This is the transcript for my one to one with Matt, discussing how I was going to curate my artwork to display in our exhibition:
Red is me & Black is Matt.
So, Katie gave me this great idea about the fabric being draped. I was just going to do cushions or something until Katie suggested that and that's a really good idea. So, what's your practice, how do you describe your practice?
I'm creative digital design, but I'm learning more towards illustration, so I'm a pattern designer.
So, you’re more in a design place than a fine art student? Yeah.
So, these are my folk animals I've designed they're Scandinavian flowers and animals and everything so basically the patterns are it's a collection of these so I have a main one with all of them and then supporting patterns with like individual elements so I might print out some of the others as well but it will have to be one chosen for the fabric.
Yeah. Basically. Oh, so this is either rabbit or fox?
Well, these are, this is my favourite one at the moment so it's got all the animals but I might put like something in the background Because I only did this yesterday.
And do they come in different colourways?
No, there's only one colourway. This is one specific palette. I could easily redo them, but I don't have time to do that.
No, I'm sure. It’s just so I get a sense of where you're at.
Yes, they are all the same colourways. It's just I flipped some of the colours, so it is a small palette. So, yes, that would be like the fabric, but then I could print out the other ones to go in a frame like nearby.
That one sounds quite sensible, really. I can totally see what Katie's saying. By printing that out, you can kind of bring it to life because fabric will fall, it will drape, it will wrinkle and it will pull on the floor and fold over things.
How much do you think I would need? how many metres? Like two or three? How high is the ceiling there, do you know? I can't remember. Oh, ceiling height is in PLP. Have you got that in the plan? No. I think it's about this. Probably is. I think it was a little bit taller. No, I think it was taller than that. Is it? Yeah. Okay. I mean, you know, you get to balance, you've got to balance like what can you afford to do?
I've got money from the college to pay for it, they said a maximum of 150 pounds, Including shipping.
Yeah, well that's plenty, isn't it? I think, yeah, I mean if you start on the basis that maybe you can hang it from the ceiling and then you've got to think about, like if it was me, I'd like to think about it maybe spooling a little bit.
Yeah, I do like it, I do have it pooling about. Yeah, sort of hanging like a curtain. Because then you suddenly get a sense of what's this...
What you've made is a textile design and there's some textile doing the thing that textile does. And it'll move in the wind as the doors open. Yeah, I don't want it flat. There's a load of stuff that's different from, just it being wallpaper, for example, stuck to the wall. Or even if it was wallpaper, you could also drape it rather than stick it.
But yeah. I do want to do some wallpaper designs. And then I guess the thing to think about is that then there's potentially people are also walking around the other side of it.
So, you might want it to go up, and to go twice the height of the ceiling. So, it goes up over a pole and down again, for example.
Yeah, that's a good point, actually. If we have the pole hanging from the ceiling it could be two sided.
Well, there's loads of things you could do it could be hung from one point and kind of really like you like rush down and then the bit where you can see it might be spread out.
Yeah, but I'd be worried people would stand on it then.
But then I guess that's part of it. Maybe that's the plan. It's just like, it's worth thinking about when you're thinking about presentation making.
It's like the first thing you think about. It's worth just going, If I could do anything in the world, there's going to be two or three other ways I could handle this. It might be not as good as the first way I thought, but it's really worth playing around. Because what you've got is something that's utterly flexible. For every round. You could throw it over the sofa. You could hang it right inside the door so people have to push past it again in the room. There are all these different things you could maybe do. And so, if you think of the few of those and work out then the ones that you need are more compliant. And it sounds like Marie, who isn't here, has got a massive thing as well. So it might be that there's another thing in the show.
Yeah, I'm happy for that to be a centre of the room.
It's drapey, and you've got a thing that's made of a fabric. It's completely different. Its purpose in the universe is different. Yeah, but it's also linked to Marie's textiles. But in the show, it's going to be like that and that.
So, I thought some of these supporting patterns, which are supposed to be simpler, could put those in frames nearby, whether it's just the individual animal or whether it's the simple patterns that go with it. What kind of size do you think? Do you think I should just do them A4 and do like a gallery?
I think you can be braver than A4. Obviously, slightly depends on the amount of space you've got available. I mean, this is A4. In the great scheme of things. That's fine but maybe A3 there. I don't know if it's A3 or even A2. How much can you make? I mean, A3 is fine to find A3 frames.
And then there's just things like four, six, or eight. Three or five. Yeah, and Marie said that to me, actually, three, five.
It's one of those weird things, but it just looks nice odd number just all these It's completely everything you know, all kind of things just all these things Symmetrical It's just a rule of thumb, it's a great rule of thumb that works.
So, if you're going to do one or three or... Because what you're saying is like, what you're basically presenting, I mean I'm straying into a design thing I don't know very much about really, but what you're presenting is like, these kind of options, bum bum bum. Yeah. That would be a classic, straightforward way of doing it.
You could be more playful than that if you want to. And that might be one of the things where you look around the room and you go, actually.
Do you know what, actually, I could get like... I want to be more playful with this I could get them printed onto other things like say Wrapping paper and then you could sort of overlay them something like that. I mean it depends on what you want to say about what this this design that you've made what is it?
