education

redesigning the ‘brand’ self

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I’ve been out in the ‘real world’ so to speak for nearly twenty years, and while I found that such a scary idea during my time at art college, having little idea of what I really wanted to do, now I realise it’s okay.  I look back and remember so many exciting things that I’ve been up to and so many great people I’ve worked with that I am grateful for living the portfolio career in art and design.

I made the choice to lead an academic career alongside my own practice and both really support each other. I am sharing and honest in my own learning experiences from industry working across art and design contexts. The students’ creative journeys also inspire the creative investigation in me. We talk of ‘branding’ and ‘professional identities’ in the Second year that I am currently leading in the Textile Design degree course at Birmingham City University, and consider how we and others see us and what we can control and what others interpret. I’m not a corporation or multinational company and yet the word ‘brand’ is commonly used for the self-employed too. Language used in promotional material as well as social media build a story, whether we like the tale or not. Does my design integrity come across? what about my inspiration? is the market level clear?…

I’ve been redesigning my website over the last few months. This is always an opportunity to ask myself more questions, and to reflect on where I’ve come from, where I’ve been and where I plan to go within the world of design, and specifically pattern. I’ve been excited by the process. I’ve chosen headings / page titles that more accurately reflect my current practice and edited substantial information relating to projects of years gone by. I’ve made it more image-based and updated text, again to reflect the shift in my design practice interests. With social media being a really key part of building a ‘brand’ these days this process has been happening as I go, but I’ve finally embraced instagram, having enjoyed Twitter over the last three years.

So, for all the bookbinding workshops I’ve led, the public consultation exercises I’ve participated in, the colours and materials I’ve sourced, the flowers I’ve drawn and the prints that I’ve pulled, this is where I’m at now…

katefarley.co.uk

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floral inspiration for textile patterns

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One of the reasons I love to teach students drawing for textile design is the journey of enlightenment when introducing someone to the world of not only looking, but also of seeing. There are many ways to see when drawing and I’m really interested in the journey from reality to abstraction, whether its a state of mind, a way of transforming or whether it’s a methodical process applied to something in order to arrive at a motif for pattern.

My drawing process has evolved over years of practice but the way that I see is not so different to two decades ago. I remember reading the book ‘Drawing with the Right Side of your Brain’ by Betty Edwards and realising that I already did that and it all made sense. I enjoy playing with perspective, elevation, mapping of whatever it is I’m drawing, whether it’s a landscape or twig. Turning the three-dimensional thing in front of my eyes in to a two-dimensional drawing is always exciting, and challenging, but that’s half the fun. I think the process of printmaking that I further translate my drawings to really suit the clarity of motif dissection, separating colours or specific details on separate blocks or screens for printing for either a limited edition print or commercial textile design.

Each year the pear blossom at the allotment arrives and each year I’m reminded of how perfect they are in all ways. The beautiful petals and the bits I don’t know the names of, all there, waiting to be celebrated in drawing. No doubt Charles Rennie Mackintosh would have made an exquisite watercolour and graphite study. The flowers also remind me of drawings and prints I have made in the past, and not only of blossom, but of flowers that I make diagrammatic in a way to understand and explain the ingredients of the flower. When I discovered the work of Gwen White, and particularly the book ‘A World of Pattern’ I was excited to see someone else communicating what I see and how I translate form to pattern. This method doesn’t suite everybody and it would be a dull world if we all made drawings that looked the same, but every now and then it’s nice to know that my creative brain works like someone else’s brain and that my eyes see what others have seen before me.

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Pear blossom, photograph, Kate Farley

‘Hanbury’ wallpaper, Kate Farley

Passiflora, lino print, Kate Farley

illustrations from Gwen White’s ‘A World of Pattern’ (RH column)

 

photographic memories and a bit of a political rant…

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I’ve had rather a large sort through my creative archives in the last few days and I’ve been rediscovering drawings and designs from the last twenty years and more. I’ll share some of those finds another time. Amongst the formal sketchbook projects and portfolio sheets from art college days I found an old handmade notebook I used to record my photographic experiments and darkroom technical details / testing in. With it’s silver cover I chose to use, especially fitting with photographic techniques, I was reminded so distinctly of the days I spent in the dark room at Leeds College of Art and Design testing ways to create images and pattern – I could almost feel my Doc Martin boots on my feet!

