Research

Practise Led Research

Practice led research is a contextual framework that artists and designers alike use to incorporate the physical aspect of experimentation and creative methods from their practice into their research. It allows for the art to become research and generate new works/research.1

1 Hazel Smith , and Roger T. Dean, Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 5.

Researcher introspection

The text Researcher introspection for experience- driven design research by Haian Xue and Pieter M. A. Desmet changed the way I look at research and my own practise. The text goes into depth on introspection as a research method for gathering data on wide groups of people. However, I am only going to focus on the ‘researcher-introspection’…

Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts by Hazel Smith , and Roger T. Dean (Chapter 1)

 In the first chapter of Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts, Hazel Smith , and Roger T. Dean first defined the term research by using the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) definition, “which served as an international standard for defining research and development.”1 The definition reads,  creative work undertaken on a…

Retrospective Introspection

memory and how culture influences my practise.

This section will include research into how the past influences who I am and in extension what makes my practise what it is. I will also out line the difference between auto ethnographic research and retrospective research as I conduct both.

Family

Germain Koh – Knitwork

knitwork by Germain Koh is a lifelong project started in 1992. The project consists of unraveled recycled yarn being knitted into a continuous garment that keeps growing. Koh unwinds old, knitted jumpers and blankets found in op-shops and knits them into the existing garment. The garment has a consistent weight, despite the fact that lots…

Family

Understanding older generations: Interview with Grandma Rowe

Who taught you how to knit?  My mother, Gwen Wigglesworth.  Can you describe the experience? Where were you? How old were you? I would have been thirteen. Mum didn’t knit very much. She did sew a little bit. But she showed me how to cast on and knit. I don’t know what I knitted the…

Family

Understanding older generations: Interview with Great Aunty Lilian

Who taught you how to knit?  I’m not sure but it was probably my mother or my big sister Eileen. I do remember my brother learning to knit. The girls at primary school showed him how to knit with two pencils and a piece of string.  Can you describe the experience? Where were you? How…

Family

Lost knowledge: Mum and Nanna

I have learnt a lot about knitting from my mother. But it has also opened up connections with her side of the family. I never met my Nanna as she passed away before I was born. It has been a blessing to be able to have these conversations and learn more about who she was.…

Culture

Christina Forrer

Christina Forrer is a Los Angeles based artist that uses weaving to depict a wide range of emotions covered through conflict. Forrer’s weavings and works on paper explore the depths of human emotion, illustrating fantastical characters with cartoonish features.1 Forrer is inspired by a combination of folklore and everyday situations. These images become a reflection…

retrospective – The connection is only seen after

Suzanne Anker

Suzanne Anker is a bio artist that works with a wide variety of mediums. At the beginning of her career Anker focused mostly on geological science to create fossil-like structures.1 Over time her work has shifted and brought in more biological aspects and materials. Anker uses natural materials to reimagine and challenge the collectivist ideas…

retrospective – The connection is only seen after

Stacy Levy – Diatom pavers

Stacy Levy is an eco and environmental artist working to bring more awareness about are environment through her work. Diatom pavers was a project Levy set out to bring awareness to the locals of the east river, of the ecosystem below the surface of the water. One common creatures in the river are single-celled microscopic…

Concurrent Introspection

The thoughts and feelings of being in the moment. What is happening right now.

This section will include primary and secondary research of relevant artists that work with similar materials and/or processes used in my own practise. As well as deep diving into why these materials and process inspire me to keep making.

Kaffe Fassett

Kaffe Fassett began his career as a painter but in the 60s on a trip to Scotland became enamored by the beautiful colours and textures yarn/wool could create.1 He took up knitting and designed many patterns that shaped fashion in knitwear throughout the 60s and 70s.2 He became well known for his geometric patterns and…

Vanessa Barragão

Vanessa Barragão is an environmental and textile artist from Portugal. She studied fashion but shifted to working with textiles at the end of her masters. In an interview, Barragão talked about feeling out of sync with the fast pace of the fashion industry. She prefers the slow movement that she is able to capture in…

Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim – Crochet Reef

Twin sisters Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim started the Crochet Coral Reef in 2005. The project combined mathematics, marine biology, feminine handicraft and environmental activism. Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim were concerned by the effect of global warming on the coral reefs. Coral is fragile and can die from the slightest increase in water temperature.…

Materials

Sheila Hicks

Sheila Hicks is a fibre artist who started in the in the 1950s. She was a pioneer of the fibre arts and continues to make art today. Hicks focuses heavily on her materials by manipulating them in interesting and new ways. In many of her older works, such as Multi-coloured Minime, she used the technique…

Materials

Brent Wadden

Brent Wadden weaves geometric designs into woven fabrics. Wadden’s approach to materials acknowledges the past when materials and yarn were in short supply due to the world wars. He often uses recycled materials by unravelling old knitted blankets and jumpers found in opshops. Wadden acknowledges the past of the materials and is resourceful to not…

Materials

Joanne Donovan

In the text, Textiles from our place: exploring connective textile making as a phenomenology of locale Joanne Donovan explores many different ideas connected to her practise of craft making textiles. A particular idea that stood out to me was the concept of improvisation within a material driven art practice. Donovan describes this by saying, “Textiles…

Materials

Rebecca Twist, Fiber Art Now

When I introduce myself as an artist I feel the need to state that I’m a thread and fiber artist. Most people hear the word artist and think of painting or drawing. Rebecca Twist rightly points out that the term ‘fiber artist’ actually refers to a very wide range of mediums, techniques and artists.1 The…

Materials & Gender

Annette Messager

Annette Messager is an installation artist who focuses on tops of anthropomorphism and the societal construct of gender. Messager often uses found objects to create mixed media installations and wall hangings that cause the viewer to question societal norms like the female gender.1 Throughout her work Messager creates a feeling of childlike chaos which can…

Materials

Kate Just

Kate Just is political and feminist fibre artist working to bring awareness to a wider audience. Just creates knitted images and text to convey messages of political outrage/ awareness of female plight or, with her most recent exhibition, healthy words to live by. Although her technique of knitting is the same throughout her practise the…

Imaginary Introspection

Exploring the ‘what if?’

This section explores the use of imagination and thoughts that are not constrained by the material world and works that spring from this open form of thinking. As well as works that change and evolve over time.

Intuative Practise

Teresa Lanceta

Teresa Lanceta is a Spanish textile artist inspired by Moroccan hangings and North African textiles. Lanceta learnt this ancient style of weaving from local Berber women in 1985 after spending time in the Middle Atlas Mountains. While there Lanceta emersed herself in the weaving communities she and discovered a newfound appreciation for these age-old customs…

Changing

Anne Wilson

Anne Wilson is a textiles performative artist based in Chicago, U.S.A.. In her to walk series Wilson performs sight specific sculptures. In the 2014 To Cross (Walking New York), four performers slowly walked thread around the rooms central pillars. The thread was passed across the sculpture interlocking the thread to simulate the process of weaving.…

Changing COLLABORATION

Sheila Pepe

Sheila Pepe is a textiles artist based in Texas, U.S.A.. In 2010 they where invited by bring their current work Common Sense to Tbilisi in the republic of Georgia and work with skilled local crafts women. The work had intentionally been created in a way so that when a thread is pulled it begins to…