#project synopsis

My journey with my major project has not been an easy one, my first project ‘Where I Stand’ went slightly downhill, I felt I had no interest in that project anymore and I didn’t feel that I could take it further. But after some tutorials with my tutor after the Christmas break I decided to change my project entirely, my new project was going to be based around landscape photography as this is a much stronger area for me. Now that I had the bases of my new project I had to quickly come up with some ideas and start looking at locations I could visit to shoot. After much research into various locations, I did look at going to Europe but with my limited time frame I stuck to areas in the UK. I looked at various location from Scotland to Cornwall but I finally settled on the Lake District, so I did my research into the lakes pin pointing all the areas I thought would be good spots for shooting and I booked my tickets and went.

I must admit that even while I was at the lake district taking my photographs I still didn’t have a clear understanding of what my main concept was, I was more focused on getting the photographs done and then I could come up with an idea based on how my photographs looked. I didn’t know where this project would take me after actually taking the photographs, I did all this planning and traveling but I still had no idea what the message or meaning behind the work would be. I brainstormed a few ideas of what I thought my project could be based around such as: my love and adoration for nature, it could show how nature and the beautiful green lands can still strive in ever changing urban country, it could have been about environment, seasons even the colors of nature; All of these would be a good reason behind my project but as my photos developed and after my own experience of the lake district I came across the idea of how simple places such as the lakes can and have inspired people through words or art such as Williams Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter. Going to the Lake District in person, wandering the hills and rivers it’s no surprise to see how anyone can be inspired by its beauty.

Project Synopsis

‘Postcards from Japan’ explores the relationship between textiles, fashion and the photographic image, primarily focusing on its usage within printed textile design. With a background in Photography for Fashion my main aim for undertaking an MA in Textile Design Innovation was to learn, develop and understand the use of traditional and digital textile processes and technologies that would compliment my photographic knowledge, and  to produce a collection of work that studied the connection between the different disciplines.

Being awarded a Paul Smith Scholarship was an amazing opportunity for me to explore a new culture, collect primary imagery and to start a new textile journey that moved me away from my previous practice of creating kaleidoscopic imagery, and move towards being able to appreciate photographs as a textile print designs in their own right.

During my time in Japan I documented my travels and cultural experiences through the medium of analogue photography. Documenting nine rolls of 35mm colour film enabled me to build up my own photographic archive throughout the six-week scholarship, capturing personal memories and experiences.

Although the partnership between digital and analogue processes was a key feature within the overall development of the project from the scanning of the negatives through to the final print designs. I made the conscious decision after returning from Japan to only explore the use of my 35mm analogue images. I felt that my digital photographs were reflective of straight documentary photography, whereas a negatives physical nature was fragile and delicate, and the unintentional light leaks, fogging and distortion throughout the rolls of film created visually stimulating images and reflected the key concept of the project; how over time our minds would manipulate what were once vivid memories, reducing them to vague thoughts; so the process of removing, rebuilding and remembering my memories started.

Removing

 The process of cellulose printing mirrored the uncontrollable aspects of analogue photography. It was a process that never created the same design twice, removing the clarity of the image to produce a blurred print that distorted the memory, creating a nostalgic and visually dream like appearance to the design. With individual print designs being created their preciousness through the medium of analogue film and process of cellulose printing would be retained through limited runs and exclusive designs.

Collating key images together from my analogue photographs and cellulose print designs, I explored the use of discharge and devoré, continuing to distort my designs further. This would reduce them to the vague thoughts they will once become. Through exploring these processes using a screen, it became apparent that I was returning to the rigidity of digital photography and simply by hand painting with these processes I created freer, more imperfect designs that continued to reflect the initial distorted imagery from Japan and my concept of memory.

Rebuilding

From distorting the images to vagueness, I focused on rebuilding the designs with the use of foil, reactive dyes and digital embroidery. However, these traditional and digital processes had their limitations in regards to the use of photographic imagery, often with the subject matter of the photograph determining the overall success of the sample. If there was more time within the MA these traditional screen-printing processes and digital embroidery designs would be the key aspect to experiment with and resolve further, to create a harmonious relationship between the process and the photographic image. Therefore constructing the memory became more about the digital restoration of my experiences, exploring the use of CAD rather than craft.