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The book reminds me of the hours I ‘played’ with creative and technical processes, with no sense of employ-ability issues burning, and I can’t really remember many project deadlines or talk of Learning Outcomes but assume there must have been. Those hours helped me to work out what I wanted to do, what sort of design language I would develop, and how my designs fit in the real world. Even now I can look back to that book and see creative sparks being established that have continue with me and what focuses my practice today. I feel lucky.

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It’s having this time to experiment and nurture creative ideas that all students at all stages of education need to have access to in order to understand the possibilities of aesthetics, innovation and design. This can’t be rushed and won’t be replaced if lost. It’s not just the artists and designers that lose out, its everyone! Maybe politicians who lack the understanding and foresight to retain sufficient art and design in formal education ought to consider how their material worlds came to be. It certainly isn’t all about money, even if it is beautifully designed and printed money!

This isn’t meant to be a rant, but somehow this luxury of creative time I remember having shouldn’t be considered a luxury, it’s a necessity, and my small silver notebook reminds me of the importance of learning time. We all need things designed and made, from the fork you eat with, to the car you might drive, and wouldn’t it be good if those things could be the best they could possibly be, and beautiful too, given half the chance! It’s no surprise to me that brilliant artists and designers don’t wake up one day, fully formed and ready for the off… It would be like a politician having had no time to live and work in the real world before becoming an expert on how to run the country for the rest of us.

The season of textile design portfolios

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As a student traveling up and down the country for interviews for a place on a degree course back in the mid 1990s I had little idea of what I would do on the degree course, let alone beyond the eternity of three years studying. My A1 black portfolio demonstrated my love of drawing, printmaking, pattern and ‘potential’. Now, in my role of lecturer at Birmingham City University each year I participate in the rounds of interviews to select the new members of our textile community and each year as I help them open the black A1 folio it reminds me of the journey I started all those year ago. The industry has changed, the world has changed, technology is utterly different and yet those nerves belonging to those individuals are as real as ever, and I remember that feeling so clearly. The unknown, the untrodden path I stumbled along; the Norfolk girl living in Leeds to turn drawings in to designs.

I’ve questioned most decisions I’ve made along the way, worrying about whether I should study art or design, printmaking or illustration, book art or textiles and yet somehow I seem to have all of those elements in my everyday practice, and that suits me fine. I remember the challenging task of confirming a description of myself and practice for my graduation show and degree postcard. (I opted for Artist / Designer, in case you wonder.) I couldn’t get the wording right, and really thought it mattered.

KF_degree_blog(images from degree study)

Having spent last Saturday interviewing students, on introduction I described myself to the visitors as a Printed Textile Designer, which in so many ways completely fails to describe what I do, but somehow seemed right to say at the time. Now I ask myself why it doesn’t fit and maybe I conclude that the term feels too predictable, so tidy, so comprehensive, and yet the thing I am most proud of in my career to date is the breadth of art and design experience I have gained, the materials I’ve designed for, the clients I’ve had, and the lessons I’ve learned, despite as a student, no idea that all that was possible on graduation.

Many times through the day I spoke with interviewees about their art and design experiences and came to realise that their own understanding of art and design had more to do with the educational delivery they were currently receiving and far less about how they defined themselves. An interesting conundrum, and after all that, does it really matter? What made me most excited about being part of the interview process was that all the students were starting out on their own journeys, some of which I hope I shall be involved in, and with the potential of a great course to guide them through, inspiring staff and great facilities they really can do all they understand they want, and so much more than that. Daunting, and exhilarating, and I wish them all good luck!