What is it in you know ideally in the world one of the things it is?
Definitely textiles yeah, the whole point behind it is obviously folk art.
I quite like the idea of illustration. I can see a rabbit and a fox and a bird or something or whichever you choose and kind of going it can exist, it can be this thing as well. I think less interesting like this because it's not the focal point, it's just like you've chopped out a little bit of a repeating design whereas that's celebrating your design which is I've designed this and design this and design this and maybe gives it and then the textile is where you can go you can imagine any of these.
I mean, I can easily imagine that you would have just the rabbit textile as well as, you know, if you had the whole suite in a kind of patent book or something for people to choose what to buy the curtains in.
I have done some of your individual ones as well. And then they're a bit more iconic. It's almost like you then turn them. If you're going to have some framed ones, your kind of going, here's the iconic one of the rabbit I designed. Does that make sense? And people are like oh I could actually hang that on my wall as a picture.
I do like textiles. I love that idea with the draping fabric because you're also going and it's also operating kind of sculpturally in this exhibition environment.
It's taking up its own space and saying, yeah, look at me doing this, rather than just being like I need a design for this.
The idea was that it was a whole collection of folk art.
And then I just... Or maybe you could think about, it wouldn't be hard to mock up a card or, another thing. Or let you say some wrapping paper or just another way that it can exist in the universe. Yeah, I mean I can get it printed onto anything.
It's also what fabric I use. You can get mugs or whatever else you need. Yeah, I can get anything with it printed on. So, we think carefully about what feels maybe in this context you want it to be quite sophisticated.
Like I say, thinking sculpturally, even though you're not pretending it's a bit of sculpture, but thinking about the stuff, the material and the pattern and how it's existing together in this suite. Yeah. It's great and it kind of sells you as a designer. Yeah, yeah, so I can go on my portfolio website. Exactly, so that you're away.
I've just written a book, it's a children's book. But it's about a mermaid and a human becoming friends. But the whole point is that it has eco issues. So, it has coral bleaching and recycling and stuff in it. But it doesn't really go with it.
If you have both those things in the same place, can you sort of draw a line?
Could you see that a similarity?
No, it's completely different markets, isn't it? So, this is for grown-ups, the other ones for children.
I mean, you know, I can only give you an opinion and it kind of depends what you're trying to do with this exhibition. I think I should just focus with this one rather than trying to do both. You could put your energy into making this look amazing because otherwise you're going to have this other thing that's nothing to do with this.
Yeah, that's what I feel like it is. I feel like it doesn't connect. Yeah, I'll stick with this one. Because this is a great way to present yourself. This is who I am and what I'm doing. Sometimes that's going to be the variety of all the things I do.
Other times maybe it's just about making this statement like this is the heart of what I'm about or what this body of work is about.
I've said the same over there though, if you've got something that you can bring along, and if in the moment you kind of go, oh god it all feels a bit empty. You've got this other thing and you're really relaxed about whether you just take it home again.
Maybe I'll get some other things printed up and put it in a tube and then I've got them back as backup. Obviously it's digital and doesn't physically exist, I can still get them printed. Well, you maybe want to do that anyway. And then you've got something in your back pocket so that when you, when you guys all stand back and kind of go look at the, look at the room. If your kind of, might go all, feels a bit empty over here.
That's a good idea. The only other thing was, I just wanted to talk to you about how to hang the fabric. If I'm going to put it over a pole, like some kind of clips that clip onto those. Brendan said we could hang from the ceiling. So, you can probably do that. I mean the same like you know bamboo pole from a garden centre or a bit of dowel from B&Q is a bit neater than that. You could even get, we've used like a bit of copper plumbing pipe, which is when you if you buy it new it's quite shiny and orange and copper. Yeah, it goes with the whole home décor thing really, doesn't it? If it gets down, it might mark your fabric, if that matters a little bit, don't it?
Not to worry about that. And then you can maybe just think about how is it not going to slide off?
Yeah. Like you said, it might have to do it double-sided and then it won't slide off, will it? It shouldn't do. No, you might still want to kind of stop it going. Because the fabric is chused as well. It depends how kind of slippy it is. But a couple of bulldog clips would kind of do it, you know.
Yeah, no, I didn't think of it. I think with that kind of presentation, you can be quite provisional. Like you can be quite like this is what it's not about.
This isn't an artwork where every bit of it is as important as the fabric.
It's all about the fabric. So, if it's how that was a bulldog clip, it's just like, these are just functional items that do that job.
Yeah, I'll see then, what works best. I think that kind of, I don't think it's really worth expending huge amounts of energy doing that.
The only other way, if it is safe, is a bit of pipe that we've done before, is you could then put a bit of elastic right the way through and around, to hold it on. You know, like some clothes hangers, you get the elastic bit. to stop the trousers slipping.
I think as simple as that. Yeah. You know, you can, all these things you can just pick up and B&Q. They tend to be 2.4 metres long, the plumbing pipe. Yeah, that's easy enough to do. Oh, we did wonder if you'd take one of these posters to put up in the Phoenix for us?
Yes, indeed. Oh yeah, no I'll take one. No, we've got a community movement. Thank you, because Katie was going to bring one round in person, but it saves her having to do it. That's great.
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