inspiration

drawing, looking and seeing

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I’ve recently returned from a lovely family holiday, traveling by train from Norfolk to London and via Paris through France to the south and on in to Italy, up into the foothills of the Alps via Turin … and back again. I made lots of small sketchbooks so I could have one close at hand at all times, with a selection of pens and pencils. I’ve always enjoyed drawing from trains, preferably sitting backwards, looking, identifying shapes and details, then hastily capturing what I saw in a few lines.

It’s a great exercise to keep the hand, brain and eyes in check, and although I have previously used this sort of drawing for my design work – including my degree Final Major Project back in 1997 – I only really do it now as a good activity to check in with the view and focus on the places, stations and landscapes I journey between, and as exercise for keeping my drawing practice fit and healthy. A gable-end of a barn, a cluster of trees or mountain horizons can be documented and it’s amazing how these drawings are then able to capture and remind me of the journey years later.

Here are some of the drawing from the trains. I sometimes get a bit more detail down if we sit in the station for a few minutes, and I jot the station name down for interest.

I also managed to do a small amount of drawing while sat in cafes or sheltering from sun while other family members were up to something else. They take a few minutes each, so still pretty quick observations. It’s clear my interest in pattern comes in to how I see the world. Rhythms of windows and balconies, railings, ornamental buildings….

I also made a couple of sketchbooks using tracing paper as I was interested to see how I worked with the transparent pages as the drawings built. I quite like the results and reminds me of how I plan lino blocks and screen prints with the layers of tracing paper.

It was definitely good to spend time drawing and I’m thinking of revisiting some in the studio, no pressure, just a few ideas. I hope you like them, let me know if / how you make drawings from trains!

Greece: pattern, colour, material, finish

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A precious holiday to Greece in the early summer has provided plenty of nourishment for my creativity, as well as excellent down-time, walking and eating. It’s just taken me a long time to get this post together!

I’ve been creating photographic records of artefacts collected on holidays for some time – a great way of remembering the specifics of a walk without having to bring it all home! I’ve also enjoyed creating composite images to represent experiences over the years, some featured on the posts here, so I’ve done the same for Greece.

We visited the Cyclades, and specifically the islands of Santorini and Sifnos. The night on Santorini was for old-time’s sake, and the stay on Sifnos was to get to know an island we’d not been to before. It is a beautiful island, with lots to explore – I’d love to go back to one day!

Here’s a collection of precious finds from the 70+km of walks across Sifnos on their excellent trails, some very prickly! As marble was everywhere I thought it appropriate to use the marble table by our room as the background surface:

First up with the composite images – colour:

Next up: pattern, material & finish, including Greek yoghurt and honey of course:

and finally, the streets of Santorini:

spring brings colourful joy

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I feel as if I’ve dragged myself through the grey, wet and cold British winter, without the delight of deep snow to play in, and finally the signs of growth in the garden and country lanes are undeniably taking us in firmly to the middle of spring. The magnolias are blooming, the blossom of blackthorn has been and gone in Norfolk and the yellow of the daffodils is being overtaken by the yellow of the oilseed rape fields.

Almost without warning, as if overnight, the garden has transformed from bare earth to borders full of colour; clusters of yellow, of orange-red, hot pinks and fussy white frills. The tulips are here, and with them comes the idea summer may follow spring. I’m not rushing the time by, I’m just more appreciative of the brighter, warmer months.

With the threat of heavy rain over the weekend I gathered up some of the tulips for the house – bringing the outside in. They’ve brought with them such joy, I really do feel better with the colour around me. I spent a little while drawing them a couple of evenings ago to absorb the colour and form of each one, thanking them for bothering.

Tulips have featured in art and design for centuries, in drawings, paintings and textile design, but my favourite has to be by the Austrian designer, Josef Frank, in Tulpaner, see below, for Svensk Tennn. The different flower heads of the tulips bursting from the dark background as if the colour is jumping out of winter is just how I feel, as the warm spring sun encourages the garden to enable colour to thrive and for us all to spend more time enjoying it.

inspiration old and new, near and far

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I led a study trip to London with some undergraduate students recently, where I spent several hours in the Victoria and Albert Museum. Having not been there for a while it was fabulous to be back in the company of old friends such as the Arts and Crafts textiles of William Morris and his contemporaries, as well as seeing exhibits new to me. I love the building too and took particular enjoyment in the flooring this time around!

