Research process included contemporary textiles research to widen my knowledge of present-day textile practice to help locate my own textile work. Starting point was to research the meaning of archive and what this could look like.
Mind mapping and note taking represented my initial thinking and making connections within the sketch book. Mind maps helped with the development of ideas and concepts, to move from the general to the specific.
Relevant Tate Research Publications helped with my understanding of archives and what they can be and represent especially Perspectives: Negotiating the Archive by Sue Breakell.
From looking at the work of Jeremy Deller I was immediately drawn to his use of mixed media and political references, to create a dialogue with the viewer. Whereas Sarah Kogan used written and illustrated postcards from one person to evidence a very personal experience of the Battle of the Somme, 1916, which elicits a personal reaction...
Mark Dion used a series of installations as collections or archives to represent dominant cultural themes. The Library for the Birds of New York (2016) challenges key ideas about what we see and think about our history, knowledge and the natural world and how it is communicated. It is thought provoking and creates a relationship with understanding and change which is exciting...
I was struck by the large scale public art piece by Dean Cloutier and Jarami Reid and how such worked pine beetle wood told stories of the First Nations culture and environment to use as a means to communicate historical material to inform and enlighten.
I undertook a mini research process concerning Alison Knowles and her body of art work. Her Archive of Red Objects was presented as a Fluxus statement to exemplify what is art. The artists use of collage and printmaking within textiles with its use of text and imagery really influenced my own thought process and creative journey.
Oliver Croy and Oliver Elser's collection of 387 model buildings in 2013 helped me to realise an archive can be representative of a personal passion...as a testament, record and log to something very specific.
Julia Burrowes use of recycled materials as a range of samples which concealed their original use and meaning helped to convey clear messages about recycling and the hidden history of discarded materials. I was left wondering...it made me think...
The sheer beauty of Nigel Cheney's large wall hung textiles could not be ignored. The layered detailing and skill of the hand and machine embroidery work with digital printing helped to influence my idea of layering with mixed imagery on large wall hangings.
The use of black and white as well as coloured digital imagery with the added embroidery detailing based upon memory helped to influence my use of photography.
Working with knotted tapestry weaving key themes of injustice, intolerance and not knowing were communicated... by Anne Jackson.
Michael Brennand-Wood has been an artist I have followed for years given his use of historical and contemporary sources with textile technique and history. His use of machine embroidery, acrylic paint, photography and collage has helped me to move and change my own textile practice.
Flox Den Hartog Jager used multi-layered silkscreen, resistive techniques with acrylic monoprints and inks to create the base layer, which is then sewn/embroidered into by hand and machine.
I like the range of imagery overlaid with stitching which can be used over screen printing.
Lucy Brown has created a series of woven installations from personal artefacts as raw material.
From the work of Lucy Brown I am attracted to the use of personal artefacts to create textiles.
Another mini research process centred around the work of Vanessa Rolf and her use of maps, journeys, psychogeography, memory, memorial, inheritance, archiving and collections, I was greatly influenced how she used hand and machine stitch, bonding, applique, foiling, screen-print and dyeing techniques to achieve her textiles.
From Vanessa Rolf and her textile work I started to think and reflect upon historical narratives...of textile narratives...especially given my connection with the sea.
Penny Burnfield expanded my textile horizons in terms of collections and archives and what they can be...
I particularly liked Ancient Preserves (2000) and the process of experimentation with materials and process, to make new connections and understandings...
Eszter Bornemisza has been followed for a long time...her more recent work City Skins (2015) and Wounded Gown (2016) have influenced my use of maps within textile work in an attempt to find a place, to communicate past and present cultures through multi-media work.
This use of journey as a metaphor really resonated with me...and to use maps as part of my own creative process.
The use of increased scale to produce wall-hangings helped me to look at developing my own large scale wall-hangings, to show a series of journeys through the connection of a range of imagery.
Through printing, dyeing and painting with machine stitching fine art elements have been combined to create a series of wall hangings.
Mapping collections show a series of wall hangings-layered with maps imbued with cultural and historical significance.