I didn’t know it at the time but the work I was creating all those years ago as a student still holds such relevance to me now, and it doesn’t matter what label I give myself, it’s all about the creative process, and I don’t worry about boundaries there…

knowledge of books

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I have taught hundreds of people how to make books. Folded, stitched, and even stuck books have been made under my guidance in school rooms, art college studios, village halls, hospital rehab. suites, commercial company meeting rooms, and at dining room tables, at the very least. Every time I teach a bookbinding workshop there is a sense of wonderment from the participants, a proud moment when they hold the completed book for the first time, and realise what they have made. It’s a good feeling being the facilitator of that experience. Books are one of those objects that carries so much potential; an object that can contain private thoughts, or public rule, but is portable and very cheap to make using very few tools. We bond with books.

I was first taught about Book Art by Les Bicknell of ‘bookness’ fame. He made a studio full of Norfolk kids studying textiles question our preconceived ideas of what a book can be, and I was unique in that group – I saw a future of work that I wanted to make. On my degree course I was taught more practical bookbinding skills, and eventually wrote a 12000 word dissertation on the subject, researching in key collections at the V&A and Manchester Met. as well as interviewing some leading figures of the genre. Books for me at that time fulfilled learning requirements on my design degree while becoming vessels to explore my ‘fine art’ ideas, and this eventually led me to study for the MA in Book Art at Camberwell College of Arts, London. I spent the year investigating a ‘sense of place’ of south London, driven to create a more personal map of my London in contrast to the A-Z map, exploring cinematic flip books, and architecturally inspired structures.

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There are tools and skills that are beneficial to know; I was taught by the old boys at London College of Printing, as it was then, how to stitch with curved needles, cover the boards, and press the blocks. More useful to me though was the challenging of how we ‘read’ the book form, how one can be directed by the designer to progress through both visual and structural narratives across pages and along folds. I’ve explored these ideas in many of my limited editions of books I made and exhibited between 1998 and 2008. I’m very proud of this body of work, and I know many people appreciated the pieces. I have work in the Tate collection, the British Library, Manchester Met. to name a few, as well as overseas in collection in America, France and Ireland and within the small world of artists books I became known for the structural book forms I created. Many of my books were inspired by journeys and places I experienced, or events and mindsets I found myself in. A broken elbow falling off a bicycle really did inspire ‘Bloom’ which I describe as the ‘measure of my healing’, as I challenged myself each week to cope with the physical tasks required of printing the book. I have always taken on and enjoyed the challenge of transforming a two-dimensional sheet of paper in to a three-dimensional book structure appropriate for its narrative.

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Sadly not many people make a living selling artists books. It frustrated me that I could sell a print for £80 but once I had folded and stitched it in to a complex structure I couldn’t sell it for £20. So strong is our association with art, that if it can be framed and put on a wall it had greater value. I also got fed up with the ‘I can see how she’s made it’ statements as visitors to shows photographed my work without the courtesy to ask, as if I was a learning resource centre, having paid for the pleasure myself. I see now an increase in awareness of book art and hope things have changed in these regards.

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I have continued to use the practical and conceptual skills in my public art commissions, with large-scale visual narratives explored as if pages held in my hand. The sequence of toilet doors in a central Colchester public convenience was just that, a story of passing time. My current design practice benefits from my bookbinding skills and visual communication knowledge, as well as my book art thinking in the design of my marketing material, and sample books. I also continue to produce hand printed and stitched notebooks featuring my patterns – Parterre is the latest.

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As I pack up my box of tricks ready to teach another fifty students the basics of books let’s hope some of that joy and creative potential is passed on to the next generation, for whatever context they want to think about books in.

