William Morris and the Muslims

Reading through my lecture notes for next week I was very taken by this article and documentary on William Morris and the Muslims. 

On entering a Persian rug shop for the first time Morris notes, "it was vermillion, gold and ultramarine...it is just like going into the Arabian Nights".

Morris' disappointment with contemporary design led to his looking for inspiration through other crafts and cultures...the revival and preservation of traditional crafts was important and now, in London, we have the Princes School of Traditional Art teaching you crafts of the old guild system with the belief that you are not only training your craft but are nurturing your inner soul...

I like these ideas and have been thinking an awful lot about Islamic design since my visit to Portgual when I was introduced to Moorish architecture. I have also found that my time over the summer thinking about design and making has been loaded with an interest in this area. I am hoping that this is something I am able to explore in the coming weeks/months as and when projects arise on the course. 

image taken from: http://www.corearchitect.co.uk/beautiful-moorish-architecture/

 

Grand Designs and Upcycling

There was an amazing Grand Designs on last night,

Artists Freddie Robins and Ben Coode-Adams left their modest urban flat to convert a huge Grade II-listed timber-framed barn in Essex into a live/work space for themselves and their daughter Willa.
The whole design is based around creating a massive free-form contemporary space with very few walls, to display their ever expanding collection of toys and ephemera.
But at seven times the size of an average three-bedroom house, turning this 500-year-old building into any kind of home is a challenge.
As Freddie and Ben grapple with the scale of this project they begin to question whether their quirky ideas are workable.
For this young family, this conversion will transform their lives, but is there such a thing as too much space? And can a cavernous barn like this ever make a cosy and comfortable home?

I found it very inspiring and would love a project like that one day! The way they salvaged and saved bits of the barn to use as elements of the structure later down the construction was brilliant! A real testament to the ethos of recycle/upcycle. I loved the way Ben was creating new sculptural brackets out of scrap and broken steel piping - artistic and beautiful, loved it! Old tea chest panels for doors, crates for shelves, shop display units for housing all their oddments - a museum-like home - really great!!! And to have a great big studio space to play in at the end of it...dream home if ever there was one!!! Whilst thinking about it I was reminded of this website that sells a lot of the things that were salvaged (but with a much heftier price tag!)

Finishing the Summer Project

My last two weeks of the project! 

Baking a carrot cake for Raphael

My last day working for Raphael!

Visiting the Harley Gallery for the AMAZING Precious exhibition

Visiting Sheffield for Dave's birthday

Using our Groupon voucher for a beautiful meal at Chennai

Making a dress from a charity bedcover!

Inspired by my peacock bedroom

redesigning Paty's flyer

A surprise letter from my mum!

Some lovely Mail Art!

Lavender and tomatoes

Orchid popping into flower!

At the time of uploading I have now started uni (woopee!!) I'm giving myself a week's break on the sketchbook and enjoying all things enrollment, new faces and induction! The course starts for 'real' on Monday October 3rd, so I aim to continue with the sketchbook then until it is full! Then hopefully, after a workshop in book binding, I can have a go at making my own!!!

Sketchbook update

I've been working on my sketchbook...pasting lots and lots of paper!

maps and stamps and all things global ephemera!

visiting the NEC with Claire

looking at beautiful 1950s fabric in this amazing book!

stopping for coffee at the little deli

playing on Photoshop to create a flyer for my friend Paty

keeping it Bedouin and dressing a room!

musing over summer gallery visits

visiting Derby, for more exhibitions!

Wordle

I've been learning quite a lot from Mike whilst he's been doing his PHD. He introduced me to Wordle the other day which is an online toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text, so it's very good for using with essays. As well as providing bodies of text, you can also input the url from a blog. So, I typed in this one and out came this: 

It all looks fairly equal in word use at the moment, but I'm interested to see how this changes over time. I will try it out every month or so and see what happens. 

Watch this space!

Summer Project/Visual Diary

For the next three weeks I will be creating a page a day in my sketchbook to record observations; events; ideas and conversations through a variety of media including, drawing collage; writing; painting, and photographs.

I thought I'd start with a look back over my summer, so I began with my experiences in Portugal...

Woodhall Spa & National Centre for Craft and Design, Sleaford

Mike and I had a Groupon deal for a hotel break in Woodhall Spa.

We stayed here, at The Golf Hotel, which was undergoing some renovation but it was absolutely lovely and with a free bottle of wine, three course dinner and money off spa treatments, it was the perfect way to end our summer!

We were travelling by public transport so first had to take the train to Sleaford. There was then an hour or two before our connecting bus so we had a little wander and stumbled across an amazing exhibition at The Hub, National Centre for Craft and Design. I had signed up to the conference 'On The Brink Of Change' at The Hub back in June. It was sadly cancelled however and I'd totally forgotten that this exhibition was on. So, it was a great surprise when I realised it was, and a triple whammy too! In the main gallery was the exhibition About Time by Claire Morgan.

have look at this video of her talking about her work:

About Time - Sculpture by Claire Morgan (PREVIEW CLIP) from Electric Egg on Vimeo.

The Roof Gallery was showing work of the Class of 2011 - a showcase of work by recent art graduates. And in the window gallery was an interesting installation by artist Stacey Brafield.

Using the the classic 1945 film, Brief Encounter on VHS, Brafield will take inspiration from its linear aesthetic and the emotions portrayed on screen, before removing the tape from its plastic case and using it to create new imagery on the gallery walls. Any leftover tape will be made into a new version of the film, to be shown alongside the installation. In this way, the viewer is encouraged to contemplate what is missing from both elements of the work, the changing use of materials, and the ways in which these uses mirror each other. As one picture is lost, another will take its place.

This was exactly the sort of show I needed to stumble upon after receiving details of my summer project! Very inspirational indeed!

After leaving Sleaford we had an hour long bus journey through the villages of Lincolnshire. This was quite nice really as I grew up in that area and because my mum and dad don't live there anymore and was a nice to chance to reconnect with 'home'. Once settled in we took a wander about the town. I had been to Woodhall Spa before but only briefly years ago to visit my friend, the artist, Siobhan Barr. It's a quaint little town and nice to have a wander in

There was this amazing deli on the highstreet

where we bought these delicious cakes! That's a Rum slice on the left and a MASSIVE chelsea bun on the right (the icing was not sickly but prefectly sweet!)

we then came across this sign...

so followed it through some woods

and with a little help from some way marking friends

we

found

The Kinema In The Woods!

with its old style ticket booth

delightful foyer

and film making exhibition

It has been operating as a cinema since 1922! It is a real 'experience' and well worth a visit if you're ever in the area. It's just like 'what cinema used to be', friendly, engaging and beaming with charm...a far cry from the experience you get with the faceless modern cinema these days!

We went to see One Day which was a great little film

then we went home