Evaulation of Unit X

Evaluation- Rachel Elizabeth Curle

Over this recent project I have investigated into pushing the transformation of everyday materials. So in my work I have been constructing and deconstructing materials, which I wanted to carry forward into my projects. These transformations apply in all my art work very well because I enjoy experimenting with everyday materials. Reforming their look and design, I wanted to almost give the materials a new sense of identity.

The inspiration for my work comes from the ideas of altering and transform of the materials I source. I choose to work with the fluorescent colours because of the statement they bring. The colours are what attract the audience first. My work is about creating this large statement with these fluorescent colours however keeping it minimalistic. I choose to keep my work minimalistic because the colours speak for themselves. I found this when I investigated into the materials. Some of the materials are simple mundane materials such as washing lines, fabric, string and wood. Then you have more exciting materials such as elastic and ribbon. With the ribbon I have been experimenting and developing over the recent project because I wanted to investigate how I could create something simple using a deconstructing method.

Constructing and deconstructing are what create the forms throughout my textiles practice. I imitate the textiles I have learnt from a traditional sense to a more contemporary background. I want to create art that shows that textiles can be transformed on a massive scale. Also that textiles isn’t just about old traditional stitches with fabric but that these stitches can be adapted and transformed.

My inspiration comes from everything around me such as scaffolding, building yards, hair, waterfalls and nature. Throughout all of these environments, I look for the repeat patterns and use of lines. I observe and then adapt the formation of line into my samples and final installations. I enjoy transforming all materials to create new lines. I have also looked in more depth into artists that create work using unique materials and the use of repetition.    

Within this project I have been looking more into the contexts and the reasons why I made the choices I did! For the sculpture I created using ribbon, the decision to paint the wood grey was because I wanted it to match the school of arts architecture.

This part of the project has helped me to improve my understanding of how to learn to present my work to others. This all helps in relation to the understanding of my own work. This unit has given me a diverse approach to viewing my art work. I made decisions and created experiments in promoting how I could convert these materials. Construction and deconstruction are the main processes from this unit. I have gained a varied, broader understanding of how I work as a textile artist. Taking part in the textiles in progress exhibition chose to be a challenge. However, I had a chance to show my work off and working to a much larger scale, which I was very proud of!

Ideas for the Degre Show

Ideas for the Degree Show

Ideas for degree show

For this degree show, I want to be able to show my ability of transformation of materials. The show is where I can demonstrate that textiles is not just about traditional textiles but much more about how textiles can become contemporary.

The ideas I have had for the show is to create a transformation sculpture which involves construction and deconstruction of everyday materials. Currently, I have created a piece that has already been part of the textiles in process exhibition however, I wanted to create another similar minimalistic structure. With this piece, I want to see what other everyday materials I can distort to pull up my practice.

I want to use this chance of the degree show to discover what my practice is about using materials to show this to the audience. By keeping the ribbon as a waterfall structure, I wanted to create another structure so that I can have another one to relate too.

 I want the two structures to almost complement each other by sharing the balance of construction and deconstruction. These themes run throughout my work and this is what I want to show to the audience in the degree show.

Textiles in Process Exhibiton

 

Context

Context

I have been chosen to be part of the textiles in process exhibition in the vertical gallery. I have chosen to be part of the exhibition because I want to discover myself as an artist. I find spaces and particular places interesting as my own textile work plays with scales and this gives me a chance to really prove myself and to show my abilities.

The textiles in process exhibition gave me a chance to work within a real gallery space. In my learning agreement, I wrote that one of the aims for this project was to challenge myself in creating new transformation of materials within a gallery space.

The context of my work relates all back to my research and inspirations. With my research, I looked into how my work can have meaning throughout and by finding myself as an artist, I did this. The context of this project relates all back to how I can transform everyday materials including mundane materials. Mundane materials are boring everyday objects such as washing lines, string and plastics. However, in this project I took a different approach for materials and observed more exciting everyday materials and gave them a new identity.

