Manchester Jazz Festival 2015: The Launch Party

A few months ago, I wrote a post about the fact that my painting was going to be used across the marketing campaign for this years Manchester Jazz Festival, and their 20th anniversary celebrations. On Friday 31st July I was invited down to the VIP launch party that kicked off the 9 day event in Albert Square, Manchester. It was a really great night and I was introduced to a lot of the lovely people that made it all happen and brought this campaign to life over the past few weeks and months.

Manchester School of Art Degree Show: The Private View

The Manchester School of Art Degree Show is now officially open to the public (13th-24th June 2015), showcasing the talent and achievements of final year degree and foundation students. But before the exhibition opened its doors at the weekend, there was the annual private viewing on Friday 12th June. It was such a lovely evening and felt like a real celebration of all the hard work of everyone from across the art school. It was a wonderful opportunity to finally relax and see the fruits of all the blood, sweat and tears over the past year!

Art Foundation Final Exhibition (FMP #4)

So it's all over. One year (or 9 months if you want to get technical) of blood, sweat, tears, sweat, stress, hard work, sweat and late nights. Before I started my art foundation, I was something of a lost confused soul, watching all of my friends go off to uni but having little idea of which path in art and design I wanted to take myself. Twelve months on, I can now whole heartedly say that a foundation course was the best thing I could have possibly done for myself and my future. I have never worked so hard and created so much work in such a short space of time, or developed my creative capabilities in such a profound way. 

With the end of the year comes the final exhibition. This is the culmination of everything from the year, but in particular the ten week final major project. I've done a few posts on my FMP previously which I will link here, here and here. The foundation exhibition goes up alongside all of the degree shows at Manchester School of Art and is ultimately a big part of the final grade. 

On the surface, my FMP has stayed consistent to my original subject as experimenting with letterforms has been central throughout the ten weeks. However, discovering textiles was a defining turning point for me and what I initially intended to be a short research test turned into a change of direction. From that point onwards, the craft, process and materials became key. I taught myself how to knit and crochet and my focus changed from illustrating phrases with typography onto testing, exploring and developing the potential of traditional textiles crafts in the context of graphic design and typography.

After weeks of testing, developing, refining and many balls of wool later, I have created one piece to showcase what I have been working on in my FMP. I will insert a few photographs but as a general outline, my final show is a wall piece in which I have recreated the definition of 'TYPOGRAPHY' with crochet and knitted letters, replicating the links, fonts and punctuation of online dictionaries...

I am really genuinely happy with how my exhibition has turned out. As a huge perfectionist it was difficult to let go of the fact that this is a handmade piece of graphic design, and so imperfections are necessary to its character. The 'homemade' element is, I hope, a part of the charm. It's been a labour of love to bring this exhibition to life and I feel at a bit of a loss now that its all over!

On Monday I handed in all of my supporting work from the year, my portfolio, sketchbooks and artist research for marking over the next couple of weeks. After this time the Manchester School of Art degree show will open to the public (which I will do a little post on with more details), so essentially I am finished for the summer now. I have loved every single minute of being in a creative environment this year, I have met such amazingly talented friends and tutors and I truly wish I could do it all over again.

Now though, it's time for some chill time...

FMP #3

Before I start this post I want to apologise for my less than consistent attempts at blogging over the last few weeks. Hopefully this post will go some way to explaining that but the short version is that I've been crazily running around trying to get my final exhibition together for the foundation/degree show at Manchester School of Art. My final deadline is Monday 1st June so I'm really looking forward to having more time to dedicate to blogging soon. For now though, since my life is revolving around my final major project and completing my exhibition, I thought it'd be good to do a little update. If you haven't seen my previous two FMP posts I will link them here and here so you can take a look at 'the story so far'. 

The final countdown for my FMP is well and truly in full swing now. This week I've been getting my hands dirty preparing my exhibition space, getting it cleaned, sanded and repainted as well as measuring everything out to within an inch of my life. I'll tell you now, if measuring burnt significant calories, I'd be a very skinny girl by now! It's no secret to people that know me that I'm a huge perfectionist and so everything's taking a fair bit of time to get right, but I'm really happy with how it has gone so far *touches every item of wood in sight*. I have been allocated a wall space in a corner so I've had quite a few obstacles to overcome including a big red fire alarm which has played havoc with my need for clean white surfaces! Preparing the exhibition space has been a fun experience though and it's been lovely to make some last memories and spend time with some really great friends I've made on the course. 