The placement and layering of imagery highlighted the significance of to textile work...
Another favourite textile artist Dawn Dupree further exemplified the importance of placement and arrangement throughout her collections of textile work.
Dawn Dupree's one off art works used various print processes to create multi-layered surfaces as a way to tell stories and to create narratives through the imagery portrayed.
Through merging traditional print methods with digital technology through masking, adding, subtracting and revealing many effects have been created.
Ana Maier and her redefinition of space and time produced different ways of seeing textiles within the arena of installations.
Caroline Bartlett and Embroidering the Truth was one of my selected textile artists to focus upon and write about within my short illustrated critique concerning the relationship between art and craft.
Caroline Bartlett explores the historical, social and cultural associations of textiles and memory...Experiencing journeys and interactions have been major influences...
Bartlett's "Surrogates" used hand stitch and the concept of backwards and forwards to represent a very personal journey of her own.
This personal journey within "Surrogates" seems conveyed through each stitch made and every mile travelled...
The work of Caroline Bartlett within 'Conversation Pieces' (2003) with wooden embroidery hoops, silk crepeline wool, linen, print and stitch connected with the museum environment, to create new histories...to recover information and conserve the artefact.
The series of 'Backwards, Forwards' (2011) were reconfigured from earlier works which included pleating, folding, stitching, creasing and shibori through digital scanning and redrawing. These mapping represented a reinterpretation and a retracing of memory...of reworking what has gone before, which has helped me to see finished pieces of work differently.
'Stilled' (2013) Through using context as a frame of reference Caroline Bartlett used embroidery hoops stretched with woollen cloth and into which was mounted a small porcelain roundel imprinted with an impression taken from a selection of cloth-folded, creased, crumpled...further stitching has been added to the cloth...which connects.
The conceptual approach with the use of a range of textile techniques seems akin to fine art
The sense of presence, absence, a bygone age of textile and textile production seems strongly embedded within her art work.
Freddie Robins-Disrupting preconceptions of craft was the other textile artist that was selected for the 500 word critique of what is art and craft? Since known for her subversive knitting and embroidery her art work explores a range of dark themes.
Freddie Robins has sought to highlight, challenge and alter the dialogue involving loss and change. Through producing non-functional objects or sculptures she uses what has termed craft techniques within the arena of contemporary art.
Knitting has been the artists way of interpreting, communicating and coming to terms with the world she inhabits. Her knitting questions conformity, and notions of normality....to explore contemporary issues including gender, domesticity and the human condition.
Freddie Robins sought to challenge the notion that knitting is a benign passive activity, to use knitting subversively to provoke and engage.
'Cabinet of Textile Folk Curiosities' (2014) contain an archive or collection of eclectic and idiosyncratic object brought together through a research process...around the themes of knitting and beyond by Robins.
Robins creative focus promotes continuing conversations around mapping out a woman's place in British society...body, femininity, sex, motherhood, economic and political status are explored through photography, film, sculpture, performance and painting as well as knitting and embroidery.
Robins uses traditionally considered techniques, materials and skills in different contemporary ways with fine art methods including painting, sculpture and mixed media to challenge what is art/ what is craft?
Robins uses precision machine knitting combining hand crafted and found objects to examine preoccupations with fear, crime and illness- 'What do I need to make it ok?' 'I'm so bloody sad' (2007-2015) explores damage, repair, disease and medicine.
Robbins creative work is based upon conceptual underpinnings which relate to fine art, so her art work is led by the need to say something, to convey messages and meanings which can be readily understood by others.
Robbins 3D sculptural knitted pieces ensure her message is communicated, that she is heard through stitch with the rejection of craft-based perceptions of traditional knitting.
Robins uses knitting within the domain of conceptual art...which is led by the artists primary sociological, political and economic concerns to use art as a platform to generate conversation, to evoke responses.
Caroline Bartlett articulates ideas and concepts through her art work based upon historical, social and cultural associations of textiles.
Bartlett uses mixed media in contemporary ways to create bodies of knowledge with etymological links...to embroider the truth concerning power and knowledge...to recover information.