Useful links:

http://www.tate.org.uk/research/library/artists-books
http://www.bookarts.uwe.ac.uk/about.htm
http://www.specialcollections.mmu.ac.uk/artists.php
http://www.katefarley.co.uk/gallery/bookworks2.htm

If you haven’t seen the new IKEA video about the book book, check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOXQo7nURs0

 

 

black, white and a hint of chocolate

/ katefarley / 1 Comment

I remember my father turning our bathroom in to a photographic darkroom, not really understanding what was happening, and not being allowed in. A few years later it was my turn to stand in the dark bathroom to transfer the film from the camera to the spool ready for developing the images, eyes wide open – as if that would help! At art college the group of us headed to the beach with the college stock of Pentax K1000s to photograph the fairground, and then returned to fumble our way through the same process. I loved the wet developing; watching the first signs of imagery appear, and then head to the corridor, blinking to the light, to check the exposure required for the ‘portfolio’ piece. I also enjoyed the more experimental side of printing. Photograms, multiple exposures and liquid emulsion kept me captivated during my college days and holidays back home-home meant the use of that bathroom darkroom.

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Years later at the turn of this century I became Print and Photomedia Technician at Central Saint Martins, and then Lecturer in Visual Communication, with the territory of a darkroom. I lost count of how many students I introduced the idea of experimental photography too but one of my tricks was the Pin-hole camera. The students and I turned empty hot-chocolate tins from sweet smelling rubbish to state of the art cameras, and captured the sites of the Back Hill campus. The wonderment experienced by the students, mixed with the realisation that they had made a photograph without using a ‘camera’ was priceless. But why was the photograph upside-down? Why was it a negative?…. Some students took this far further than I had and became rather good at controlling the timings and light readings.

I spent hours leaning out of the window of my flat in Camberwell clutching my hot chocolate tins, photographing the street. It became clear I had attracted attention of the guy opposite who wondered what on earth I was doing! I had to save the exposed papers to develop in the middle of the night so as not to disturb my flatmate, and so the house was dark. At this time I was also experimenting with photograms, and I made a book titled ‘Totality’ about the solar and lunar eclipse that had occurred, and realising that by using light, and obstructing light to make the book, the very concept I was exploring was creating the book. Apart from ‘sun prints’ in the garden with my own children I haven’t had time to use a darkroom, ready-made or not, for a number of years. pinhole_SE5img022web

I was reminded of the joy and simple elements of photography a few days ago. I was in bed, on holiday and happened to look up to find we had our very own camera obscura! Through the smallest gap in the blind was sufficient light to project the curve of distortion and the negative image of the view of the houses, window frames and all, at the end of the garden, on to the ceiling above us, in colour. The magic and the science of seeing was right there. Trying then to capture that image using a digital camera felt rather wrong. Where did I put that collection of drinking chocolate tins?

cameraobscuraKent_web

 

A new design: working it all out

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I’ve created more designs than I can remember since I began ‘formal’ pattern making back in 1992. Some aren’t worth worrying about, some I’m still extremely proud of and some are still waiting for the right time to make their debut… (I can’t wait to show you some very special ones next year but I’m sworn to secrecy.)

Some designs work themselves out for themselves; I vividly remember shutting my eyes to get some sleep right in the middle of my final major project on my degree, when suddenly my mind spun in to action, and there in my mind was a design, colour separated and waiting to be drawn out for screen the very next day. Other designs I battle for days on, and eventually win through demonstrating more stubbornness than the design itself.  I don’t give up easily.

In all my designing, however hard or easy it was in the making, I aim for them to appear strikingly straightforward, as if they did just happen on their own. I was accused by a tutor for being lazy – he didn’t understand minimalism – when in actual fact, it’s far harder to let the negative space be as important as the motifs we can sometimes throw at a design like pennies to a pond. Space can be beautiful.

I’ve taken a slightly different direction to making the most recent patterns; some would argue they are more traditional, more formal, more fussy even. I’ve certainly battled with the minutiae. I thought it nice to share the journey a little, but do bear in mind, every dot, line AND space have been considered, reconfigured, tested, discussed and revised more times than I’m counting (and that’s before I even think about colour). I hope you like the results. The design will feature in my new work to launch at TentLondon in September, so watch this space.

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The image shows: initial sketch / proportions of the motif, repeat / rhythm testing of the drawing before the lino block is cut, the lino block being printed, and the final digital artwork. The inspiration is a mix of kitchen gardens and formal gardens of the National Trust.

