Evaluation.

I am really pleased at how this project has gone, it has worked out better for me than the other two projects because I guess everyones more comfortable in the space now and can use the workshops at their will. In comparison to the other projects this one I have found a lot more engaging, I havent had a stage this term where I have really been stuck and I have almost always known which direction I was headed in next. I am pleased that keeping my sampling to only 2 real mediums, has just directed myself and has focused my work and allowed me to produce more detailed and better quality samples. I feel that this project is probably the only project that I feel I could really move on further if I had extra time. It would be interesting to explore with embroidery on top of the devore, combining my sampling, also if i had longer before the exhibition it would be fun to produce a whole installation within Hotspur exploring my concept. Perhaps acquiring furniture and creating a space someone could enter and feel the idea rather than just viewing it. Perhaps setting up a mini living room of the mill owners with accesories that have been worked into with little bits of the workers lives and stories coming into. Areas that werent as beautiful as they should have been because the workers have made their mark.....this is food for thought for the future. Im pleased with the amount I have created in the weeks given, and the concept I have touched on, but again there is a broader spectrum to potentially explore in the future.

Most Succesful Devore.

Devore Results.

Im pleased with how these have turned out, even though the blog deadline is today im going to continue sampling over the next week in order to be able to choose the best for the exhibition.

I am particularly pleased with how the finger print design has developed, even though my concept is not obvious with the one sample, when combined all together i think my ideas will come across well to the viewer.

Im planning on hanging my samples from within a cubby hole in Hotspur, it was really important for me to use Hotspur as my exhibition space, the fact that my work will be hung around the crusty and broken down walls will show my work off better in the environment that my idea originally came from.

I want people to be able to feel the concept im trying to show, and to understand it through the collectiuon of my ideas and my sampling.

More Devore.

Ive just been continuing my devoreing today in order to bulk up my exhibition samples. I felt that my original red devore sample length was succesful it would look good as a pair for the exhibition, so using the mahogany brown length Ive decided to do another one with the blocked out squares acting as 'photographs'. The green one you can see behind ive experimented with the finger print idea of the names of the workers. It wouldve posed too difficult to write the names of each individual worker so i decided to use a dot like formation symbolising a fingerprint (identity) and then for the exhibition display i will layer it with an actual asatate with the names of the spinners from Hotspur, and this will hopefully be a subtle way to explain my concept.

Layering is particularly important to display my concept, it symbolises the build up of Hotspur itself, all of my materials are very symbolic, the fact that asatate is see through links back to workers being looked through and not really seen/poor working conditions within the mill. Using Devore as a medium, physically is taking away the pile of the velvet which is symbolic in the way that i'll use my photos and have workers coming through the fabric, almost as if they were coming through into the family home. Velvet a rich and expensive fabric for the mill owners, being eaten away slowly.

Life Drawing.

Booked in to go life drawing this morning, there wasnt many that arrived so it was quite nice to get some personal teaching. We started by doing a warm up drawing with charcoal on the ends of long bamboo sticks. To start we layed lining paper on the floor  about 4 metres long and the model walked up and down beside us and we just put line to paper and created some beautiful organic drawings. The style of drawing was very Matisse, the shapes were simple and energetic, after the excercise you could really get a sense of a figure moving across the length of paper. The longer 50minute pose i chose to complete in charcoal, I used a page in my sketchbook that had been stained by some of the dye i had been using previously, it was nice to pull in a little of my current project and to work on top of a pigment getting a layered affect, the drawing ended up having a little more to it.

Going Life drawing wasnt particularly relevant to my project, but its just a good way to touch base with your skills and keep practicing. Drawing is so key and really helps get set up for the day to carry on working creatively.

Last Tutorial. 15th. Exhibition Plan.

Ok so, during the tutorial today i discussed with Mark my final ideas for the exhibition........with the exhibition private view being next friday.....its getting stressful!

My project has mainly been about cumulating ideas, gathering history and interpreting the concept within different materials. Reflecting the idea of the mill owners and mill workers within parts of their potential house, the devore has allowed me to explore my concepts. I like the idea of having the millowners fabric hanging, with subtle images or references to the factory workers coming through behind the material. Or directly devoring into the millowners fabric references to the workers.

For my final exhibition i think my work can only really be presented as an accumulation of my ideas, so the viewer can interpret  the gathered information in their own way. I'm going to hang and layer my sampling, initial imaging and devore in a visually satisfying way to the viewer. In order for my work to come across to the viewer the way i want it to, and the ideas to unveil themselves.........

Devore Outcomes.



Experimenting with layering. Devore and asatate images transferred from original embroidery sample.