Mind mapping influences from contemporary textiles research for my textile work-personal archive...Key themes to make known what is hidden...not known...talked about through wall hangings and screen print...to make visible, transparent but faded.
Final significant artist influence-Robert Rauschenberg and his ideas about art...that it can be made out of anything. How collections and exhibits are organised, arranged and placed...use of multi-media work to construct autobiographical fragments of contemporary life.
Rauschenberg promoted the idea of meaning within meaning from abstract expressionism, of the juxtaposition of images and objects was interesting and thought provoking..for my own textile work.
Rauschenberg used oil, paper, fabric, wood engraving, printed reproduction and printed paper on canvas with a range of debris or objects to create contemporary imagery...for him life itself is the work.
As a painter, sculptor, performer...textile artist...his constructions of unrelated found objects are put together to somehow make sense...I like this idea of seemingly disparate imagery placed together within the same textile and that it means something as a whole...
Series of collage work influenced by Robert Rauschenberg and his art work. to experiment with the arrangement and placement of colour, shape and line.
Experimental collage work-The use of black and white photography and text from my personal archive including old postcards and documentary evidence with colour
Experimental collage work-The use of black ink and pen with colour and shape, to get a feel for using colour and line to better understand placement and arrangement.
Experimental collage work-To continue to research placement and arrangement through the use of colour.
Robert Rauschenberg-Hoarfrost Edition. These solvent transfer works on silk enabled the artist to incorporate photographic imagery into his drawings and this became the artists primary method of making pictures.
The silkscreens enabled him to enlarge his transferred imagery including historical, cultural and social photographs with a mix of other imagery to great effect.
The Hoarfrost series and edition explored history through translucent layers of printed cloth, of cotton, synthetic fabrics, satin and chiffon with a range of mark making. Continuing idea generation through experimental collage work.
Experimental collage work-colour themes replicated with the use of documentary evidence from my own personal archive.
Own transfer process, assimilation and internalisation of something of Rauschenberg and the way he worked with colour and imagery.
Experimental collage work with colour and line...looking at colour differently with old black and white imagery and text...history integrated with colour
Collage work with historical photographic and documentary frames of reference situated within colour... to continue to explore placement and arrangement
Mixed colour ways within collage work template for own textile archives-wall hangings...to incorporate a mixed range of historical imagery.
Collage work enabled a greater reflective process, to think through my own creative process, to enable me to think more about the placement of colour, imagery and text through screen print.
Through working out ideas through the collage work I felt increasingly able to visualise what I wanted my textile archives to feel like when seen
Collage work enabled a creative process of experimentation and exploration through the use of coloured cards, historical imagery and text.
With the collage work I was able to play with negative and positive space to acknowledgement successful and not so successful placements and arrangements of historical imagery and text.
Rauschenberg used colour and monochrome imagery with significant effect, of vibrant with muted imagery, of bright with dull and faded imagery, which influenced my own creative process and what I wished to achieved...of textile archives faded but still clearly seen.
The over layering of imagery with the merging of one image over another experimented with through screen print. Increased reflection concerning the most significant imagery to be seen and why.
Increased experimentation within and out with the sketchbook to create ideas for textile archives using coloured card, text, imagery including maps and line...to make links and connections between and amongst the imagery used.
Continuing collage experimentation...with lines representing the meandering River Forth through Clackmannanshire, of line having meaning...saying something...
Collage work including increased old map usage, of using symbols, marks and aspects from the maps through line with coloured areas of card and historical imagery
Further exploration through collage work with old maps contrasted with aspects of the same maps... with the scale increased alongside areas of colour.
Increased use of old maps with significant representational colour schemes with river contour lines to link and merge Old Alloa, the River Forth with fishing.
Increased use of mixed imagery from old black and white postcards and photographs with coloured card and mapping from Fife, the River Tay and fishing.
More complex collage work with increased mixed imagery use including less coloured areas and more old photographic and documentary evidence from my personal archive, including the use of line from maps.
Increased sense of a personal archive through collage work to represent what had gone before from my own past.