I refer to Arts and Crafts patterns regularly in my teaching and was able to include some fine examples in chapter 1 of the book I’ve written, REPEAT Printed Pattern for Interiors, published by Bloomsbury earlier this year. They tend to show generosity of design, interesting rhythms and motifs working hard with stylised forms that still stand the test of time. Seeing these artefacts in the flesh really made me appreciate how important it is to get off the screen and go to see real things. The scale of the design, the surface and materiality just can’t be appreciated in the same way online. I’d also not seen Portrait of Melissa Thompson, from the series ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Kehinde Wiley. It was stunning and really impactful where it was displayed.

I was there to specifically see the Africa Fashion exhibition which I thoroughly enjoyed. I’ve long known of woven Kente cloth and the Asafo appliquéd flags, but it was wonderful to read and see more of the textiles for fashion, both traditional and new across the exhibition. The textile processes were broad, with fabric manipulation, weaving, printing and embellishments in abundance.

The remaining time I had at the V&A was spent enjoying the international galleries (did I mention the cake break?) where I traveled around the globe by fabric, vessels, garments and objects, enjoying making my own connections between motifs shared by people from centuries and continents apart. To juxtapose a furnishing fabric from 1878 with velvet from Turkey made in 1550, and a tapestry fragment from 400 was rather an enjoyable and fascinating afternoon’s work. I shall try to get back there with less of a lengthy gap next time!

The museum was described by the first Director, Sir Henry Cole as a “a refuge for destitute collections”. I think that’s maybe a little harsh.

REPEAT: Book publication day coming very soon

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On the 12th January 2023 my book for Bloomsbury on the subject of repeat printed pattern for interiors will be published, … finally there’s not long to wait having worked on it for years!

If you want to order a copy at a pre-publication discount you can do that here.

drawing breath

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Drawing has always been an important element of my design practice. It gives me time to refocus, to get away from everything else, to appreciate the beauty in things and keeps my eyes and hand working together in my lifelong investigation of how I look and how I record what I see.

The flowers drawn here were some of the last from the summer borders, consisting of dahlias, sunflowers, hollyhocks and verbena, captured quickly in pen, while I sat by the window, enjoying the warmth of the sun and the shadows that the flowers created while I drew.

well-travelled textiles

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A while ago I received a message from a friend over in America, and knowing of my career and personal interest in textiles, she was writing to see if I’d like to receive some old but special textiles she had spare that made her think of me… I was intrigued what might arrive in the post… How could I refuse!? A few days later two beautiful squares of cloth arrived, one with a woman and the other a man stitched in to the cloth across one corner, with gently ornate decorative edges and corner details.

[details: one piece features a woman, the other a man]

She thinks they are napkins, they are very light weight cloth. Accompanying the two pieces was a note sharing what she knew of the provenance, and how she had acquired them to share with me. Emily remembers them in her mother’s ‘stash’ of things in the 1970s, when she must have been only about 4 years old, so they made an impression on her.

They were possibly bought by her Grandma Daisy (an accomplished and frankly, rather compulsive ‘antiquer’), at an estate sale, maybe a farmhouse estate sale. She had a good eye and built an impressive hoard! Emily told me there is a sizeable German-American population in Wisconsin, so this might be part of the story too.

[the letter and edge details of the pieces]

I’ve consulted my panel of experts as I’m no embroidery expert myself, and they’ve been a great help (thanks particularly to Grainne & Liss) … I think it’s safe to say it’s a combination of techniques, including cut work and stump work. One of my experts suggests stump work is the overarching technique, particularly to create the woven style stitches of the figures. Often more three-dimensional than these examples, stump work can be highly ornate with raised areas, but these squares appear rather low in relief.

