Editorial

The Kimono from my graduate collection was featured in an online editorial this week. Hope street magazine is a Glasgow based fashion and lifestyle magazine that thinks outside of the box. Much of their content breaks the convention of a fashion magazine, this is a magazine that is following it’s own rules.

The photoshoot was styled by Kristen Nellie and she was kind enough to send me a few more shots that didn’t make the cut. Kristen also graduated from DJCAD with a degree in textiles. Her specialism was knit and alongside her work at Hope street she also runs a knitwear brand called DIZY. It is definitely worth a look, she knits stunning scarves and skirts with quality yarns.

Digital sketching

After quite a while of being totally stuck I decided to mess around on photoshop to try and give myself some kind of direction. I have not done very much in the way of digital printing before. I decided to work in a kind of collage way, as if I was doing work in my sketchbook, to get started. The images I produced are by no means final design work, no where near it! But I feel that I have at least moved my ideas into a new direction, which hopefully will move me towards being unstuck.

I used scans of my sketchbook as well as photographs I had taken in the aquaria I visited earlier in the year. This was also an exercise to see what I could do with my drawings and photos. Experimenting with different ways of manipulating the images.

An introduction to Lophelia

I love Scotland, I have always spent a great deal of time visiting various islands, hills, beaches, woodlands, and national parks and nothing really compares. As far as I am concerned Scotland is the most beautiful country on earth. This beauty is something that I think needs to be preserved for future generations. But because of pollution, deforestation, farming and fishing our countryside and seas are under threat. Conservation work, which helps to preserve land animals and vegetation, is relatively widespread and talked about often, whereas conserving our Scottish seas is not so well known. I want to use the medium of textiles to raise awareness of these hidden threats to our Scottish costal life. Although there is legislation in place to protect these eco systems, it only covers certain species or areas, and it is not enough.

Many people are not aware we have vast coral reefs just off of our coasts. Because they are cold-water corals they can grow with no sunlight in really deep waters. The reefs provide food and shelter for many other creatures on the sea bead and are thought to be breeding grounds as well. These reefs are under huge threat from deep-sea bottom trawling, which is an extremely destructive form of fishing. It used huge, weighted nets, dragging them along the seabed, crushing anything in their path. This form of fishing can destroy entire reefs in seconds, reefs that have taken thousands of years to grow. Destroying these reefs has a trickle down effect, leaving fish, invertebrates and other creatures with no shelter, meaning they find it hard to survive. The loss of these smaller creatures then goes on to threaten the survival of larger ones, and so on. Bottom trawling also poses a threat to may endangered species, which are caught in the net. Scottish waters are unique, and provide habitats to many creatures who can’t survive anywhere else, and it is so important that these species don’t become extinct.

I implore you to sign the petition urging the European parliament to ban bottom trawling in our seas; http://petition.protectourheritage.org/

Coral has been my main focus in terms of conservation until this point but I am now exploring other species facing extinction. I have been visiting various aquariums and also the D’Arcy Thomson museum to draw some corals among other invertebrates. The drawings I have done are not all of Scottish sea life. I have been working in mainly monochrome, looking at making motifs and creating pattern. My next step will be to move in to the print room to see how I can translate this work onto fabric. I am not entirely sure what direction my work with fabric will take but I am looking forward to doing some experimentation with dyes, printing and hopefully bringing in some kind of structural element.

In terms of research I intend to look into propaganda textiles, such as the London square, which was a type of graphic scarf worn by women during world war two, they were a symbol of female emancipation and gave a means or powerful expression to ordinary people.

Why?

People don’t buy what you do; they buy why you do it. And what you do simply proves what you believe. – Simon Sinek

During my time at DJCAD the importance of passion as a driving force for design work has come up rather a lot. People are more likely to buy into a brand that they can see this passion in. For this reason it is important to have a really strong concept for my honours project. Something that resonates with me as as well as providing inspiration.

Following on from how much I enjoyed drawing little sea creatures that live on the ocean floor I decided to do more research into this kind of marine life. I found out that there are actually vast coral reefs deep in Scottish oceans. They are called ‘Lophelia Pertusa’ and can grow with very little sunlight in the deep deep sea. These reefs are the only ones in their family and are far paler in colour than those found in warmer oceans. ‘Lophelia’ corals provide a unique habitat for hundreds of different species of invertebrates, fish, algae, seaweed, and so, some of which are endangered. They are only found in Scottish and Norwegian waters and many of these species would not be able to live anywhere else.

I felt it would be fitting to include a message about preservation in my project, having always been both interested and active in ecological conservation. How exactly I will achieve this is what I will have to work on over the next year.

Aquaria

In order to start producing a body of drawing I visited the aquarium in Loch Lomond. I spent about 5 hours there and it was reall quite tranquil and very enjoyable. I had a fantastic time and managed to fill half a sketch book.

A few weeks later I visited another aquarium, this time in Bristol and had a similarly pleasant day.

On both days I had been more drawn to ocean floor creatures. Things such as urchins, anemones, corals, and so on. I liked the way that the anemones moved with the flow of the water and all the small details I could pick out. Going forward I will do some research into what other species live in the same habitats as the ones I was drawing and take my project on from there.