Ffion Haf Evans - Textiles In Practice

Ffion Haf Evans. Final Year Textiles in Practice Student at Manchester School of Art. Specialising in Embroidery. Second & Third Year Blog.

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Fabric & Colour Choices

When looking at fabrics for this project I wanted a choice that would mirror the ‘rough’ conditions that the homeless endure every day and night. Initially I decided to buy a selection of natural and synthetic fabrics that I perceived as ‘rough’ or ‘raw’. For the natural fabrics I bought two different types of Hessian; Jute (shown below). and Tarpaulin Hessian, both of these are very rough materials to the touch. For the synthetic fabrics I bought a selection of PU, Tarpaulin, Spacing Fabric (a mesh fabric often used in backpacks) and (...insert other fabric...) (seen in second image below). I chose the synthetic fabrics due to their durability or use within outdoor items. 

After doing some small hand samples using the range of fabrics I bought, both synthetic and natural. Although I do the aesthetic aspect of the natural fabric samples, I have decided to create the rest of my samples using the selection of synthetic materials I bought (shown in the image below). I have chosen to do so because I believe these will work with the content of this project, along with the reasons mentioned above for selecting the fabrics, the aesthetic of some of the fabrics resemble architectural structures (the ‘Spacing Fabric’ in particular). Therefore further representing the city landscape as the background. 

From Top to Bottom: White Tarpaulin, Grey PU, Black Spacing Fabric, (...insert fabric name...), Black Tarpaulin. 

As this project is data based rather than visually inspired, I have been struggling with what colours to use within the project. When I began this project I knew I wanted to use strong colours to represent the different events relating to homelessness in Manchester. The struggle of rough sleepers on the streets is often hidden or ignored, which is appalling. Through using bright or strong colours I will be highlighting this as the main issue. To contrast the strong colours used in the threads and fabrics (representing the different events) I want to use blacks, greys and whites in the background of the samples. This will also tie in with the grey landscape of the city; the background to all these events.

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How Western Corporations and Consumers Exploit Garment Workers in Countries With a Focus on Bangladesh

Over the holidays I have been mainly focusing on my essay as the deadline for this is January 15th. In a similar way to my practical work I wanted to explore issues within the textile industry that are often ignored by the wider public. I decided to focus on the issues and mistreatment of garment workers with a focus on Bangladesh in particular due to its high number of fatal accidents in recent years. There are almost four million garment workers in Bangladesh, working in 4,825 garment factories across the country producing goods for global export mainly Europe and North America. The garment industry generates 80% of the country total export revenue; they are the backbone of the economy yet there are still not sufficient health and safety regulations to keep the workers safe. Bangladesh has had what are considered to be the two worst garment factory accidents to happen in recent times, within months of each other; Tazreen Fashions Factory and Rana Plaza Complex. In the essay I have been looking at these two incidents as case studies. Along with looking at two case studies and the deadly consequences of the two accidents. I have been looking at the wider issues and mistreatment of workers within the garment industry. These include; ridiculously long working conditions with general bad working conditions, health and safety issues, low pay, sexism and both physical and mental abuse towards women, repression of unions and right to organise. 

‘No one should die for fashion’. An image of Bangladeshi activists along with relatives of Rana Plaza victims marking the first anniversary of the disaster, taken from The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/24/bangladesh-garment-workers-rights-rana-plaza-disaster)

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Gawthorpe Trip & Brief

For my live brief I have been looking at the Gawthorpe brief as an option, because in contrast to the work I am creating or planning to for my personal brief, it will be very visually inspired. Yesterday we went to Gawthorpe Hall to look at the textile pieces in the extensive archive stored there. There were a lot of interesting pieces and it was inspiring to see the range of historical textile pieces. There were several pieces I had a particular interest in, including; a small hand stitched sample that had discoloured on front, leaving the thread colourless whereas the back of the piece revealed the original deep purple thread.

I was also particularly interested in the vast variety of patchwork and quilting samples. I have always been interested in patchwork and quilting in textiles, and have been exploring in my work throughout my time on the course. After seeing the examples of both patchwork and quilting at Gawthorpe Hall, my interest has been reignited. I would like to incorporate either patchwork or quilting into the theme I am already exploring with my own personal project. 