 

Design inspirations 2: the natural world

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Second in the series of ‘Design Inspirations’ blog entries…

The natural world has long been an inspiration for textile designers. Many years on from William Morris celebrating the natural world of flora and fauna as decoration for textiles we have had Laura Ashley, Marimekko and Orla Kiely, to only name three companies, who have interpreted the natural world and created stylised patterns and imagery which continue to inspire design students of today.

At times the worst thing as a lecturer of design we can hear from a student is that their project will be “about shells” and we dread the worst examples of static and bland studies which do little to explore the beauty and wonder of the natural world’s creations of form, structure, surface, pattern, colour and more, before approaching the bountiful concepts and metaphors in the ‘dot to dot’ of design processing hidden around the shell!

In my drawings I often aim to distil and to simplify a plant structure or shape of a flower in order to create motifs for prints and surface patterns, exploring perspective, diagrammatic language and relationships with place / context. I have a huge archive of drawings made on locations as well as boxes and bags of samples including plants, stones & leaves and one day they may well feature in designs. You never now what you might need! Going anywhere new, even for a holiday means that I keep my eyes open and often pockets filled as a result of finding new things.

Having visited the Gower peninsula for one last summer camping trip I came across these examples of natural forms, which could and would create different visual interpretations in the hands of each creative prepared for the job. That is one reason why I like to play a part in design education; to facilitate the looking, seeing and interpreting, and it is certainly why I like to keep on collecting, and keep on drawing.

 

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a textile archive of a different kind

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Having worked at Birmingham Institute of Art and Design, BCU at the Gosta Green site for the last few years we are moving to a brand new campus next week. There has been plenty to do packing up the workshops and studios, and during this process the course team have reflected on and recorded the space that has been home to this textile design degree for many years.

There are so many signs of demonstrations given, lectures delivered, course-work carried out and with the heavy use of the workshops comes a fabulous visual archive of the textile careers that we have helped to initiate and support along the way. We are nostalgic in many ways, but excited by the new and very clean slate that we are about to start writing history on at the Parkside building.

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Design inspirations 1: horizon lines

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For a while now I’ve been thinking about what has shaped my visual language and informed my art and design tastes. As a result I have planned a few blog entries in which I will evidence some of my thoughts in terms of influence and my art / design practice.

In some recent press interviews I’ve been asked about my inspiration and I tend to consider the formative years as pretty vital in this regard. It makes sense that we develop strong feelings and bonds to what we experience as children, either to reject them or embrace them – either way I believe those early years help to form our adult judgements.

Looking beyond the windows of the house in rural Norfolk where I was brought up is what I consider one of the greatest inspirations to my work. The open fields, the clear horizon lines and sparse distractions across the farmland of Norfolk have stayed with me in relation to my way of seeing, composition and economy of information in much of my work. Why draw ten lines when I can say it with one? I had a particularly horrid visiting tutor in the beginning of my training who felt that I was lazy in my designing, when actually it was he who struggled with some of the simplicity I was aiming for.

Looking back over some of the works I have made in the last fifteen years there are a few key pieces that explain that relationship with the horizon.

‘Nine Perspectives’, a linocut is made up of diagrams where I explore the land, sea and sky in a variety of ways. I consider the horizon in two-dimensional form, in plan view, elevations and diagrammatic perspectives in order to gain a sense of order.

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‘Meadows (France)’ is a drawing of a beautifully simple valley near Gourdon. It gave me a perfect view to explore further skewed interpretations of perspectives seen in the landscape. I worked with a sense of the view working round a set square, with two horizons, as I looked in front and to the side of me.

stgermain_webThe final image is from a screen printed artist’s book I made several years ago exploring the idea of ‘half full’ as a state of mind, but also from each side of the horizon line. I have used the blue areas as either half full of water (the Norfolk Broads specifically) or half full of sky above the chickens. The folded structure implies a view through the use of perspective, looking in to the distance or reflecting on oneself.

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These three works are very old as far as I’m concerned. I have new creative concerns now but they have helped me to test and explore principles in the way that I see and draw that have been important along the way.