Amazing Wearable Art From AS Textiles Student.

Moving forward to cropping and playing around with compositional decision making next. I am drawn to a square format and trying to maintain the expressive, gestural marks when deciding what works as a balanced piece.

 I may add further detail, maybe stitch or I might paint out detail and simplify the image. This is the fun part but something I am challenged by as really my default setting is the playful, experimental stage where I can be free and can work loosely enjoying the edges of one colour next to another and delight in the subtlety of a mark or appreciate the layering of a broad brush stroke next to a lightweight spontaneous drip or dribble. Endless possibilities that I do not want to end.

Macrame madness. A2 exam outcome. Photos with technical support from Dave Merritt. Thanks x

So happy to be back in the Textiles zone, working with new Art Foundation students creating shadow paintings to develop into print and stitch this week.

It’s always exciting to start the new term in September but so necessary after such along period away from creative Strode sessions. I have really missed working with our incredible Art students. Welcome back to you all. 

These paintings will be used to explore screen printing, heat transfer printing and surface designs with stitch for the 3 week workshop sessions in textiles.

A great start!

#lovemyjob #creativetextiles #printandstitch #letsbeatthevirus #creative #backinthezone

Exciting A level work, developing samples from observational studies of fruit. Fab colour palette and adventurous textiles techniques explored : )

Plastic fantastic! Crazy, melted, recycled plastics embellished to eye-popping brilliance by FAD student. Love ‘em!

Congratulations Jessie Goad!

Jessie’s fashion collection explored the theme of ‘journeys’ and focused on favourite places, memories attached and evoked by walking in the locality. Maps were of particular interest and her digital prints were applied to garment construction to great effect.

We were fortunate to invite fashion graduate, Clancy Dawson, into college to run masterclasses with the Textiles students with a particular emphasis on quality finish when making garments. Clancy studied at Glasgow School of Art and has worked on Saville Row as a trouser tailor so her skills were invaluable. Jessie worked closely with Clancy and repurposed an original 1980′s trouser pattern and made it her own, cut from her bespoke fabric these were really successful and unique.

Jessie plans to continue developing her own brand and selling her fashion online. We wish her all the very best with her business plan.

MAKE MORE NOISE

Processions June 2018

We have had the most amazing time working on this beauty!

Dorcas Casey, (who is an ex-Strode, Art team member of staff and also an ex-student) but now creates the most incredible sculpture and works from her studio in Bristol, amongst lots of other exciting ‘side-hustle’ projects such as this one. @beastsoftheuncanny

In collaboration with Somerset Art Works (SAW) partners and funded by the Arts Council, the banner project is a nationally co-ordinated, mass community artwork, initially designed by Artichoke as part of the centenary celebrations, promoting the importance of the female vote in 1918. 100 banners were created up and down the country.

Our banner was lovingly made by students, staff and also members of the community. We took our banner to London as part of the Processions celebrations in June and marched around the city, in the heat with thousands of other women. It was exhilarating and so great to be part of something so important to our heritage as women and also to celebrate what the Suffragettes and other women’s groups fought for so we could begin to build amore equal society.

Our banner received lots of praise, we were singled out across the press and made several headlines in the daily papers and on social media. Radio 6 Music singled us out and Dorcas was interviewed by Lauren Laverne, live on BBC radio, broadcast to millions.

A day to remember for ever and so great to be such a key part of this event. Our banner will also be on tour and exhibited around the UK with the 100 banners, it will be part of a publication and also included in a planned International Textiles Biennale in Lancashire in 2020.

Developing abstracted compositions, cropping and enlarging to explore sections for repetition and textile designs for garments. The loose, expressive marks and gestural brushwork retain the spontaneity of the original line and translate an urban, edgy print as a theme of unisex wear.

Getting my colour mixing mojo on. Painting outdoors in the Spring sunshine feeling inspired by the fresh colours around me in the garden and from walks in the surrounding fields, lanes and woodland.I had forgotten how much I love this!

In the late 1980′s and early 1990′s after graduating, I worked freelance as a textiles designer and also travelled to South America after winning a travel bursary award in a design competition. I was inspired by the pre-Hispanic, ancient textiles of Peru, where the Incas and other ancient civilisations used natural dyes to create their woven cloth. I travelled through Peru, Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina and down to the very south of Chile and had the best time. I researched natural dyes, spending time of the beaten track, living with indigenous people and learning from them. We picked roots by moonlight and gathered plants on specific dates linked to the Inca calendar, there was lots of superstition surrounding the dyeing process but also much wisdom and understanding of the life cycle of each plant and when it would give the best sources of colour.

On my return, I spent most of my time mixing colours from gouache and saving the match pots in 35mm film canisters as sample colours. This was pre-digital when everything was hand painted and drawn out in detail for selling to design companies. I had forgotten my love of colour matching and mixing and remembered my workshop space had literally hundreds of these hand mixed colour swatches lining the shelves for reference when recreating new colour palettes.

Thes images show my process of stretching fabric, priming, layering colours over a series of days with time between to ponder what colours to mix and add for balance, harmony and also composition. Enjoying myself!

2017. Gabby Costello Art FAD exploring eco-textile printing and natural dyes. About to graduate from Somerset University, Taunton. All the best Gabby! This was your FMP show leaving Strode College in 2017.