Intentions: Evaluation
The Intentions Brief included
two different projects, one starting off from the summer project and the second
was from the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds. The summer project included collecting inspiration
through drawing from different museums and choosing the most inspiring to develop
further for sampling. I visited The
Hepworth in Wakefield, The Whitworth Art Gallery, The Slavery Museum in Liverpool
and Manchester Museum. We visited the Royal
Armouries Museum as a course group to get inspiration for the second project.
From the summer project I chose
the Slavery Museum because it was really interesting to learn the history and, as
Black history month was on in Manchester, I attended some talks and gained some
insight into how people are still being treated. I observed and drew the African Artefacts to
get inspiration for my sampling. I chose
the autumn colours for my colour palette and, picking out shapes and details
from my drawings, I produced samples using mainly cotton but also some synthetic
fabric. I used machine embroidery as
well as hand painting using pigment dye. I liked the hand painting because the
lines and forms weren’t perfect. The sublimation printing didn’t come out as I
would have liked, but I am not sure if this is a technique I will use
again. I was shown how to do smocking
and produced a sample on an already patterned fabric and I was pleased with the
result because it manipulated the pattern as well as the fabric. I also did a
layering sample, using leather strips with a staggered cut. I think this sample came out really well.
At first when I found out I was
going to the Royal Armouries Museum, I was wondering why, because I thought it wouldn’t
be interesting. However, it really did amaze
me with their collections and display. My
favourite would have to be the Japanese armour because of the way it was made,
and the materials used such as steel, leather and wood.
For my work I used black,
white and shades of grey as my colour theme because for me it fitted well with
my drawings and with the Armouries. As
for the materials, I have used organza to pleat, wool, cord and fabric for knitting
and mixed fabrics for slashing.
As the project began, I
started knitting first because, for me, it connected with the armour. For one of the samples, I ripped a flowered
fabric into narrow strips and knitted with it.
The outcome looks like army camouflage (except that it isn’t
green). I learnt a drop-stitch for
knitting, which gave an interesting pattern.
Knitting with the cord gave weight to the samples. Then I moved on to slashing, as I was shown
it in a workshop. I loved it because it
recycled fabrics. In another workshop, I
was taught pleating/pin-tucking with a normal sewing machine foot. I really enjoyed the pleating workshop and
for the future I would like to look more into fabric manipulation in this
style. For research, I have looked at
Issey Miyake and Iris van Herpen.
For my CV and cover letter, I
have written to Iris van Herpen, as I found her work exceptionally inspiring.
