art

weaving the timeline

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Dates and anniversaries matter to me, personally and professionally. They record the passing of time, the gaining of experience, the rhythms of life and death. I bemuse my family & friends by remembering apparently irrelevant dates, including the birthday of Roland Rat, (12th March if you are wondering!). 

Seven years ago this week I started working at Norwich University of the Arts as Course Leader of both the Fashion and Textile Design degree courses.  I undertook this role for four years before focusing on the BA Textile Design course for the last three. I am immensely proud of the course and community I lead, with a strong network of colleagues supporting me with the wobbles while celebrating the wins. 

One of my leaving gifts from my colleagues at Birmingham City University back in 2018 was a warped-up 8-shaft Harris loom – it’s important to note I’m a printed textile designer, not a weaver! This week I have finished weaving the warp – over 5 and a half metres of weaving – certainly not a commercially viable rate!  I haven’t committed a huge amount of time, more short bursts over the years when the mood took me. I was surprisingly sad as well as excited that there was no more cloth to weave and I’d be able to see the entirety of the weaving away from the loom.

The completion of the warp coinciding with this work anniversary has made me reflect on these years, there have been highs and lows in both work and life. Learning to weave has given me a process to occupy my head with away from everything else, without any pressure but to play and explore. It has been so helpful for me to have this space and activity. As I cut the warp threads and unwound the length the bands of colour and materials I selected at various times revealed themselves, reminding me of how I was feeling as well as specific experiences. 

In parallel to making this cloth, I’ve developed my role in academia – developing curriculums and strong student experience, achieving the title of Associate Professor in Design, writing a book, and developing my role of advocate for others and the discipline of textiles both in education and industry. It’s nice to have something tangible to mark these years. I’m ready to get stuck into the next chapter of academia but I’ll have to find another hobby or learn how to warp the loom up myself … here’s to the next year of learning and teaching! 

PLAY prints on show

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I am really pleased to have had two of my most recent works on paper selected to be included in the Print Cromer exhibition this summer, with the Private View on 19th July. This new body of work has been developed as part of my academic practice at Norwich University of the Arts where I have been exploring pattern structures and repeat blocks. I have explored new pattern iterations by rotating the screens to add additional colours of the same artwork, thereby building greater complexity from limited design information. In an age where digital design and the use of Artificial Intelligence provides limitless opportunities, I want to explore the fundamentals of pattern creation to generate new possibilities that are led by the designer, ensuring the creative path is transparent.

The theme of the exhibition is PLAY, and as a result the palette I created feels full of summer carnivals and fairgrounds. The overprinting of inks with differing levels of transparency provides a building of depth and subtlety of harmonious colour.

I created a number of one, two, three and four-colour prints initially, that featured the screen rotation in adding the colours. I then cut strips of the prints and with further rotation of the strips, interwove them into one base print that had been sliced to enable the slotting. I enjoyed bringing back an element of paper engineering from my book art practice into these new pieces.

In designing each piece, I considered the placement of motifs and relationships of colour. The collection provides variation within a collective identity and belonging. Some pieces feature only triangular motifs, while most incorporate the circular and rectangular elements too. My research utilises design thinking by Lewis Foreman Day, and his distribution of elements. This approach results in scattered focal motifs that work across repeating patterns. Although this is not a feature of my new work, I recognise the placement considerations are also useful in this work too.

A number of these pieces will be for sale during the show.

Moving pattern – 16mm cameraless animation

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I’m always looking for other ways to explore my pattern ideas and have been keen to consider options for film making to explore sequential narratives. Animation processes fit well with the work I’ve been doing with pattern evolution I have been testing across pages of books over the years.

Having been a fan of Len Lye’s paintings on film from the 1930s, including A Colour Box from 1935 commissioned to promote the General Post Office I was pleased to be able to attend a workshop in Norwich to to spend a few hours working on strips of 16mm film to make my own experimental animation. We were shown some examples of other people’s films and could then explore the process ourselves. The workshop was led by Jacob Watkinson and was hosted by The Holloway in Norwich.

We were given strips of clear 16mm film I was able to use pens, paint, rubber stamps and Letraset on, as well as pre-exposed film with archive films that we could scratch away the black with a scalpel beautifully. I know it’s obvious to say, but 16mm is tiny, and I’d forgotten my glasses, so that added to the issue of seeing what I was working on! It’s a tiny space to include anything too complex and I was unsure initially how many times to repeat motifs and at what pace to move motifs across the film, but I just had a go and tried not to be too precious. 

