Cut work

Blackwork

Fashion District, New York

I was actually staying in the fashion district of New York which I had somehow overlooked the last time. It's an incredible place to be if your a fashion or textile student/artist. There were large shops with every kind of textile and trimmings you could wish for (Abakhans is a drop in the ocean in comparison).

There was a shop I stumbled upon called Elegant Fabrics on 40th Street between 7th and 8th Avenues and you could walk in and help yourself to 10 free pre-cut fabric samples (only students) any more than that and there was a charge of 25cents a sample. The fabulous thing was that you could do this everyday and so I managed to collect 40 samples. The samples are not huge but you get a feel of the fabric and it gives you a chance to physically see what colours work together.

Floral sketchwork

Flavor Paper

The last time I visited Flavor Paper they had just allocated new premises in Brooklyn which were still being renovated. They're a handmade wallpaper manufacturing company/studio and they're designs are really funky and playful. They hand screenprint the wallpapers on the ground floor which can be clearly viewed through the large window at the front. The actual showroom is on the first floor and was now complete with wallpaper displayed on the rotating metal display stand.

John Sherman who manages the business side of things gave me a little tour of the place and showed me some of the designs and work they've been doing since I last visited. The metal stand contained an array of different wallpapers some geometric and others floral. Most of the wallpapers have limited palettes with bright and zany colours. I also noticed that alot of they're work contain metallic elements, these wallpapers are screenprinted over a metalic base. The floral wallpapers were very busy and the florals were large scale, and they also had geometric wallpapers with very bold motifs. Sherman said they were now screenprinting on fabrics aswell as wallpapers and showed me a screenprinted cushion with a toile de jouy design.

Korean Art Show

While walking through Soho (New York) I unexpectedly came across this Art Show at the Chung Jark Gallery. I wasn't really sure what to expect as I'm not familiar with Korean Artwork. The show featured works from more than 30 Korean galleries including pyo, chosun, nine and yeh. There were a few pieces that really stood out for me for instance a piece of art work from the pyo gallery which looked like an inverted clay relief piece of a woman standing. As you moved from left to right the woman in the relief piece looked like she was moving with you. It almost looked 3D which was really cool!

There was a floral piece of artwork that was done in a similar style to Jackson Pollocks work. It was part of the gallery dream group and the thin swirly parts of the painting were done just by squirting a syringe.

Red Dot were hosting the Korean Art Show as well as exhibiting work from other galleries as well.

Flavor Paper- feedback

John Sherman was kind enough to take some time out and look at some of my work which was truly commendable of him because I hadn't arranged it with him before hand. I took my work down on the off chance he might look at it if I ask him nicely and it payed off. He gave brief feedback on some of my patterns which I've included below.

He said it was good to have movement on a wall which this pattern had.

John described the colour palette as poppy and the green and pink reminded him of lily pullitzer's colour scheme.

This pattern was simply described as 'pillish', the traffic light motifs appeared like pills to him. I mentioned that others who had seen it thought they were buttons to which he replied ' buttons on pills'.

He described this pattern as 'cool' but felt that the open link at the bottom of the chain motif looked left out and that maybe the chain needed to continue.

He liked the background pattern on this piece but said that a lighter tone would have given this pattern depth.

The one thing he commented on this pattern was the space between the two strips of repeat pattern and that the space around the pattern was just as important as the pattern. He also concluded that the studio was working on something similar with gaps.

Photographs- Flora

Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), New York

On the ground floor of the museum there was a BMW car covered in an African type of decoration. The graphic geometric shapes and bright colours looked like 1960's fabric print. Ndebele painter and bead artist was commissioned this ArtCar in 1991. She's noted as saying that her "art has evolved from the tribal tradition of decorating our homes", referring to the tribes adjustment from grass dwellings to mud walled ones in the 18th century. (Please ignore the dates, the camera came from the future).

French designer Patrick Jouin had some of his work exhibited too and the one piece to grabbed my attention was his 'bloom light'. There was a short video showing how the lamp was created and I absolutely loved how the lamp bloomed like a flower to allow maximum illumination. Pure Genius!

The Judy Chicago Tapestry exhibition presented Chicago's sketches and designs which were then put into thread by Audrey Cowan. One of the tapestries called "The Fall" was impressive because of its sheer size and reminded me of the tapestries that would have covered castle walls hundred of years ago.