The exhibition has helped me to discover that spaces influence my work and that I can relate back to the space throughout my work. For in this case I related my sculpture structure back to the school of art by using a similar colour. The concrete has meaning towards the art school, as when I did my research behind the school I discovered that the concrete is used to create a factory sense towards the building. I wanted to bring this into my work as it gives my practice meaning.

 The context of my practice is having a statement piece which uses transformation of materials to relate back to the audience surroundings. Doing this live project of the exhibition has given me reasons to push my practice a lot more, into how gallery spaces can influence my manipulations.

Inspiration Images

Robert Morris

Inspiration

Inspiration

Throughout my practice inspirations of the everyday, nature and my surroundings influence my work.    

Within this project I have took inspiration from many different aspects of everyday things. What I look more at is how in everyday objects there are lines in which create patterns. The one shape that stood out to me the most was how scaffolding creates a structure shape. I never took much notice in how building materials could be used as an influence.

Inspiration can come from anywhere, although as an artist I find I like the use of lines. Repetition is used a lot within my work because I have took influence from nature including waterfalls. I chose to look at waterfalls because of the pattern, my unthreading of ribbon was creating. The deconstruction of the ribbon was creating a texture, which was almost like hair. Other peers within my class thought that the ribbon was hair extensions. With this influence, I started to research into how different hair was manipulated into hairstyles.

With my inspiration and practice, I noticed links between all my research and development. The link of this was transformation of materials. Materials are still an essential focus in my practice because these are what inspire me to create the manipulations. The materials are from everyday life use and I transform them into magic sculptures.

A lot of my inspiration for this project has come from the use of materials. The ribbon brings joy to my sculpture because of the use of fluorescent colours and the transformation of the ribbon. The ribbon has this new identity after I have deconstructed it. This is what inspires me to develop new ways of manipulations. Having a tactile feel towards my work provides me with new ideas of how I can process and manipulate my samples.

For this project, the colours have inspired me the most, as I have kept sourcing these colours through the materials I have manipulated. With this influence of colours and manipulation, I started to discover other artists, which use this manner of materials. Robert Morris is an artist that influenced me in the sense of inspiration as his work can really relate to mine because of his use of simple shapes and the minimalistic look.

In this project, I have discovered that I create these crazy transformations of materials but still keep the minimalistic side to them. Discovering that I can still create all these magical transformations and finding new inspiration within my practice, has given me new hope that I can finally define myself as a textiles artist.

Development Images

Development

Development

For my development I have carried on from a pass project because I felt that I could push this piece a lot more. I started to investigate more into other materials of how I could develop the use of deconstruction and reconstruction of ribbon. However throughout this unit I started to manipulate and change the process of other materials, such as much larger fabric, string, washing line, ribbon which was unthreaded and much more. The techniques I carried out in my experiments were hair pinning, omion stitch and the manipulation of scoobies. I wanted to investigate more in to how other materials would react to different processes.

With doing all these different experiments, I found evidence in what materials work best with what process. All the materials I have chosen relate back to my research and inspiration of the fluorescent colours. Developing all my samples, allowed me to carry on with what works best and in this case I found that the construction and deconstruction worked best with the ribbon. I tested different widths of the ribbon to see what effect this would have in my artwork.

As an artist I found that developing my work has gave me more of an understanding into how I relate to materials and processes. With my practice, I have gained a lot of evidence, which proves that my work relates to transformation.

Throughout my development process, the transformation of the everyday seems to be the main key to my practice. I have shown my understanding of the materials throughout the experiments. I gained an understanding of when I have a tactile experience with the materials. With my development of materials, I wanted to carry on with the new way of stitch. Many people think that textiles is all about traditional stitches,  however within my practice I wanted to show that textiles can be brought to a massive scale and that stitch does not  have to involve fabric and needles.

My development of my sculpture shows that the use of stitches can be developed on a larger scale. With my development of the sculpture, I had to make many decisions in how the sculpture would be created. I came across many different problems, such as what material was stable, how to attach my unthreaded ribbon and how to reconstruct the ribbon within the space.