Once we’d all had a chance to work on several pieces Jacob spliced the pieces of film together and we ended the session with a screening of everybody’s efforts – it was great to see individual approaches with the same processes and the outcomes have certainly got me thinking about taking my pattern evolution ideas in this direction again. The image below shows some stills from the film I made – all 20 seconds of it! Len Lye’s films are brilliantly paired with music so maybe I need to think about that too – but I’m not sure today’s Post Office will be knocking on my door anytime soon!

If you want to read more about Len Lye this article from the Tate is a good one.

new collection launch: KATE FARLEY x WINDOW FILM COMPANY                    

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I’m excited to be finally bringing this collection of surface designs to market in collaboration with the Window Film Company. The inspiration for the patterns has stemmed from my fascination with geometric designs, taking the basic ingredients of triangles, circles and squares as my starting point.

I’ve been exploring geometric pattern structures in relation to design principles established by Lewis F. Day at the turn of the Twentieth century, exploring the equal distribution of motifs within a repeating tile to alter the visual rhythm within two-dimensional surface designs. I have also explored expectation and disruption within the repeat tiles. On establishing an apparent small-scale repeat, I play with unexpected shifts in the placement of motifs to disrupt the rhythm, challenging the sense of order. This work belongs to my ongoing practical pattern research as Associate Professor in Design at Norwich University of the Arts.

The six designs each have their own identity and yet belong together like siblings in a family, with shared features of geometric motifs and formal compositions throughout this collection. Some of the designs started their life as self-initiated physiotherapy back in 2020 / 21 following abdominal surgery and my subsequent recovery. The design challenge, to make small-scale lino blocks of repeating patterns to print by hand, provided me with small physical and mental tasks to focus on between the naps. I had hoped some of the designs would one day be leaving my studio, and I’m pleased and proud to share them now.

Designing for window film requires consideration of motif, shape and pattern construction without the aid of colour, requiring an absolute focus on negative and positive shapes. I enjoy working within design limitations in relation to production requirements and technical specifications, believing the challenges become design opportunities. I spent some time testing the various scale of patterns across the collection, including a micro pattern (Step), through to a much larger scaled pattern (Triangulate), considering window sizes in both domestic and commercial spaces in relation to the motif sizes. 

I’ve worked with the very patient Steve at the Window Film Company for all my designs available on film, including the large-scale bespoke design for Birmingham Airport back in 2017. Previous designs from my Construct collection available from the Window Film Company won a House Beautiful award in 2018 too!

Steve worked with me to sample some of the early versions of these designs generated as digital scans from lino prints initially, but I didn’t like the visual quality in the translation of the prints. The original artworks for this collection were generated using collage and screen printing alongside the lino prints as I prefer designing with a physical relationship to image creation. After further consideration I opted to create each of the designs as vector-based files for production, providing sharp graphic quality to the patterns. 

Mike at Window Film Co. was also fundamental in getting this collection established, off the computer, on to window film and ready for sale. Our conversations focused on understanding my design identity in relation to previous work. He ensured the designs felt authentic to me, while building on the existing designs I already license to the company. 

It’s always exciting to receive a delivery of samples, and I’ve had a few of those over the last few months. The final product is very different to a digital file, so it is important to inspect the artwork as film installed on the window, checking the scale of repeat as well as any discrepancies in the artwork – you must have sharp eyes for detail! With final decisions made and sampling approved, as well as the small matter of naming the designs, we have been able to sign off the artwork, and launch the six designs in the collection: Circulate, Diamonds, Shift, Triangulate, Step, Pairings

Thanks to everyone at the Window Film Company!

The designs are available to order here

Meeting Marthe Armitage

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As a result of my current pattern research practice, I’ve been keen to get out and discuss print production methods with designers and manufacturers, particularly as I was restricted in doing so while writing my book during the pandemic. A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to visit designer Marthe Armitage in her showroom in west London, showing her my sketchbook / design work and discussing each of our design and production processes. 

I’m not sure when I first became aware of Marthe’s patterns on wallpaper and cloth, but I’ve used her designs in my university lectures for the last few years to illustrate economic principles of building pattern, using a single block (one colour) to provide flowing and complex patterns, featuring varieties of visual texture within motifs. I bought the book on her life / design career, The Making of Marthe Armitage (published in 2019 by Graphical House) and was impressed by the beautiful drawings that accompany and support the design work I was familiar with. It is a thoughtfully produced book, with some copies available with a hand printed wallpaper wrap cover.

I’ve written before here about the time my ‘phone rang and Marthe was at the other end, ready to discuss her inclusion in my book and we went on to put the process of pattern design to rights. Meeting her more recently and showing her my sketchbook was a wonderful experience. There was straight talking about the current state of patterns available on the market and we agreed with each other about drawing on paper to map out the design on a grid to establish the composition for repeat. She was intrigued by my investigation in to block repeat and rotation of the tile and suggested some of my ideas more fruitful than others – I agree! We were joined by Marthe’s daughter Jo who leads the hand printing and is key to the future direction of the business, as well as Harriet, the Creative Project Manager and Christine, the hand printer who supports Jo in production. I was interested to learn of some new plans in development and gain an understanding of their experiences of print production in the UK.