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Audience

Since beginning Textiles in Practice I have been encouraged to explore who my work is aimed towards. Although I have experimented with both the idea of interiors and fashion I have come to the realisation that neither interest me in relation to my own work. I have often felt pushed into either of the two categories; fashion or interiors, but as I have progressed through the course I have realised that I do not need to conform to the norm. Whilst creating more recent work I have worried less about the aesthetic and finished product that I am creating, and concentrated on the meaning behind the work. My aim is to create work that starts a conversation between people or makes an individual think into a subject further. When thinking at where my work would be displayed I believe this could either be within a gallery setting, public space or even as protest art i.e. craftivism. When deciding the subject matter for this project the audience I was aiming for was a big factor in the decision making. I wanted to bring attention to a problem or issue through the work I planned to create that I believed to be significant to the public as a whole. Which is the reason for me choosing to look at the issue of homelessness and rough sleeping in Manchester, and in particular the actions of the council and other organisations, including Manchester Metropolitan University, against those in need. 

An image of homeless rough sleepers protesting in Albert Square, Manchester. (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/incoming/homeless-camp-protesters-set-challenge-9097793)

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Review Presentation

Last Thursday we had a presentation to review our work in front of a group of our peers and three tutors. In the presentation I got a lot of feedback on what I had done so far and advice on how to move forward. The main piece of advice I got from both tutors and peers was that although the infographic style images I had already created on photoshop were effective, I needed to move away from the written sections and make the images more abstract for them to be moved forward into stitch. I did receive positive feedback on the use of colour coding for different events and advised to use this to move forward by fellow students and the tutors. After the session I went back to photoshop and began playing with removing the written sections without taking away the essential information that I wanted to highlight through my work. Below is an image I created with this aim.

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Infographics

I have begun exploring my subject matter; the issue of homelessness and rough sleeping in Manchester, by using informative timelines. I decided to move onto creating these timelines through photoshop after previously creating hand-made ones on paper. I made this decision because I personally did not feel happy with the initial drawings I created as I was relying on my own writing meaning as I was using pen I would often make obvious mistakes, which in my opinion distracted from the information I was trying to get across. Although photoshop means I am able to edit and re-edit drawings to get a finish piece I am happy with, I did come across other issues. Unfortunately one of these was out of my control, as my version of photoshop seems to have formed a glitch; meaning that instead of a plain background or image background it would create the pattern (shown below). 

However I did manage to make this work in my favour as the image that became stuck on the background was a black and white map of Manchester which then became dismembered by photoshop creating an intriguing but relevant background to my images. Although I managed to make some of the aspects of the Photoshop error to work in my favour, it did slow me down as the glitch would often also cause areas of a shape or words to disappear into the background. This made the task very time-consuming as paired with my lack of experience on photoshop since leaving school it made what should have been a simple task take a lot longer than needed. However I am happy with the finished pieces I have created so far but know that there needs to be more development in order to move forward with the concept. 

Above is one of my finished photoshop images - a timeline of events relating to homelessness and rough sleepers in Manchester since April 2015. 

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‘Information is Beautiful’

During the three tutor crit Kate suggested a book for me to look at to inform my work during the next part of the project; ‘Information is Beautiful’ by David McCandless. The aim of the book is to distill "...the world’s data, information and knowledge into beautiful, interesting and, above all, useful visualizations, infographics and diagrams.”. 

This book has been a turning point for me in terms of my future work, as I have said in previous posts I have been feeling a bit lost since the three tutor crit and not known where I want to take my work next. However since looking through this book I have decided to move my focus towards the data involved in my work. Although I initially thought I would be continuing the work from the previous 4 weeks, I have since realised that I need a new start whilst still focusing within the same subject area. During the summer I was looking at the growing homeless situation, specifically within Manchester, my original aim was to increase awareness of the problem whilst not being intrusive to the personal lives of those involved. Although I decided this would not be appropriate for the last 4 week project due to the context being either fashion or interior based. I believe that using the aesthetic and theory behind the infographics presented in “Information is Beautiful”, returning to this issue for my primary inspiration is the right step in my work. I plan to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness the lack of support available (particularly in Manchester) through data that I will collect through both primary and secondary research, informed by ‘Information is Beautiful’ whilst continuing with my own aesthetic. 