With my experiments I had to test how my sculpture would fit in the space, I came across many problems with this because with being at the front doors there was a constant breeze, which effected the way the ribbon would move. Yet, I investigated into how I could prevent the ribbon from being destroyed. I developed my use of stretch and manipulation on the sculpture.

For my development part, researching has helped me gain a greater understanding of the reasons why I developed my work in the ways that I do.  Each part of my work has a different aspect to how I create my ideas of construction and deconstruction. I found within this project myself as an artist because my work has a meaning of transformation.

Being part of the textiles in process exhibition has also developed me as an artist because I gained an experience of creating work for a real exhibition space. This has taught me how to balance time and money throughout my project. I know that development takes time because as an artist I need to know that I have experienced all the different processes before I make a decision into how I am going to construct my sculpture.

Development creates problems and as an artist, you have to overcome them. The problems I kept facing were how to create a minimalistic shape. I created mini models to test what shapes would match. The problem that occurred was getting the sculptures made from wood as the material is easy to manipulate but with the structures, I wanted to create a difficult because of the angles and lengths of wood I would need. Also with testing, I wanted the wood to be quite thin so that it did not take the light from the unthreaded ribbon. As the ribbon is quite delicate and light, I did not want a massive wooden structure to attract from this. With regarding my problems with the structure, I explored creating the structure from metal. However, with the metal, it was not fundable and I did not have the time to have them made. This will teach me to keep a closer look on how I need to balance my time.

After all this, I found that the development part of this unit is important because it makes you have an understanding in how you work as an artist. I developed myself into knowing that my practice is all about transformation of everyday materials.

Research

Research

Unit x

Research

Within this project, I have widened my research resources to look closer to what I am as an individual artist. I am an artist, which uses many experiments to create pieces. I have undertaken research and identified artists, who work within the same manner as me, such as Robert Morris. My research entailed looking for everyday materials and look to see how other artists use space and sculptures to finalise their own artwork.

Evidence from research proves much more, however the research is only used to create an influence to my project, as I do not want to imitate other artists.  This is because I like to use my own innovative to create ideas for my project. During the research, I investigated towards how to manipulate materials and look for inspiration. Some of the research I identified relates to the materials I used.

Materials is the key concept towards my research, because I always use the everyday material and manipulate the materials in many challenging ways. Throughout the research for this project, I discovered that my practice is all about construction and deconstruction of the transformation of everyday materials. My aim for this project is to create a sculpture, which captures the statement of transformation. The topic of transformation research, took detail of my surrounding areas because everyday life influences my practice.

When I was researching about different contexts towards my work, I discovered that most of the contexts comes from what influences me, which elaborates meaning towards my work. Investigating about my surroundings in this project, allowed me to find some interesting facts about the Manchester School of Art. I took influence from the building to choose the colour grey for my sculpture, because I wanted to give back to the art school. With my deconstruction piece, I found that the reason why the school of arts chose concrete as the raw concept for the building is to create the sense of a factory. The concrete is treated with different surface finishes. Taking more consideration about how the building is set and why the concrete is so raw. I found evidence that rough is used in the back stairwells giving a sense of rawness and factory aesthetic.

This evidence gives my work a concept of why I have chosen to keep my sculpture to a simplistic look with the grey matching the concreate. Researching and developing my practice has given me focus towards my practice.

When I was doing the exhibition for the textiles in process I had a understand how to use scale and space with my work. I researched many different artists, which use space to influence their work, however using and developing my work in a space seemed more complicated than what I thought. I had to research and get an understanding of how I wanted my art piece to look in the space. When I first pitched for the space, I had some hard decisions to make because I was not allowed to pin into the concrete. I had to do some research into how I could still create my piece without upsetting the surroundings.  I took more detail in to shapes and spaces in which I could create my own standing sculpture. I researched and found that some artists were using many geometric shapes, though I wanted my piece to stay minimalistic. I chose to keep a simple shape because of the process I was using with the unthreaded ribbon. With my chosen space, I was happy with the outcome of my piece for the textiles in process exhibition, as the colours I had chosen stood out and creates the statement. With doing the research of the building, it helped me as an artist to understand how to relate back to my work.