The showroom in Brentford is a beautifully designed space which includes the printing press for hand printing their wallpapers and plenty of samples to admire, and is open to the public regularly. Tins of ink are displayed alongside samples of designs in progress and colour testing. It was also interesting to see the lino blocks featuring the designs cut by Marthe backed on metal plates ready for the press. Check out the instagram account for up to date news.

As our meeting came to an end, I grabbed the opportunity to ask Marthe for a photograph of her alongside the beautiful designs and to sign the copy of my REPEAT book in which I’m collecting signatures from the contributors. I am very grateful to Marthe and the team for making time to meet with me, thank you!

Research chapter published: pattern evolution

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In the first term of arriving at Norwich University of the Arts I was welcomed as a member of the Pattern and Chaos research group. Colleagues from across the university would meet and discuss individual research practices and shared ambitions relating to the themes of the group. During one of those early meetings the idea of a Reader, a book featuring many contributions on the themes related to the research group, was being discussed. I enjoyed being involved in setting out early ambitions and five years on the book, edited by Sarah Horton and Victoria Mitchell, is a reality, having been published by Intellect Books in late 2023. Congratulations to Sarah & Victoria!

I’m delighted to be a contributor alongside many other researchers and practitioners, some I have the pleasure to know, others I shall get to know through their text and images in the book.

My contribution to the project is chapter ten. In conversation with both Sarah and Victoria several years ago I shared my ideas of pattern evolution, of taking motifs from one to another, an ogee to a diamond for example, through the process of drawing, transforming them from one to another across the sheet of paper. I gave them a quick sketch as part of my proposal and they patiently waited for more as I worked on the larger body of drawings. The link between themes and variations in music was apparent and I played with this idea as I made the drawings, layering tone and form, as a composer would do in building the greater composition.

The chapter explores the practical research process of drawing and evolving the motifs across formal grids structures and across layers of tracing paper. Although the visual language of these drawings are significantly different to my current research the ideas initiated here were the seeds of my current investigation – I’ll share that progress soon!

A huge thank you to Sarah and Victoria for the ongoing support they provide, both to me and my practice. Between the two of them they always ask the pertinent questions and offer sound advice and encouragement.

drawing evolution – perspective and mapping

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Several weeks ago I started, with no other intention other than to pass the time, making drawings of the trees across the fields I could see as we waited our turn at the farm shop. This was simply about making time for me to clear my head of all the other stuff and pressures of this new routine we find ourselves in. Drawing is such a key part of what makes me tick, whether it’s for rest or work.

Week 2 came so I took my sketchbook and made new drawings that naturally evolved from the first week’s observations. In the second week I also took scissors to capture the shapes as paper cutouts in contrast to the lines I had focussed on in pencil. Each week I’ve made these drawings and over time I’ve noticed the growth of leaves, making it harder to focus on the tree structures, but I’ve also moved the drawing on as a familiarity of my subject is developing. I wrote a blog post on those first weeks here.

I’ve spent the last quarter century drawing landscapes with trees and remember a significant moment as a student of design, when I discovered the water colours by Crome and Cotman in the gallery in Leeds – particularly strange given they were from the Norwich School and I’d left Norwich to study in Yorkshire, but maybe that was the initial pull. I studied the way they divided the landscape with brushed areas of paint and they helped me to see that I too could explore ways to stylise the way I saw the landscape.

The drawings included in this post are all from week 5. I’ve added hints of fields containing the trees and those lines of containment are the edges holding the paths of trees. I’ve used the horizons from both a vertical and horizontal viewpoint and continued to stylise the tree forms throughout the five weeks. It’s getting harder as the trees flesh out their forms and we lost the details of the branches. I’m also suggesting depth of field with the scale of the trees near and far although I’m pulling the composition down to stretch out and extend the foreshortened landscape.

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Throughout my career I’ve toyed with ways to map the perspective of landscape and use diagrammatic language, perspective and distorted elevations to represent viewpoints of 3D in 2D. The intention of the arcs was to suggest the sweeping viewpoint but in fact I think it hints at hillsides, and that really isn’t the case here in Norfolk. An undulating landscape maybe, but certainly not rolling hills – still, we can’t get it all right!

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I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this drawing exercise so far and look forward to week 6 and what the drawings will discover next time. I’m also, rather naturally I suppose thinking about pattern evolution and how these may become design work. I have lots of ideas to mull over and be excited by … but there’s no rush.

