peoples bright colours. In this book there was also more representation of nature rather than the human or animal form and I must say that interests me more.

The next room on was John Kirkby's the living and the dead exhibition. I found this a lot harder to look round than Matisse. It had too sombre a mood for me and I couldn't relate to the subject matter or the colours in any major way.

Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, 23rd February

This Gallery was extremely hard to find. When we arrived to where Google maps said it should be, the building was empty and boarded up, so we trailed round trying to find it in the same area and finally gave up and decided to go to the tate instead. Whilst walking through Albert Docks we by chance came across the new building of the Open Eye Gallery next to the museum! There weren't a lot of exhibitions there, but what was there was interesting. There was an exhibition of photographs by Richard Simpkin which documented his obsession with the celebrity culture - there were about a thousand photos of him with diferent celebrities. It makes you think about the celebrity culture, and what;s the point. Because there were people in the photos that I didn't recognize, and some I only vaguely recognized from a long time ago. And I'm sure the people I did recognize would soon be in the same category.

There was also an exhibit upstairs of 'Painted photographs'. These were from before photoshop, and were the way inwhich newspapers and other media cut out particular celebrities faces from phtos to use in diferent contexts. It was surprising to see images I recognized of people such as Marylin Munroe and John Lenon and the context inwhich those images were taken. Many of the ones of John Lenon included Yoko Ono who had simply been cut round.

Self Evaluation

         I feel as though I developed the work in this project well. It is now in a very different place than it was when I started it. The defining point for me was when I managed to focus on one aspect of the found marks in rust, and I could develop this in more detail than when I had many different avenues before. The research wasn't as broad as I would have liked but this was in a way intentional because I could focus on it and it stopped me from having too many different ideas.
          Again The selecting process only really came into its own once I had moved exclusively into rust. I also think because I have more of an educated focus in machine embroidery than I did in the past workshops, I was able to choose things I really liked from my samples, not get confused about what I liked and didn't like.
         I have definitely discovered that machine embroidery is something I want to continue studying in the future. It was something I already had a grounding in, so I was able to push myself into things I hadn't done before because I wasn't learning from scratch. Also the use of colour is not something to be feared. I do prefer more muted colours though. I think it is because of the nature of my work, the dense detail. on some of my samples where the colour has been too bright, the detail and sophistication has been lost.
         The contextual research done has been into both the process of rusting and memory loss, and into artists which use these ideas. Matthew Harris inspired me with the use on dense materials and how his passion for the materials comes through in his work.
         Overall I feel that my time management has allowed me to get a good amount of work done. This could always be improved, but because I needed to use equipment in the studio it encouraged me to stay for longer than I had in previous workshops and therefore get more samples completed.

Last week Unit 2 Sampling

Samples including a lot of white. I like how random they look, and how you can see threads underneath as if the rust is growing from the inside out. The colours have come from the made tool drawings which were slightly brighter than the colours used before. Maybe it's because of the colour of ground used behind them.

 Heavily embellished sample of tailor tacking. There is no white space left, like the rust has completely taken over he painted surface in that area.

Wanted to add these two in again because they are the ones I feel most strongly about from the project, and are the ones I'd extend if I had the time.

Sampling Unit weeks 3 and 4

Monday of week four started with a drawing workshop where we were asked to make our own tools out of random materials and then start to draw with them to add to our projects. I found this fun, and I had done it before so I felt I could get into it quite quickly. The idea of using long garden canes was successful because you could get much freer and interesting marks when standing over the page or holding your arm out infront of you.

This is ust one of the drawings done on monday. The colours worked well for me. Even though sme were a bit too brash or not connected to my project very well, I loved the idea of freeing up my drawing therefore freeing up my colour palette. It has been very fixed over the last week and it was refreshing to throw in some blues!

Here I was experimenting with loosening up the drawings but still retaining that small amount of structure. Water colour with fineliner ontop. I feel it represents the process of rust well; through the idea of something loosening the sturcture of metal, yet the overall shape is still visible.

Further experiments with made tools in sketchbook. Here I'd been listing properties of rust to get more of an idea of where to push my embroidery. I'd come up with: growing, disintegrating, changing the actual properties of the metal, changing the shape. I wanted to start incorporating these ideas in my drawings and then hopefully into the textiles.

 I still wanted to keep some structure though! I feel lke this style of drawing suits me because it reflects my decorative ideas and is loose and organic.

I then began to translate some of these ideas into stitch. The embellisher translates well the idea of change of roperties onto fabric. The felting and breaking down of a fabric due to an alien process. I also started encorporating metal art foil into the work by trapping and sewing straight through it. (Really easy to sew through). I also love the structure created by the straight couched cording.

Here was sewing straight on to a large section of foil. also cutting into it to create more of a surface. I really enjoyed doing this, and I love the idea of the whole ground being shiny and in your face!

I aso felt like, from the descriptions I had written down about rust, I needed to incorporating tailor tacking. Here I love the breaking up of the black fabric using the embellisher and the tailor tacking helps to describe the additional, very different surface that rust gives to metal.

Personal brief

Joanna Dyas Project Two: Personal Brief

My project has been based on surfaces holding memory, through stains and other marks, and how these properties relate to human memory. To continue these ideas, I intend on broadening the visual research with photography and drawing, focusing on the deterioration of painted surfaces. My interest is in detailed organic marks especially in deterioration, therefore focusing on machine stitch for the second time to develop my current ideas. This will include pintucks and tailortacking as used previously. Also I intend to develop this concept, with the addition of metal and latex, reflecting the surfaces with the most interesting peeling paint; and to explore 3D construction as an additional direction for the project.

Sampling Unit: Machine Embroidery 2

I've started by taking inspiration from what I felt worked best from the last part of this project. The mixed media drawings of the radiator were the inspiration for my last machine embroidery samples and I would like to carry on their theme further.

More drawings using the repetitive organic line and interruptive dark marks as inspiration.

By extending this project I want to further the experimental attitude I was having at the end of the last section of this project. Here are some drawings uing poly filler. They would work well setting in fabric and to create 3D form.

Also extending the experimental theme, I also love the texture and appearance of using latex and thread together. This created a feel of a very alien and substance being added to a surface, and also how much of a mark synthetic materials and human impact leave on surfaces.

More photos have been neccessary to extend the colour palette.

But it took a while to realise what specific area of found mark I was going to focus on. My last ideas were far too vague to explore in much depth, and choosing something highly visual and textured helped to instantly secure my response in textiles. The photos of a rusted fence post were what inspired me the most out of all the photos I took.

Black and white drawings of the same rusted colour photographs. By not using any colour I wanted to focus on the texture and tone of things so as my response was deeper than just the highly intriguing colours I had been drawn to.