Tatum Farrar - Textiles in Practice: February 2012

For this project we were asked to choose a pair of opposites, my opposites were Compose - Decompose.

From this I started photographing decomposing leaves, rotting fruit and dried out vegetables to see what colours and marks I would find. I decided to look at leaves, as this would give me a better starting point. I instantly started experimenting with different ways to dye fabric that would be the case naturally, such as dirt and rust.

As this was clearly too literal I looked into something else that you would associate with decomposition in a natural state which brought me to mummification. I chose this as it created a more interesting approach and instantly gave me brand new ideas. I then started using mod roc to resemble the decaying bandaging and creating different lines. I wanted to interpret some of the sampling I did previously so I then rusted some fabric and used it as a lining to create some colour and involve the appearance that my opposites suggest.

In the second part of the project we were asked to write a new brief where as we could either concentrate on a strong point or go in another direction. I chose to go in another direction. In contrast to the original objective I chose to look at man made markings. I began looking at how nature spoils and changes a surface or material, so I then began looking at how people make marks and spoils through the day without even realizing. I used images of scratches, stains and ruined surfaces that were a trace of somebody creating that mark.

In workshops I then created large scale paintings of markings I found in my images in response to the man made marks. From the large drawings I then started creating samples in my sketch book.

I felt that in the second part of the project my sampling was much better and my presentation began to take a better form. As I usually look at an image and create very basic and literal samples I tried to look beyond the obvious and create samples that were much more interesting and looked a lot more textile based. I started experimenting in different ways using paper, card and combining a range of media.

As much of my work is always based on natural colours I tried bringing in more of a variety by looking deeper into the images as the same colour scheme can get boring. I enjoyed working with colour much more than the natural as they were more appealing to the eye and created much better detail. I wasn’t very pleased with this project as I missed out on a lot of workshop time so it lacks a lot of work that others have as i missed majority of my hand processes workshops meaning i have very little samples in response.

However, I feel that nearing the end of the project I started to find my own style and how I am comfortable in working which benefits my presentation vastly and my sampling outcomes improved a lot once I experimented and looked deeper into the subject. I will use this approach in my next project to hopefully improve my work and create samples of much more interesting detail and a wider range of samples.