Checking In

I cannot wait to have a scanner again - I have so many drawings to share! Things are very busy here at the moment, I'm juggling my degree (which is pretty full-on, considering I've only been there, what, a month?) with working part time - gotta pay the bills! - and being a grown up*.

*here meaning: making awkward phonecalls, paperwork, cleaning, cooking, washing. Remembering what goes where/when is a task and a half, I can tell you! Worth it though.

The Knitting & Stitching Show 2012: Tales of the Unfinishable

Last weekend the Knitting & Stitching show returned to London's Alexandra Palace. As knitting and textile enthusiasts, Harriet and I went along. It was £15 to get in - which is pretty standard, but we were lucky enough to bump into a lady with a spare complimentary ticket on our way in, so we didn't have to pay full price! 
One of my favourite parts of the show was in the foyer, before you even got into the exhibition halls - Tales Of The Unfinishable, a fabulous collection of unfinished and abandoned projects had been displayed to create a large textile tent, lined with patchwork curtains. You could go inside and read the stories behind all of the projects featured.

This is one of my favourites - I love all the colours.

The pole holding up the centre of the tent was covered with haberdashery essentials, all sprayed gold, and a little speaker that played the sound of a sewing machine gave the tent atmosphere.

Something I really loved about this part of the show, was the emphasis on imperfection and experimentation. I tend to get caught up in following patterns and perfect stitches, particularly when knitting, so it was really refreshing to see things that perhaps otherwise, would've been discarded or forgotten.

In The Print Room

One of the things I've been looking forward to most about art school is printmaking - I didn't have access to printmaking facilities at A Level or at Foundation and it's something I've always wanted to try. We had a short introductory print project last week, where we were given the title Failure To Communicate and three days to come up with a print or a series of prints, that reflected this idea.

I've only ever done lino printing and mono printing before, and we were given the opportunity to try screen printing, etching or collagraph. My idea involved a lot of detailed line work, so I chose etching, as I believed this was the most suitable process.

Here's a little peek of some of my early prints - I'm really pleased with how they turned out. I'm going to share more details about my idea and images of my final prints as soon as I have access to a working scanner!

Julia Pott

The Event from Julia Pott on Vimeo.

Julia Pott's new short is amazing. She's an alumni from my degree course and the tutors talk about how brilliant her work ethic was, all the time. It's really inspiring.

Pretty Inspirational: Aubrey Beardsley

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We had our first CHS lecture this week, it was mainly outlining what we're going to be looking at over the next few weeks, but some of the Aubrey Beardsley images caught my eye. I think I'm going to enjoy Critical Historical Studies.

Pretty Inspirational: Bob Dylan

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My dad is a lifelong Bob Dylan fan, his passion for Dylan is rivalled by nothing else in his life. I am a very, well I call it passionate, others tend to prefer obsessive, person and it's comforting to see where I get this from. There's a stack of scrapbooks in our loft full of pictures and newspaper cuttings of Bob, pasted in from years passed, and frames full of concert tickets showing the adventure he had, following Bob around Europe on every night of a tour. 

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By contrast, some of my early memories are of my parents having friends over, having a fair amount of wine and putting on Dylan records, waking a bleary-eyed five year old Amy in her bedroom upstairs. It took another ten years for me to start to appreciate his music.

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I was lucky enough to see him play the Hop Farm Music Festival in 2010, and while according to my dad, not his best performance by a long way, it was still an experience.

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He has a fabulous new album out called Tempest. You should give it a listen, the title track is my favourite - a thirteen minute epic, beautiful.

I did some drawings of Bob back when I was putting together my portfolio, you can see a few here.

cross posted to Happy Daisy.

Events: KAOS Autumn Exhibition

I picked up this leaflet in the art shop in Kingston yesterday - where I was spending more money on things I don't really need but couldn't resist, in this case, moleskines. It's an exhibition put on by members of Kingston Artists' Open Studios (KAOS) at the end of the month, in Market House, in the town centre. As a 'maker' myself, I will definitely be attending - lured in by words such as 'Potters' 'Illustrators' and 'Photographers'.