Never fear world, I have returned from a trip to another country, I didn't get lost or anything and I am no safe in my kitchen with a cuppa tea.
I have taken part in the designerei international handmade fair in the Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany.
SUPER EXCITING!
I made a fair few euros but best of all I got to have a lovely little wander around the Bauhaus. The bauhaus is such a beautiful building, just looking at it doing it's thing was amazing. It made me feel like I had stepped into Jaques Tati's film Mon Oncle a fair few times which was dream like and delightful. Both my Grandpas are architects so I feel like I have some sort of genetic pre-disposition to appreciate the building.
The ethos of inter disciplinary work really chimes with me as well so I felt very happy having a lovely wander around Anhalt University and the Bauhaus itself.
This is a photographic summary of my trip:
I am a very proud stall holder. ( A photograph of a snazzy little polaroid)
A couple of my favourite shots of the Bauhaus.
It was a very misty night in Dessau the first night I was wandering about.
Leipzig
Home Again
I think maybe one day I will get a house above the clouds. It makes me so happy to be above the clouds with just the sun for company.
I would also like to get a little house in Germany, it feels like I would be happy there, I always feel so excited about making things when I am there.
I will perhaps post some polariods soon, but for now you can have these photographs while I unpack,
Something very exciting had the potential to happen soon but I am of the feeling that opportunities are like wolves, I'm not going to believe its arrived until it's jaws ate firmly wrapped around my head.
So, I will just say three things,
prints
pets
Singapore
shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Basically I am doing a new set of prints so here is the first in the run. My koi carp (plural).
This shows a bit of the stages of the process as well and my messy nest of a table.
The paper print out cut-and-stick version, the tracing, the lino and the ink print.
I make a lot of different mark making decisions made at each stage.
The initial black and white print.
The first inking of the koi
Addition of water so the fishies can swim
Colour version two.
Orange Koi
Koi Carp symbolise change traditionally so I am going to give one of the Koi to my friend Silvia, as she is expecting her first child next year. The koi also look like a mummy and baby Koi which is fortunate, I am hoping the koi will be a good luck omen for her ready for the biggest change in her life.
There are very exciting things going on later in the week so I shall be blogging some lovely things shorty.
Recently I have been researching the history of Mexico and the development of the Day of the Dead celebrations and it set me off on my usual skull doodle which I have been minorly obsessed with for years.
This one skull is a little further along the evolutionary chain with his elongated head.
I was going for equal parts celebratory and scary.
This is the chief in all his lino glory.
Skulls hanging out to dry.
I had a bit of a problem initially with colour as my usual method of watercolour over lino was far too dull for the vibrancy I wanted to achieve with the day of the dead style of my skulls.
The nat chool skulls bro.
My housemate buddy pal had the great idea to use my inks to make them more vibrant so this was the initial result:
Choowler but nat chooewl enough yet...
I remembered that a girl on my foundation course who used inks a lot and her paintings always turned out really beautiful and ephemeral because she used the medium of ink for its best use, the bleeding of colours into each other.
This is what I came up with:
Pretty choowl but it doesn't have the main skull as white which I felt makes the image lose some of its impact.
THEREFORE I MADE THIS.
SUPER CHOOWEL:
Super trippy but nice and deliciously bright, kinda beautiful in a scary way.
A selection of the choowelst skulls.
All ready for day of the dead.
*** choowel, choowl and chool are cool ways of saying cool. I don't think it translates in writing***
I feel very excited by this new opportunity as Landbaby has been ranked #35 on Vogue's list of 100 best shops outside London and Claire has just won the RIBA best independent business of the year.
Over summer, I was introduced to Ruby Foxx who did a very marvellous interview with me on her splendid fashion and beauty blog which is packed with interesting and lovely things.
The interview got lots and lots of views and was a very good thing all round.
She is a right laugh, a serial tea drinker and a bit of a feisty vixen.
Last week, I was lucky enough to be able to go to AGI open at the Barbican with my university (a highly subsidised trip due to the £120 ticket price).
I've come back and reflected on my trip and I've realised that out of the whole three days trip it is the speakers who have really made an impression on me.
The Barbican
The artists and designers were so generous with their talks, giving me so much inspiration. Seeing and hearing from people who have made themselves a such successful creative career gives me so much encouragement that I can eventually do the same for myself.
In particular there were some speakers who really struck a chord with me, so here is a little bit of my notes accompanied with some snaps I managed to get in between note taking and sitting agape listening to talks.
Just a disclaimer, my 'notes' are usually 95% disconnected inspirational quotes and 5% drawings of dinosaurs. So this is going to be a list of quotes from people who have said things which I felt compelled to write down in order to remember them:
"It can take a long time to discover what you want to do."
"Keep searching for new ways to express yourself."
"The only projects I like are the ones I did for love, of the object or love and respect of the client."
- Marion Deuchars
"If you can make real things then it's more valuable to me."
"Am I an artist or a designer? I don't care! The important thing is to produce stuff!"
- Patrick Thomas
"Think about how to change the world every day."
- Astrid Stavro and Pablo Martin
"It's not where you get your ideas from, it's where you take it to."
- Roger Law
The Margret Thatcher puppet from Roger Law's 'Spitting Image' television show.
"You have to believe in the content."
"You have to put your deep personality in each part of your designs."
"You are on the paper with your subject, if you are not, it's not good design."
"We are people messengers, we have to write with our hand to connect to the people instead of machine made print."
"You have to invest personally in design with your own approach and design."
"To create something that creates a question is good design."
"Be confident with your truth and what you want to communicate."
"You have to be close to your client, it's one of your many projects in your portfolio but it's a transformation of the client, you have to understand their reason and fragility."
- Pierre Bernard
"People will believe information that you put down if it's in an organised form."
- Paula Scher
"Seek out knowledge yourself, feed your mind, keep learning all the time."
"Just because you've had an idea, it doesn't make it good, next doors cat has ideas!"
- A panel speaking about the question of design led by Michael Beiruit
"BATMAN."
- Chip Kidd
Okay, this is a terrible quote, but I was too busy being completely and utterly consumed with Chip's talk. He is one of the most engaging speakers I have ever come across and the fact that his talk was about his obsession with batman (one of my little obsessions) just compounded my excitement about his talk. He delivered in style and I managed to muster the final resources of my energy to shuffle (literally) up to him at the end, clutching my copy of Batman: Death by Design (story by Chip Kidd) and tell him that I have watched his TED talk several times and that I love batman too. He was just as kind and sweet as I could have hoped he would be and he very generously signed and dated my comic and it is now one of my most treasured possessions.
"Enthusiasm gets you a long way."
"You need a passion to succeed as a visual person. You need to find an opinion, look at the things you like, it will tell you who you are."
"If you look at what your heart tells you to do then you'll be alright."
- Tony Brook
"You don't want to miss the banana stand, emotionally or physically."
-Christoff Neimann
Christoff Neimann's talk was actually one of my favourites, he was so charming and made me genuinely laugh throughout his whole talk. He presented in such a slick, professional yet personable way. He ended his talk with this video which he made for the NY Times which brought me to tears) :