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Three Tutor Crit & Moving Forward

During the 3 tutor crit I think I improved my presentation style, as presentations in front of groups is something I struggle with. Although I was very nervous beforehand I think that during the presentation I delivered calmly and presented my work so that everyone could understand the overall idea behind my work and the processes involved in the sampling during the time limitation given. I think that being able to get through this despite my anxieties will prepare me for after graduation as I plan to continue onto a PGCE course which will involve me giving a lot more presentations in front of the same or bigger sized groups. 

I received different feedback from all the tutors, all with alternatives suggestions on where to take my work next. Although all of them agreed that I should explore a larger scale within my sampling as all of them are around the same size. One of the tutors, Rachel, also suggested looking at ‘The Blackwell Project’ - one of the live briefs, as my next step because she believed this would fit well within the aesthetic of my work. After different directions of advice from the separate tutors I have found myself yet again a bit lost in where I want to take my work next. Therefore my plan for the next week is to explore the different suggestions given to me and to work out what the next step is in my self-initiated project. We have also been given a list of the live briefs this week which I need to look at in more detail and also decide on one which would work best for me and my work. 

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Exploring within Fabric

Since moving into fabric I have created some very aesthetically pleasing samples with the use of hand embroidery on the organza. However I have been struggling with finding an appropriate machine technique to incorporate into my work. I have also been facing the same issue as in my drawings of being able to find a medium ground between my samples being abstract and representative of the context. In the group tutorial this week Amelia, one of the other students in the group, suggested experimenting with the new heat transfer in the A4 & more store, in order to transfer the name places that I had been using in my latest drawings. Although the finished affect on the fabric worked in the samples unfortunately the problem I came across with the heat transfer was that only synthetic fabrics worked and the organza I had previously been using was natural. I experimented with a few different synthetic fabrics with similar properties to the organza but unfortunately none of them had the same overall finish as the natural organza. With more time I would ideally continue experimenting with different synthetic fabrics to find one that was similar enough however for now I have decided not to use the heat transfer within my future samples. During the group tutorial Lynn suggested that bringing in the road lines found in my maps would be a good way of creating more of a link between my samples and their content without loosing the anonymity and mystery of the images. In order to find a machine technique that worked best to achieve this I went to see Sue (the embroidery technician) and ask her for advice. Although Sue said the...would be a good option she also mentioned that it may not work with the material I was using and that it can be a bit difficult to control when using cord rather than ribbon. She also suggested using the cording foot on the Bernina machines but we both agreed that it would be difficult to get the curved lines of the roads using this foot. Sue then suggested a foot that has not been used within the Art School yet; the free-hand cording foot. Although the foot was a little difficult to use at first once I had experimented with it a little I achieved the effect I was hoping for. The curving and winding lines of the roads created with cord worked in contrast with the rigid hand embroidered shapes created by the markings. 

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Moving into Fabric

After the tutorial last Friday I decided that I first needed to find myself a more relevant and definite colour scheme to work with. As my only visual reference point for my drawings was maps I decided to use this as a starting point for finding my colour scheme. Initially I used the picker tool on photoshop to use original colours from the maps I have been using however as they were all primary colours I found these to be a bit too boring for my work. I then decided to manipulate the colours  on the map using photoshop and pick colours from the distorted colours. Using this technique I created 5 different colour samples along with the original unchanged colours of the map. I then cut this down to 3 which I would like to use within my work, and began exploring with these colours in my drawings.

After exploring my colour scheme further I moved back to attempting to find the in-between of representative and abstract within my drawings but unfortunately found myself a bit lost. In my drawings I have moved away from using cartridge paper as a media and began exploring tracing paper as I like the translucency of it as a base. Although these drawings are still very similar to my original abstract drawings I have been using labelling to give more content and background to the drawings. As I have been slightly stuck with my drawings I have decided that now is the best time to move into fabric and start exploring within a completely new material. As I want to imitate the aesthetic of the most recent drawings using tracing paper I decided to use organza as my base material, this gives the same translucency as the tracing paper but is also more rigid than some other fabric options that I looked into. For now my plan is to begin exploring and ‘playing’ with my fabric samples using mainly hand stitch as I am unsure of what I wish the final outcome to be at this time. 