We can also see whitework embroidery, a broad term including a number of different techniques, working with white thread, often linen, pulling the warp and weft threads to form motifs. Pulled or drawn thread work are examples of whitework where no cuts are made. Cutwork is a form of whitework where areas of woven cloth are cut away and stitched in new configurations. These samples include cutwork featuring buttonhole stitch & buttonhole bars with detached needlelace. I hope I’ve got all this down correctly!

There is an amazing online Royal School of Needlework resource here for more stitch information – you might be lost for hours!

A detail to note is that the figures have been created on the bias of the cloth, set diagonally on the weave near the corners, rather than the straight line of the weave. This may be a specific approach preferred by a particular maker, region or process, so might help identify the provenance.

The figures are wonderfully stylised as a result of the stitching process, naive and full of character. They remind me of folk art examples I’ve seen before and historic world textile samples at the Pitt Rivers collection in Oxford only a week or so ago. Also the characters are not dissimilar to the figures on the Asafo flags of the Asante in Ghana I’ve written about before. Once again, the process of stylising and representing imagery as motifs is shown to be one of my favourite subjects!

Textiles, although fragile, can survive in the right conditions for centuries, and can hint at stories of society, status, lifestyle and identity. The textile skills required to make these pieces are likely to be far more commonplace at the time these pieces were made too. Lightweight, portable and often with specific uses, textiles have been transported all over the world with people travelling for all manner of reasons. These two pieces have their own history I’d love to know more about, not only to understand where they were made and by whom, but also to understand the journey they have been on since their creation.

Despite not knowing more I shall continue to enjoy them, and in the process of writing this post I’ve learned a bit more about embroidery too… I am grateful to have been sent them to care for. Thanks Emily!

nature: holiday inspiration for the sketchbook

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This holiday time has provided an opportunity to go to new places, see new things and return to the sketchbook just for fun. A week at Ilkley Moor enabled lots of time for walking and seeking out inspiration from the natural world, with distinct differences to the landscape I’m used to day to day. Up hill and down dale saw me amongst mosses and lichens, pebbles and boulders, grouse, larch trees, heathers and bogs … and even a fragment of pottery.

Rucksack pockets were filled with samples of treasure ready to investigate later. The process of drawing enables me to get to know an object, and by making several studies of each item I enjoy developing a stylised representation. I hope never to tire of the getting-to-know-you drawing process I have practised for thirty years.

By looking closely and seeing through drawing I can work out the essential elements of surface, form and texture to record, but also I love to play with the appearance of elevation and structure of three dimensional objects, such as the pebbles, to explore their new form as they appear on the page, as flat motifs.

The textures and colours of the items I gathered provide macro evidence of the vast landscape I walked through and connected with. As this was springtime there were pockets of fresh green bursting through winter foliage, demonstrating the natural cycle awakes again. The geology of Yorkshire provided variety in coloured greys and texture under hand and foot as we bouldered, scrambled and hiked, notable in contrast to the soft wet bogs and spongy moss beds amongst the heather.

Without going all John Ruskin about it, the natural world really is amazing, and full of inspiration for anyone inclined to notice. Anyway, back to the rather flatter fields of Norfolk …

Inspired by and inspiring the textile design discipline

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Thirty years ago I began my art school experience studying a diploma in Surface Pattern, a little unsure of what was meant by the course title, but keen to find out more as it involved drawing, printmaking, pattern and textiles. I thrived at art school, building practical skills and theoretical knowledge, growing in confidence in my ability, encouraged to experiment and play with ideas and processes. When I think back to what I understood of careers in textile design at this time, I have little memory of career planning, or job role research. This was the era of the Yellow Pages; I couldn’t Google it! I made decisions about my degree course based on the fact my tutors suggested I was more of a printer than a knitter or weaver. 

The art school student and the first screen printed pattern

During my degree I undertook a floral print project in the first year and hated it so much I nearly threw it in for fine art printmaking, but then I gave myself a talking to, and realised I wanted to frame my practice in design, to apply my thinking to scenarios, and to problem solve. This has stood me in good stead, both as a designer and academic. I believe the context in which we work is as important as the role we undertake.

