Today I was out of the house from 9am to 4pm and only spent two hours of that time actually pursuing my studies. I spent more time waiting for, and travelling on trains. It is a lot of effort and I needed the time, motivation and money to do it.
The RCA exhibition gave a lot of food for thought. The displays were from first and second year students.
Charlie Hetheridge had done some lovely prints working in puff then foil on assorted base fabrics - silk, spandex, chiffon, leather, felt and blanket. The foil was not tacky because some lovely muted colours had been chose, and gave a lovely broken effect.
Kalia Cox had done some bold and delicate textured mark making and had printed them on both dense and sheer fabrics. She had then combined and overlaid them to excellent effect. She had overlaid different patterns in layers of sheer, and single or double patterned layers on a dark solid ground fabric. Very interesting. Grid patterned fabrics were folded in a grid layout, set out flat on a low table. She had created a little 6" flip book with an image of her on each page, with little cut out pieces of paper using her textured patterns, in different combinations. A very illustrative way of showing how her mark making fabrics could be applied to a fashion application.
Carolin Milon had created organically textured fabrics. She had put a 1m square printed piece pinned flat to the wall, then over pinned two draped pieces of sheer fabric over it. The draped pieces both had one corner suspended from the ceiling, and other pins ensuring the sheers floated and draped. Excellent display.
Miles Dunphy had listed on the wall the characteristics that inform his style - masculine; aggressive; dominant; materialistic. Although the golden streetwear was not to my taste, the words enabled me to understand what the garments were stating - and they stated the characteristics very, very well. I need to think more about my key words!
Flett Bertram had used a clever display technique. She was working with small exploded shapes on a grid of machine sewn lines, for the back and shoulder area of a garment. It must have been worked with dissolvable fabric but for display purposes a small area of chiffon had been sewn to the shoulder area, then pinned very simply to a metal coat hanger. Very effective.
I might suggest to our tutors that these people could be considered for visiting lecturers, as what they had done was very interesting, both from a technique and display perpective.
Then I went to Flow Gallery in Notting Hill. Quite a small gallery but beautiful objects, with a very high standard of finish. Lovely ceramics - to be recommended to our students; and very attractive jewellery. Limited textiles. I liked the jewellery that used tiny fragments of old letters and envelopes, with tiny pieces of writing visible.
A long and tiring day out, but well worth it for the insight that I gained.
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