Arts Thread

For this project I decided to look at the chaos and order of urban British birds, mainly the pigeon and starling. To begin with, I was inspired by starling murmuration videos online and seeing swarms of pigeons on the ground then startled into flight while out in Dundee. I started by zooming out and looking at groups of birds and the patterns they make, then zooming in very close to see the patterns on feathers and expression from individual birds. I then combined these elements together to create my punchcard patterns and repeat jacquard colourway and decided to go for a more illustrative design for my all-over jacquard pattern. I thoroughly enjoyed this project and learning technical skills as well as the creative side of designing punchcards and jacquards.

This project was part of my 3rd year expansive filmmaking module. We worked in pairs to create a 5-minute film of any genre. With my partner, I made a documentary about a local arts and mental health charity called ArtAngel. This was my first ever film, so it was a big learning curve, but I hope to make more in future as well as hopefully revisit this project to create a longer film in future when I have more time and no constraints from a brief.

For this project I decided to look at the mental health benefits of angling/fishing. I noticed that a lot of idioms related to mental health also contain terms that reminded me of fishing. I looked at waves, fishing reel and knot construction and the making of fishing rigs as well as flies. When on the Dubied machines I experimented with elastic to make interesting structures and made a lot of cords. For the mixed media element, I combined beads, monofilament and fishing weights. I used a lot of embellishment after taking my pieces off the machine which I thought added to the pieces. I decided to go for 6 more simple constructions for my final samples.

Dandelion: A Misunderstood Icon My project looks at the Dandelion plant which I wanted to research as I have an appreciation for things I feel are overlooked and misunderstood by most people. The Dandelion is seen as a pest, common and ugly by many, although I believe most people have never stopped to really look at the plant and its positive traits. My research and development look at Dandelions many uses, including historically being used medicinally and eaten. In the UK they provide food for pollinators, improve soil health and are pioneer plants, which means they are the first plants to grow in barren areas and allow other plants to follow. The Dandelion plant is incredibly hardy, resilient and adaptable to climate change. My development focused on the resilience of the plant contrasted with its delicate anatomy and I created many 3D elements in my samples and played with texture and material to try and convey the properties of the plant that most interested me. I then visualised my final sample as wearables. This project aims to shed a light on an overlooked plant and prompt the viewer to consider the Dandelion in more detail and see its beauty and resilience.