I think back to those days and see a very different textile industry to the one we are experiencing now. I graduated at the dawn of digital design, without the range of composite surface materials for interior applications, or bespoke digital production that enabled me to collaborate with Formica when launching my collections in the mid 20-teens. As a freelance designer in the late 1990s I was posting hand painted textile designs in large cardboard tubes across the country to my agent and sending my portfolio out as slides (transparencies) for exhibition applications, hoping they would be returned to save me money and hassle – they rarely were! Thank goodness for the digital cloud of today, allowing files to be accessed around the globe in an instant. Laser cutting and 3D printing have become the norm (even in schools) since then, and expertise in digital software is a basic requirement in graduate jobs. It is easy to take these developments for granted – but our line of work is transformed.

Over the years since that time, I’ve built a career embracing many different opportunities as a designer, artist and designer maker: launching my own brand collections, undertaking illustration or pattern commissions, exhibiting, designing public art (including three large gravel roofscapes and three public toilets!) as well as leading residencies in healthcare settings. I have enjoyed the variety of projects I have completed, building my understanding of several sectors of the industry. Ensuring I remain up to date with industry developments has been key to the relevance I maintain in my academic position. 

Birmingham Airport commission, fabricated by The Window Film Company

In the last twenty years we have seen the development of ‘smart’ textiles for medical applications, interactive electronic textiles for military and domestic use, bio-materials and colour developed from bacteria and new design opportunities in the digital realm within the simulated environment – the metaverse, an emerging international arena. At the same time, during a global pandemic we see a resurgence in low-tech craft with textile processes such as crochet and knit identified as beneficial activities for our wellbeing, and a fightback against the consumer culture. 

The breadth of opportunity available across the discipline of textile design today is exciting, and fast evolving. Revisiting craft practices for contemporary markets is not new. The Arts and Crafts movement spearheaded by William Morris, advocating for handicrafts and naturally dyed yarn and cloth, was an attempt to battle against technological innovation and the resulting cheap and poor-quality products flooding the market. The current growth of interest in craft practices again connects us to the heritage of making and the close relationship with material and process that nurtures us. Sustainable solutions compete with mass produced problems. Customers are easily overwhelmed by choice and price-points, single use versus something for life – future heirlooms, or landfill. Digital design provides solutions by reducing fabric waste in the fashion industry using 3D digital rendering to identify and fix issues, where previously each garment in each size or colourway would be produced and discarded as products were developed. Craft and technology are not mutually exclusive.

The creative industries we have today were unimaginable to me as a student, and now, I think about the relationship today’s students have with the industry and how far into the future they can imagine. As head of the discipline at my institution I am required to consider the future of textile design, to design an educational experience to not only equip the students and graduates for roles that we know about, but also provide them with the curiosity and creativity to shape the roles we can’t quite define. Ambitious ideas need to be partnered with strong realisation skills, traditional craft and making skills paired with digital competence. Let’s see where the next thirty years takes us!

Construct collection by Kate Farley, in collaboration with Formica

pattern processing

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I’m often juggling lots of tasks in my head, but when my mind is busy I can find focus and space to think within and around the process of drawing. The time occupied by my hand drawing gives my head some freedom to work things through. Distraction, mindfulness, process-led, thinking time…

Drawing also creates time to explore rhythms that are playing out more formally in other sketchbooks for other projects. I find it interesting that certain motifs appear in the margins of my notebooks time and time again, made while my mind is occupied. Often those shapes are geometric, but sometimes the circle dominates, at other times, squares. Regularly they link to designs I’m working on and resolving somewhere else, subconsciously seeking solutions.

I enjoy the simplicity of paper and pencil in a world where so much of my time is spent in front of a screen. The physical process of drawing; the feel of the friction between graphite and paper, the sounds created by the rhythmic gestures, are vital to the experience. Satisfaction comes from a page of evolving rhythm and more pattern potential. We know there is seduction in the multiple; the repetition of tins on a supermarket shelf, for example.