Having posted some of the drawings on instagram over the weeks I’ve received lovely comments and messages from people enjoying the drawings and I’m so grateful for the votes of confidence in what I am doing, I really appreciate that. Many thanks, I hope you continue to enjoy the drawing! ….

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Modernist patterns in the making

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Over the last few months, actually for most of this year, I’ve been working on a commission with the Barbican Centre London to create bespoke patterns for products in their newly developed retail space, ready to launch in the Autumn. It’s been a fabulous project as I’ve developed the designs with plenty of dialogue with Head of Retail, Adam Thow, to-ing & fro-ing by email. The brief has altered only slightly since the beginning and I feel really proud of what we’ve produced. There’s a more detailed interview about the project over on their blog.

The idea was to explore the Barbican Centre, famous for its architecture, but to also include its activities as a cultural centre of music and performance. I explored lots of ideas and pattern compositions but settled on the idea of a sheet of music, and ended bottom right with the bold double bar lines. Within the patterns I referred to musical notation, and made links between the architectural features and those of instruments, including a violin and oboe, to create a sense of narrative, playing with strong negative and positive shapes. Each of the motifs were hand cut in paper, scanned in, and combined using Adobe Photoshop.

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Last week we shared the first images of the design work so I thought I’d share here too. The images here show my developmental design work above, and the final limited edition screen print and pattern for products. Visit @barbicancentre on instagram for more final product shots.

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pattern prints

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I’ve been working behind the scenes, offline at least, making new prints, mainly lino prints, and developing repeat patterns with them. I’ve not wanted to show the progress until I’ve worked out where I’m going with them, but finally I’ve decided to go public, in a small way, revealing one of the new prints, hinting at the direction my new patterns are going in…

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I’m exhibiting at TentLondon again in September so between now and then I’ll show more on instagram, Twitter, Facebook and here on my blog.

textile fragments

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I have this textile ‘fragment’ that I think is beautiful in so many ways; the richness of colour, the manipulated folds of cloth as well as the resulting patterns of the geometric shapes of both the positive and negative folds of the fabric. There is aside to this, so much more connecting me to this old piece of cloth I acquired over twenty years ago, and when I see it, those thoughts come back to me in an instant. This is the power such materials and objects have over us.

I studied at art school, and although the main campus was in Norwich, I was at an outpost in Great Yarmouth. I loved being by the sea, and it was my first time away from home so it was a huge learning curve and time of growing up. I was learning textile and drawing skills and I have fond memories of it all. One day we had a visitor, a lady who had traveled the world collecting textiles, and she brought some of these to show us at the college. I had been interested in the Ghanaian flags of the Asafo, as well as Indian applique so I was fascinated to hear her talk and see the textiles from far-off lands.

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Sadly excitement became upset as the textile pieces were laid out in front of us. I wonder now if I was the only one thinking what I was. When I saw the exquisite fabrics cut in to pieces and crudely stapled to paper with pencil written details of where they had come from I felt so concerned for the apparent brutal way they were being separated from the original whole, their link to their heritage and provenance. It occurred to me then that other nations were losing the heritage that they owned, as the fabrics became souvenirs for others. Had someone chosen to sell them; were they ‘acquired’?

That day holds further sad memories in actual fact. My dear Grandma had died that weekend, and I really wasn’t coping too well away from home, but I got through the day and decided to buy a piece of cloth from the lady as a way of treating my sorry self. I felt torn by the decision to buy it. Would my purchase make sure it was kept safe, or encourage more sourcing of cloth from across the globe? My piece states ‘fragment’ in its description and yet is has clearly been cut from a larger cloth. ‘Fragment’ suggests to me a museum piece, a fragment of history, a clue of a larger object salvaged from ruin rather than proactively separated from its other parts to form the sum – a folded patchwork Kathiawari horse strap from India.

The colours have altered over the years since its time of making no doubt, and the fabric has become worn too. I removed the rusty staples in an act of care and conservation. I also taught myself how to create the folds and layers of fabrics to understand, through making, the construction process. The piece inspired a fabric manipulation project during my time in Great Yarmouth – mostly lost to history and probably for the best! My fabric samples are nothing in comparison to my ‘original’ fragment. The pieces I made lack the authenticity, the ageing, the integrity of originality, but they too serve to remind me of the value of heritage, of belonging and remembering.

With so much talk in the media at the moment of cultural looting across the world both past and present, I am again reminded of this piece of cloth, its heritage and place in the world. The fabric also distinctively reminds me of the loss of my grandma at that time, and yet isn’t it strange that a piece of Kathiawari cloth – not any piece, ONLY this piece, can act as a token of a memory of my Grandma who as far as I know, had no connections with India?!