Shadows Can Be Very Inspiring For Further Development As Prints Perhaps.

END OF YEAR SHOWCASE -Class of 2020

Congratulations Iona Darneley!

Iona showcases 2 different projects. Firstly her exam unit entitled ’Haven’ was very poignant and relevant, as lockdown plunged the UK into isolation, just as our A level exams were due to begin. Iona investigated themes close to home, including discovering how we explain the need for family, loved ones and friends and our relationships to what we hold dear in times of trauma.  How can this be portrayed in visual terms and through textiles, led Iona on a wonderfully personal creative journey. She was casting miniature sculptural houses and objects of comfort such as hot water bottles in her garden and making delicate fabric house forms to project images of family onto. Adventurous and individual Textiles work.

In contrast, she also explored ocean plastic and this included reworking plastic bottles found during a beach clean up, into sea creatures such as jellyfish to be hung as a ‘sea forest’ installation. She also created posters for Surfers Against Sewage, promoting clean seas. All this with CFS. What a superstar!

Got my work selected for the Millfield Summer Show exhibiting now. Come and visit, some great work this year!

Rusted and naturally dyed fabrics from salvaged and scavenged materials found on daily walks, plotting the ancient field boundaries. Visual diary. Slow-stitched cloth. Recording traces and tracks.

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

Creative workspaces are important places of solace and wellbeing. It’s good to make a mess and see where it leads you, lose yourself in your imagination, creative play and material exploration is so freeing and so welcome on these sombre grey days in lockdown.

Get your ‘messy mojo’ on and see what happens and don’t tidy up for tea!

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!

This Textiles superstar, completed A level and Art FAD with us at Strode College and is about to graduate from Bath Spa Textiles design. All the best for a creative future to all our alumni. Keep in touch!

The superstars of A level Art Textiles 2019.

A wonderful collection of experimental and highly professional outcomes. Themes include ‘mending’, recycling, sustainability and processes including spinning newspaper into yarn, dyeing, beading, dissolvable fabrics, stitch, screen printing, embroidery, beading, darning, appliqué, patchwork, fashion.... so much to celebrate and such a lovely bunch of students. 

Gestural marks, fluid and expressive. Enjoying overlaying inks and acrylics with potential to print scaled up marks?

Sooo these are the current product designs showing the development of patterns on various products that could be sold in a gallery gift shop or in this case an outdoor theatre, hence the use of umbrellas, cushions and lampshades for the cafe bar perhaps.

A level costume design exploring the theme of ‘Birds’ exploring the darker side of these winged creatures, inspired by Alexander McQueen’s exhibition ‘Savage Beauty’ at the V&A. An innovative use of materials such as bin liners and interfacing to create an ethereal, feathered quality in a series of cropped capes.

Great photo shoot with technical support from Dave Merritt.