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Group Tutorial

In our first group tutorial I had a chance to reflect on my work so far and also have an insight into other students work within my group. After meeting with Lynn in my individual tutorial last week I decided to continue exploring my drawings and develop them further before moving onto fabric based samples. In my feedback Lynn said that I needed to explore more representational drawings as well as the already abstract drawings I had created. I have been struggling with this all week as personally I was aiming to create anonymity in the drawings and mystery. However I began exploring the use of collaged maps as a media within my drawings. Although I was happy with several of these drawings, many of them did not create the final effect that I was searching for within my work. 

In the group the other students said they liked the initial abstract drawings with the use of thread on cartridge paper and the anonymity created by taking away the preconceived idea of a map. Although they liked some of the more recent representational drawings they preferred the aesthetic of the more abstract drawings. Lynn also agreed that some of these drawings had become too representative, and advised I try to find an in-between ground between the initial abstract drawings and the most recent representative drawings. It was also agreed that my colour scheme was a bit lost and this was something that I needed to work on to try and find a colour scheme that had more links with my content. 

In the next week I plan to explore my drawings more finding an in-between to the two drawing methods I have attempted. I also plan to explore a more relevant colour scheme, as currently I was just using colours that were available to me and was not considering how they connected to the content of my drawings.

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Individual Tutorial

Over the summer I began by researching into the homeless crisis in Manchester, from living in Manchester at a young age to moving back for university I have seen the issue of homelessness on Manchester’s streets increase. In recent years it has become increasingly obvious that the council is not doing enough for those in this vulnerable position. During the past few months the council has not only been failing those in need but has been making life more difficult using harassment tactics. Although I wanted to bring awareness to this issue and the people that are affected; I decided that I did not want to be intrusive with my work. I decided to map out locations of homeless camps that have appeared during the last few months along with individual homeless that I have seen around the city. As I developed my drawings they became more abstract taking away the preconception of a map and simply using the markings to create abstract shapes and lines. In these initial drawings I began to explore using thread to create texture in the drawings but continued to work on cartridge paper. 

Once starting the Bradford Textiles Society Brief I decided although I wanted to continue with the aesthetic of my summer work; the political agenda of the work would not be appreciated within the brief as it was within the context of fashion or interiors which I did not believe to be appropriate for the content of the work. Therefore I decided to take the aesthetic direction of my work but concentrate on more personal data. Using life events and personal memories such as; family homes, university options, education etc, I have begun mapping in a similar way to my summer project. During the next week I plan to explore my drawings further and see where I can take them. 

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Key Blog Post Three

We met on Monday as a group to finalise our plans for the workshop at DACA and to ensure we were fully prepared. This involved physical preparation such as filling cars up with the resources and mental preparation such as going through the days tasks to ensure everyone knew their role throughout.

Tuesday morning was a very early and tiring start for all, those catching the train had to be at Victoria Station for 6.55am and I was meeting Celine in Fallowfield at 6.45am to get a lift with her. We arrived at the school by 7.30am and began unpacking the equipment and resources from the cars. Once all the equipment and resources were unpacked we then began setting up the classroom. Unfortunately Hazel missed the train and had both the handouts and powerpoint. Luckily we avoided complete disaster as we had an older version of the powerpoint as a back-up. 

Overall I believe our workshop at DACA was successful as the students enjoyed themselves and were given an insight into art & design at university level however it has taught me several different lessons about all aspects of workshop planning and working collaboratively in such a large group.

Firstly I believe that for the subject we had chosen we selected the wrong age group; personally I believe within the school we were at a younger age group would have been more open to experimentation and therefore the subject we had chosen. At DACA the students are taught that art must be done a certain way and that is the only way, as the students we selected were Yr9 they had already experienced almost 3years of being taught this way therefore they found it difficult to adjust to our way of working. Younger students such as Yr7 are still very free and open to experimentation within their work. During the mini evaluation the students gave feedback such as “mark making is too messy” “I like to have control over my work”.

