Contextual Reference: Karen M O'leary.

These paper cut maps by Karen M O'Leary really caught my eye when I came across them. I love the graphic look of them, and the use of black with white drawn-like cut out marks, in opposition too the tradition drawn black line on a white background. I would like too explore my idea of filling negative space and drawing with it much further through this project, and this work by O'Leary has informed these ideas. In terms of drawing, I am going too experiment in producing different marks drawn from the maps I have been using, and experiment with inverting and creating, filling or transforming the negative space in these drawings.

Textiles world: construct.

After a meeting and review with tutors regarding the drawings I have been doing in response to the 16 chance cards and my own photographs in these first few weeks of the course, we agreed that the textiles world I will be most suited too is construct- knit and weave. I have always been very interested and intrigued with knit and weave as practices within Textiles, and i think that my drawings show this, through the use of lines, colour, structure and repetition within them. 

First Rotation: Knit.

As we have been split into two groups within construct, my fist 3 weeks will be spent on Knit. although i have done a bit of knitting by both hand and domestic machine before at Art Foundation level, I'm looking forward to refreshing and updating my skills within knit and learning many more techniques and experimenting with these for my origins unit of work. 

This first week we have been focussing on getting familiar with the basics of knitting and learning a few techniques such as casting on, plain knit, tension stripes and knitting with two yarns. These technical samples will be placed in a technical file alongside details of the technique, tension and yarn type so that i can remember how to do things in the future if i ever came back to knit. 

Initial Research.

Faster By Mark Fast.

This collection by Mark Fast really caught my eye when i saw it, as i really like the way in which the garments are structural and focussed on the form of the body. The tight fit of the knit makes it stretch over the body and i love the way the spaces in the knit allow us to see through the structure. In a way they are almost skeletal.  I think this work caught my eye because my drawings are very focussed on line and structure and mark making in medias like black ink, charcoal sticks, pencil and fine liner pen, so i think that my work within construct will be focussed on this idea of architecture, form and repeating line. Wether these will be focussed on Fashion I'm not entirely sure. 

Jessica Gore "Don't pull a loose thread."

Installation work like this has always interested me and inspired my work, the concept of this piece being accidental yet creating such an interesting piece is what makes it so appealing to me. In terms of structure again, the loops and the gaps alongside the tightly knitted sections work really well and i think the idea of having ladders/dropped stitches in my samples would work really well alongside my drawings and photographs as they could represent things like the glass windows against the concrete greys/blacks of the buildings. 

Initial knit techniques.

Here are a few examples of a few pieces of knit using different techniques I have done while learning some techniques this week. I think that these will work really well when I develop my work next week thinking more about colour and relating to my drawings and photographs I did at the start of my origins unit. 

Map the city task.

Around the city photography task.

Inspired by the photographs seen on: www.patternity.org.

The use of a camera lens to capture interesting and unusual patterns is what drew my interest to Patternity. I also like the way in which the website shows the constant resarch that is inspring the studio work, as research is something which pushes me into different directions within my own work.

When capturing my photographs in Manchester, my focus was on composition, filling the frame, angles, lines, patterns, structure and form. I kept the idea of drawing from photographs in different ways in mind while capturing these images which drew me too interesting lines, grid like structures and surfaces.

I think that i was naturally drawn to lines and grids when taking these photographs which shows, as i really like the way in which these add a sense of structure and order to the photographs. I also believe that my influence from patternity.org is also visible in this work due to the repeating patterns and architectural theme of the imagery.

Origins.

‘Presence of mind’

is an ancient concept, and one originally developed by the followers of Buddha to help them suspend belief and remove any sense of prejudice from their mind when encountering a situation that was new or different. It is an ability also found in inuitive artists and designers- the ability to place what they have learned from previous experiences to one side, and to focus on present events without preconception and without prejudicing what they are seeing or thinking with views they might already hold to be true or correct.

This project, is a chance to open my eyes, sharpen my senses, hone my cognative and analytical skills and to dare to know. A chance to experiment, challenge the familiar and seperate myself from any habits or predjudices i may have picked up from previous projects before university.