During the extra 2 weeks we have to finalise everything for the exhibition after the hand in, i plan to complete mooore devore, hand doing it is taking a long time, but thats the effect i want, i want to put in the time to create beautiful samples. My first devore went well! i had to change all of the writing back to front which was challenging........but it looks good, i started on another larger sample, i wanted to do a design that would remove more of the pile, just so it would have more of a delicate look. Im half way through so i will upload a photo soon with the result!

Devore.

The velvet dried beautifully! The colours worked so well, im really glad i dyed the fabric up myself, its been left with a reallly nice appearance much nicer than if i had of bought the fabric preoviously dyed. ITs older looking, mixing the colours has added subtle tones that i think reflect the age of how i want the fabric to look. After my dyed samples of silk/velvet dried i began devoreing today. Its not a quick process.........and writing is particularly hard as i have to turn it around so it will be the right way when i heat it.......

Not sure how i feel about my first sample have to fully develop it first!

DYE LAB.

Yesterday after buying a metre of silk velvet (at an expense!!) i vowed i would go into the dye lab and dye it up myself. Looking back through my research i honed in on 5 main colours, a rich green (limey), Deep red, Mahogany brown and a mink. Whilst in the dye room the best bolours were the green, red and brown so i went with these and dyed up some bigger samples. Im gonna start devoreying later........ I messed around with some of the dyes and experimented with dip dying and creating my own thing. Mixing thecolours etc. just a little bit of freestyle and it doesnt look bad. theyre drying now.

Gonna pop to the Manchester Art gallery at 3, as i havent been yet and need to have a look at what they have.

SOUTHSIDE HOUSE

My plan for ages was to go down to London to visit Southside house so i can use it as a setting for 'my family' the mill owners to live in. I was blown away by how beautiful it was, the family who still own it dont like to think of it as a museum at all. Youre allowed to touch everything and sit on the chairs, which made it a more real life experience, i could respond more to how they wouldve lived and walked around the house because i felt like I was at home as well. Southside had such a nice feel about it, really warm and welcoming, usually with old houses they can feel quite hostile and spooky but this one was the complete opposite. We had a wonderful guide who spoke about the house as if she was a storyteller repeating the vast history of the place, in particular paying reference to the family itself which i was particularly interested in. Regarding the furniture and surroundings I loved the expanse of the fabrics and materials used. Its audacious and cared for. The family havent held back. Money has been spent on luxury and plush interiors. Its great to look at and im so interested in interiors it was great.  They had recently opened up an old louis Vuitton trunk from the basement, following this theyve set up a small costume room where they have displayed the beautiful couture handmade garments that were found in the trunk. Hilda and her daughter Anne wouldve worn these in previous times.

It was great to come across the many rooms and vast stages of the house, 'the breakfast room', 'the dining room', 'the powder closet' 'the library', it was interesting to see how the other half lived.



Postcards bought from the house, 'looking into the garden', 'the hall' and 'the library'



The house was originally bought by Hilda, the daughter of 'John Pennington Mellor' a cotton dealer (which links in nicely with my idea of using this house as if im telling a story) she used it mainly as a base to bring up her children. she wasnt fully trusting of her husband Axel who was 20 years her senior and very charismatic, so the tour leader thinks she bought it as a little bit of security for her family. and it has just been passed down through the generations. The decor is audacious and not subtle, Hilda's children Malcom and John have crassly tried to re do some of the paint work to keep their mother happy, Its nice how its a personal house, it makes it so much easier to relate to.

I have discussed previously but i really want to use silk velvet and devore to sample with. I just think this will really relate to the research i have collected, and its a good medium of expressing my ideas. On the overhang of the bed in 'the Queens bedroom' it was thick embroidered velvet. beautifully presented. i want to experiment with this material but expressing my own concepts, drawings and ideas within the fabric. For example having the names of workers seeping through the fabric, or faces revealing themselves in the delicacy. Its almost like a contradiction, using the plush millowners fabrics from theitr lifestyle and having the workers and Hotspur gradually seeping through.........

Tutorial 1st May

Having the tutorial this morning really helped clarify my orginal ambitions, im off to London tomorrow to see 'Southside House', chatting with the group has encouraged me to focus on what i am going to see tomorrow. im going to grab another disposeable camera and take as many atmospheric pictures as possible. i wanted to fully interrogate the house has its my only chance before the end of the project. I can imagine this house as being where the family 'mill owners' used to own and have a life in. It'll be interesting to use my imagination and see the family wandering around the house. Hope everything goes to plan! i want to also get to Goldhawk road as well in order to pick up some good quality silk velvets, undyed and dyed. Devore i think will be a great way to push my sampling and experiment with my idea, i love the thought of the process and burning away the fabric leading to creating and revealing different identities and history. Its the fact that different areas of the story will slowly be being revealed....through this process.