This led me to start digitally merging my initial photographs together with their cellulose counterparts, choosing fragments of the designs that were most prominent to me, starting me down a path of creating distorted imagery that had a visually familiar aesthetic, yet an unfamiliar presence. Through manipulating, distorting and fragmenting my designs I created delicate, blunt and surreal prints that created an alternative reality and questioned the truth.

Remembering

The remembering aspect of my project was resolved in module three during the realisation of my designs. Establishing that digital print design was my strongest style of handwriting, I used the module to finalise prints produced through the removing and rebuilding stages of my project. With the initial project aim to create lengths of fabric I started to further explore the use of photography within a repeat. However, this experimentation was quickly cut short due to the fact that I was restrained to the squares and rectangular boxes of a photographic frame, I could not escape the boxy repeat due to the nature of the unsymmetrical images, and so my creativity was channeled into producing an alternative output for large scale designs, with the first resolved pieces being seven scarves, created from habotai and chiffon. This continued to reflect the delicate and fragile nature of memories through all aspects of my project.  

The second resolved collection that would compliment the scarf designs was the designing and production of two minimal seam dresses. Coming from a non-fashion background I found the alternative garment construction method inspiring from David Telfer’s workshop. It pushed me to think further than a 2D print and explore my designs within 3D. By combining print design projections, CAD and the use of maquettes I created a dress that continued to replicate the distortion theme, where the print would not match at the seams. In contrast the second dress was engineered enabling the print to match perfectly across the seams responding to the initial wholeness of a photograph and therefore a memory.

Although the visual outcomes of the dresses were stunning, choosing a minimal seam pattern was not without its difficulties. Fabric shrinkage was calculated for when the designs were digitally printed, yet on both dresses the print did not match with the pattern, and so compromising on the seams was something that needed to be considered to ensure all of the design looked in proportion. Through creating these two minimal seam garments it has proven to me that although technology can produce perfect results using CAD and miniature 3D maquettes as soon as this is transferred from 2D to 3D, at a larger scale there are a variety of different factors that need to be taken into consideration to ensure that the initial design is reflected in the end product. 

‘Postcards from Japan’ has been an explorative and creative project that has directed me to different areas of textiles I didn’t initially think that I would experiment with or develop my work towards. It is through photographing my scarves using 35mm analogue film and taking them out of their original context, that I have realised the true extent of the relationship between photography, fashion and textiles within my project. By creating new photographs with light leaks and fogging reflective of my initial imagery I have produced new photographs that in their own right could be print designs. It has become apparent that through photographing and re-photographing, my project has become about the process of photography in all aspects of design.

I began by choosing fonts that were bold but still contained varying line weight and curved lines. Both Didot and Onyx are fonts that I found to work extremely well. My initial letterform studies are extremely simple and are more geometric in nature, while further into the group you begin to find a lot more fluid lines and shapes. These two different looks is part of the reason I chose my final two, they each represent one of these aesthetics respectively.

The first study did not change much from it's initial design, only a slight enlarging of the letterform and touch-ups within Illustrator to ensure the lines were straight. The reason this design worked so well was the  proximity of the white squares and the sense of depth that is created by having the smaller squares above the larger ones. In contrast, the second study has changed significantly since its beginning stages. Initially, the letterform was parallel with the edge of canvas, by rotating the letterform it doesn't automatically register as being in the foreground. This created the tension that the study had been lacking, though the white space still wasn't dominant enough. I decided to try to redistribute the white space to create different shapes, which is why I ended up moving the letterform off the right side of the canvas instead. This made both of the white shapes large enough and close enough to fit within the Gestalt Principle of closure. Both studies are very different as to how they look and why they work, which allowed me to explore the project's many different solutions more thoroughly.