To a certain extent I thought it would be nice to keep my actual exhibition as a bit of a surprise for when it's fully complete, so I won't be sharing too many photos of it today. I will say that I'm still continuing with the theme of experimental typography which has evolved into using techniques such as crochet and knitting to make letterforms. Over the last 2 weeks I've been locked away creating what must be hundreds of little wooly letters - but I don't want to give too much away! All will be revealed very soon and I'm working my fingers to the bone to get it finished by next week. 

I realise this has been a very quick insight into what I've been doing with myself these past few weeks but I hope you all understand! There isn't too much completed new work to share but I still want to document the process of this project and I think the exhibition preparation is a big part of that. I can't wait to share the finished results of the show as well as photographs from the private view later on in June. One last final push!

*Sneaky preview!*

Final Major Project #2

Last month, I shared some work which formed the beginning of my Final Major Project at university. I had such a lovely response from that post and I think it's about time a did a little update. As well as the fact that I love sharing my work on my blog, it'll be so nice for me to be able to look back and see how things have improved over time. My project has come such a long way since the original post and it's kind of scary/exciting to think that in just a few weeks time I'll be putting up my exhibition, and soon after that it will be open for the public to view.

While my FMP subject is still 'Experimental Typography', I have now become much more focused within this subject. Textiles has begun to play a major role and I can't wait to share that part of my project once it becomes more developed and final. For now though I thought I'd share some images from various things that I have done within my work since my last post.

Above is an image which I created within the time constraints of one day while I was on holiday in Devon. I decided to make use of the seaside environment and went on the hunt for naturally formed letters on rocks and pebbles. It was surprising how easy it was to find letterforms once I'd started looking! I've always loved beach combing so it was a really fun little thing to break up my main project.

This next image is another 'mini-project' which I based around phrases and idioms. I wanted to illustrate the saying 'humble pie' in a literal way using typography and this is what I came up with. It was a nice, easy, quick image to make and was great fun - plus I got to eat the apple pie afterwards.

I was so overwhelmed and happy with the positive response I received from my first FMP post and so I hope these updates are something you enjoy seeing. I can't wait to share more of my work soon as my Final Major Project comes into it's final stages and ultimately post photographs of my complete exhibition in June!

Final Major Project #1

As I recently mentioned, I have now started work on my final major project at uni, which is the very last chunk of my art foundation course and is what I will ultimately be graded on. It is a ten week long project and we can choose to do it on any subject we like. We are completely free to write our own brief and spend the ten weeks how we see fit. The end result will be an exhibition which will go up alongside all of the degree shows at Manchester School of Art in June which will be open to the public!

The overarching title of my project is ‘Experimental Typography’. Throughout my foundation experience in the graphic design area, I have taken a keen interest in typography and this now reflects in both my work and research. However, so far this has always been within the context of a larger subject matter. For my FMP, I want typography to be the main focus, taking influence from designers such as Paul ElIiman, Oded Ezer and Stefan Sagmeister.  

I thought I'd share some of my initial work for the project. The images here are of an alphabet I created using cake. The idea began as I wanted to write 'A Piece Of Cake' using cake letters. The rest of the images are a selection of the extensions I completed following on from this, from burning the alphabet to a crisp, to making a negative with icing sugar. It was a lot of fun and it's always a bonus when you can eat the work afterwards!

I'm thinking about posting updates on my work as I progress through the ten weeks if that's something people would like to see? Please let me know if it is!

5 Truths Louise Gardiner Taught Me

For anybody who doesn't already know, Louise Gardiner is a textile artist who uses machine embroidery alongside painting, drawing and applique to create her beautiful work. She draws freehand with her sewing machine to create wonderfully vibrant textile pieces. She also happens to be an alumnus of the exact same foundation course I am currently studying at Manchester School of Art. This week therefore, I was lucky enough to meet her in person, listen to her talk about her own work but also pick her brains about how we creatives get by the world. I found her to be such an incredibly inspiring lady and I took a lot from the experience. She seemed to be one of those people who just beams inspiration and I left feeling very motivated to get out there and achieve exactly what it is I want from life. So, with about six full pages of notes and a voice memo recording in front of me, I thought I'd share five of the things I learnt from meeting the wonderful Louise Gardiner.