We also came across some problems during the task after break that I was leading. In this task the students were put back into pairs and then given two words (one verb and an adjective) and asked to use these two words to attach mark-makers to themselves. Although initially I had suggested using key words to encourage the students I had not been involved in the planning of this task. My initial idea was for the key words to be used as a fall back if the students were weary or unsure of what to do with their mark makers. I believe this could have been successfully made into a main task however there were several reasons I believe this task wasn't as successful as it could have been. Firstly the words used were not appropriate for either the task or the age group of the students, words such as; ‘enlightenment’. Secondly originally I had thought the key words could have been used to encourage mark making but within this task it had been decided to use them to inspire the attaching of the mark-makers to the bodysuits; to me this did not work well. Unfortunately the selection of words and asking the students to react by attaching the mark-makers just further confused them. However as a group we went round and helped each pair to understand the words further or to swap the words for more comprehendible words and giving them ideas on what/how to attach to their boiler suits.

I believe that a lot of these issues were due to working within such a large group; it was difficult to communicate to everyone in the group and for everyone to agree when making decisions. However as a whole I believe the day was successful with the students experimenting increasingly throughout the day.

Through this placement and unit I have been reminded of a topic that I am quite passionate about; the way art is taught within secondary education. I almost did not pursue a creative subject because of this way of teaching; I disliked art classes from Year7-9 and chose not to do them as a GCSE. It was only through my passion for textiles passed on by my grandmother that I continued to explore my creativity. Art is a way of expressing yourself and this is different for everybody; we should not be told what is ‘right’ and ‘wrong’. I think it is shameful that a student has to work their way all the way to university to be told this again. However with the disappointing latest election results we are extremely unlikely to see an improvement in this area and most likely we will endure huge cuts within the arts and more business orientated ‘free schools’ rather than the greatly needed improvement and support within state schools.

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Exhibition Set Up

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a selection of images from throughout our workshop yesterday at DACA.

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Resources I have bought/collected for the workshop at DACA tomorrow.

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Advice

My grandmother is a retired special needs, needlework and home economics teacher so whilst at home I decided to take the chance to ask her advice on our plans and resources for the workshop. My mother also began a degree in teaching which unfortunately due to personal reasons she was not able to complete but I also know she is quite knowledgeable within the area. So on Friday I went to visit my grandmother with my mum to go through our workshop plan with them both. They were both very impressed with the ideas but also had lots of tips to give from experience of teaching. My grandmother pointed out that you should never use capitals for an entire word as this makes them harder to process especially for children with dyslexia. When we read words we don’t read every letter; our brain processes it partly by looking at the height of letters so if it is written in capitals this makes it harder for the brain to process. On Wednesday we also discussed having key words around the room for the kids to reference and my gran advised that it is better not to have them on square/rectangular paper but instead cut them into unusual shapes which makes them more noticeable to the children and a lot easier for children with learning difficulties to take in. She also explained that we should have them on coloured paper for the obvious reason of them being more noticeable but also explained that children with learning difficulties often dislike words on white paper (which Brian Frew had also told us). However she also warned that children with Autism often do not like certain colours and I should research which are the best colours to use. My grandmother had a look at the handout 

and said the layout was good but suggested we have the lists in alphabetical order. I had told the group on Thursday that I would talk to my grandmother and ask advice so I posted all of the advice onto the Facebook page to share with the group. As a whole the group agreed with the tips and advice my grandmother had given and I offered to make any changes. I was not aware that there are in fact no children with learning difficulties so one member of the group disagreed with the advice saying it was pointless. However I think that these tips are useful within all children and that it benefits us as a group if we do consider these things, which the majority of the group agreed with me on. That evening I also asked my brother to go through the plans with me as he is closer to the age of the children (15) and could give advise from their point of view. He really liked the idea behind the workshop and thought our plan for the day was good. He said that the activities sounded fun and that he would’ve loved to have a similar workshop when he was in Year9 art. He also agreed with several points my grandmother had made such as putting lists in alphabetical order and said that he preferred this. I gave this feedback to the group through the Facebook group. Unfortunately the group decided to meet again on Friday which as I was in Wales I could obviously not make. I was a bit disappointed to not have been informed of this and to find out afterwards however hopefully I will be able to catch up on anything discussed or changed when we meet as a group on Monday.