Happy Memories : MA October 2011

Jane Clowes, Sarah Burgess, Fiona Wilson & moi

with our MA Textiles tutor Melanie Miller

MA Show 2

I was in the strange position of my MA work featuring in both MA Shows, which seemed a little greedy but was also a great opportunity to observe very different curatorial processes and approaches within the many strata of Art, Design & Craft. The biggest difference was that names and details of the work and its sources were allowed to be included which having just looked at 'Artspeak' in my written work was quite amusing. So here is a selection of the second show's work.

Polly Standeven

Jane Clowes

Sioned Phillips

So now off into the wide world, all done and dusted and ready for that next step, I better get creating some pathways.

MA Show Images

MA Textiles work

the beautiful work of  Fiona Wilson

The equally stunning work of Sarah Burgess

MA Show 1

Long time no post.....Work and setting up the show for the MA seems to have taken over. Good news is that I passed my MA hurray. So thought I should show how the show looked at the Holden Gallery, MMU. It has been a strange experience, as in many ways such a show isn't your standard end of year student show more a PR exercise for the University, so items were selected for the show. Initially I was to be in show 2 but the Fine Art tutor selected two of my pieces for inclusion into the first show which had a fine art slant.

Day 1 set up - thought it would be straightforward dress on mannequin, then on Thursday glove on plinth, how wrong can you get.....

'we don't think the mannequin is right, have you tried a dress makers dummy?' I had on Monday and that looked awful, what was interesting was that they were not interested that it was on a mannequin on purpose to represent fast fashion consumption, also fascinating to see my essays comments on the hierarchies within art disciplines so aptly presented. I was quite philosophical about it all so ended up talking to the Fine Art Course Leader who was happy with this selection.

Final MA presentation

Sorry that there have been few posts its been a chaotic two weeks, with the final push of work for the MA and Freshers beginning at work, so a week of Sunday night sick feeling!! mmh

Arriving at MMU at 7.30am to set our work up to find the whole corridor full of plan chests! We stayed calm.......

So a slightly manic morning deciding where things should go and then the 15 minutes presentation, after lunch, nerves were running high. So here are some images not the greatest quality and still not sure if it was all ok but too late now.

So two years all completed and not a hat in sight.

Long time no post

Sorry lots to catch up on its been a slightly manic 5 weeks entrenched in books reading and writing for my MA final stage so quite a lot of anxiety and drama but some good bits in the middle and at the end when handing in the final document so fingers crossed I have passed!

Then the rain came

Scotland invariably means a bit of rain otherwise it wouldn't look so lush and beautiful...It definitely rained today so I was glad that I did the stream shots yesterday but ever the experimentalist thought I would try again today with a very full stream. My river walking would have been quite hilarious if anyone had been watching as I tried to retrieve the dress!

not quite the limpid water of yesterday!

So the string broke with the current......

May need to go in the wash now.

Practice after the tutorial

Having mentioned my tutorial for the MA with Alice Kettle, one of her suggestions was to work on a broderie anglais dress that I have purchased from the high street. Purchased to reference the increased levels of manufacture and consumption at ever lower prices. The dress I have bought is fine white cotton with broderie anglais we checked its measurements to see if it had been made on the schiffli machine which it hadn't, also checked whether there was any repetition of slight flaws as to whether it was made on a multi head embroidery machine, this also seemed unlikely so it was possible that the dress that I had purchased in the sale for £11 had been hand machine embroidered using an Irish Machine, highly labour intensive.

So this brings into play a range of questions and observations, but how to draw this to others attention without it being information overload. The suggestion of small interventions in the garment or photographing in different context to make us look again. This is what I did.

In the stream

The water just sat on the surface even after 5 mins in the stream

MA Show

As well as rushing around doing the last bit of writing and practical work we have a show to put on for the last week of September for the MA. So all the MA disciplines for the first time this year will be showing together. Well we shall use this word loosely as they are at four different sites across Manchester. The Holden Gallery which is part of All Saints Campus where i will show and 3 & 4 Piccadilly Place where the remainder of the students will show. we visited on Thursday to mixed responses. Anyway pictures attached to help those of my colleagues who may not have seen the space and yourselves to conjure up ideas. we are not able to build walls as you would in an end of year show so its an interesting curating challenge.

curved space

square space

Privilege Day 2

During my MA at MMU I have had some interesting tutorials with different members of staff but i have often been reluctant to approach some as they seem far too important to want to talk about my work! It is only as the two years draws to a close that I realise that you rarely get such opportunities so grab them with both hands quickly (wish I had done it sooner to quote another tutor 'Shy bairns get nought') Anyway that rambling way around was to introduce that I had a tutorial with internationally renowned textile artist Alice Kettle yesterday, I was quite nervous but I really needn't have been. As I have seen before the most talented people are invariably the most sharing and generous with thoughts and ideas and indeed she was.

'In the Guise of an Angel' V&A Collections

Alice Kettle

Alice was one of the first textile artists that I encountered when I began this pathway 15 years ago and her work has always fascinated me, when she spoke to the MA group last year about the art commissioning process it was really fascinating and you could see how grueling the work was and is.
The tutorial was very rewarding in the sharing of ideas and inspiration and more importantly she genuinely was interested. So i feel back on track again after my backward mind map highlighted that I needed help it certainly was the case, so i now have some work to complete for the next one in three weeks.