1. "Rejections shaped my career"

Of course we all like to be told that our work is wonderful and lovely and brilliant, however, at some point along the way, somebody is going to turn around and say they think our portfolio is a load of crap. It's hard to imagine that anyone could ever have a bad word to say about Louise's beautiful embroidery, but she admitted that though difficult, it was the negative comments that truly pushed her to reflect on her work and move forward in her creative career. She now embraces her critics, even when negative comments are hard to hear.

2. "Gallery owners all drive 4X4s for some reason"

Far from trying to scare us off from the big bad world of gallery owners, Louise took us on the journey of her career. Starting as a new graduate where she organised all of her own exhibitions, through to moving onto having her exhibitions organised by an agent and subsequently sacrificing 50% of her earnings, and eventually realising that there is a reason why gallery owners all drove fancy cars and she didn't, finally deciding to revert back to organising the exhibitions for herself. With this lighthearted quip, what Louise Gardiner was trying to explain was the way in which the art world worked, and the fact that at least for her, going it alone made more sense.

3. "Start archiving your work now"

During her lecture, Louise showed us an array of beautiful images of her work both past and present. However, she was forced to apologise for the fact that she wasn't able to show us any work from when she herself was doing the art foundation course. She explained that this was because she never organised her work and archived it properly, therefore it had been lost. Several times she mentioned the importance of taking good quality photographs of all of our work, and that in hindsight she wished she would have begun organising her work from the very beginning. 

4. "Self promotion is everything"

Opportunity is everywhere if you have your eyes and ears peeled at all times. My experience meeting Louise made me truly realise the fact that nobody is going to like your work unless you love it yourself. Getting noticed is a full time job that requires a whole lot of grit and determination. So get out there, talk to people in the industry, carry a business card wherever you go and seek opportunities to promote yourself in any given situation.

5. "Most people never get a 'lucky break'"

This was a very interesting and important point and one which I think I will remember for a long time to come. The truth is, most people never get that one lucky break that sets off their career like a skyrocket. In her 40s, Louise Gardiner says she is still waiting for hers to arrive. But this does not mean that you have no chance of being successful, it simply means that a career is built on lots of little breaks rather than one groundbreaking moment. You just have to work hard, immerse yourself in creativity and do things that set you apart from the crowd, and little by little you will see your opportunities snowball. 

A Look Inside My Sketchbook: Remixing LOVE

Last month I created a post sharing some pages from inside my art foundation sketchbook, and I got some really lovely feedback from people saying it was something they were interested in seeing more of. It was really flattering to get such positive comments because anyone that knows me well will know that my sketchbooks are kind of my babies! So for this post I thought it might be nice to share a page from my current sketchbook in the context of the project it was produced for. 

Last weekend I was set a one day valentines project to complete. In short, the brief was remix 'LOVE' by Robert Indiana in any way we wanted to. It could be a flat artwork, a 3D model, we could change the colour, word or font, stack our own letters, create a photograph, alter the sentiment, literally anything! I chose to stick close to the original image, but I tuned it into an ice block! I photographed my giant ice cube in different locations around Manchester as it went through the melting process. It was a really fun little project and I enjoyed playing with the juxtaposition between the coldness of ice and the passionate connotations of love and the colour red. I certainly got some strange interesting looks from people while carrying that thing through the city! 

So, here is the sketchbook page I created to document my valentines day project along with a few of the finished photographs...

A Look Inside My Art Foundation Sketchbook

It is a very stressful time of the year for me at the moment, UCAS, digital portfolios, portfolio mounting and interviews seem to be taking up a huge chunk of my time and are obviously rather important. This week I have been busy running around trying to get all my work photographed and ready to be sent off to various universities. 

In the process of this however I have managed to get some images of pages from inside my foundation sketchbook which I thought would be nice to share here. I personally adore looking through other peoples sketchbooks and I find it incredibly inspiring to see different creative processes. So I thought it was about time I brought something to the party!

My sketchbook throughout the foundation course has become something of a visual diary. I try to add to it every day to show the entire process of all of my projects from start to finish. Photographs, samples and little explanations all tell the story of how I get from A to B. Hope you enjoy!

(P.S. I'm thinking about doing more posts about my experience doing an foundation course. Please let me know if you would be interested in this!)