Victoria College of Art Studio

My sister and I spent the day in the Lower Studio at the Victoria College of Art getting it ready for a new course I am teaching on pattern design.
This is the before shot.

Sister Donnel started with cleaning the wet studio.

The storage area had a pile of new tiles we found out we could put down in the main studio.

So with the help of Keith, the maintenance person, we moved all of the furniture, pulled up the old tiles, washed the floor, laid the new tiles down in a mosaic pattern (of course) and moved all of the furniture back.

Donnel wielded the staple gun and made the print tables then hung textiles on the walls, while I did photocopying and organised supplies and equipment.

Here I am, pleased to be ready for my class tomorrow.

Waiting for students

Victoria College of Art Show

In our final class today, we spent the time setting up for the end of year show and sale. The students attached their samples to large boards, grouped by technique, exercise and project. Everyone was impressed with the amount of work they produced over the 11 weeks. We were all pleased with how exciting all of their experimentation looked. The studio is just brimming with ideas with so much potential.

Here are some images of their final projects, as 'works in progress'. The assignment was to take a favourite image, abstract the main shapes and develop a design using to techniques worked in their personal analogous palettes. As you can see the results are spectacular. Each one so different and so strongly reflective of each student's artistic voice.

As is usual with fine arts textiles, the image doesn't do the work justice. So if you live anywhere near Victoria you will have to come to the college this Friday (April 1st, 7-10pm) or Saturday and Sunday (April 2nd & 3rd, 1:30-4pm) to be able to really enjoy all of the students' work. The whole college will have every surface covered with their work, including a new 3D installation in the front entrance by the 3D Design class, which is a 'must-see', fun work.

Tray Dyeing

I have been dyeing using Leslie Morgan and Claire Benn's tray technique. I have decided it is an ideal way for a class to do some dyeing. So tray dyeing is on for the next lesson of Mark Making with Machine, at the Victoria College of Art.

I am building up some ground fabrics to use in my work for the BA module I started last week.

This is the first layer: washed, ironed and on my design wall so I can plan the next layer.

More of the same, I think, except to make the colours less intense. I like brights to peek out from behind.

Students at Victoria College of Art

Here are the early twentieth century students in the Bank Street school . . .

Here are the twenty first century students in the school on Bank Street, 100 years later.

The 3 windows you can see . . .

. . . are the 3 lowest ones on the side of the school, in front of the girls' steps.

Dialogues Continue

Last year i wrapped the 4 the trees i decided to have a 'dialogue' with. After a few months the unbleached cotton i had wrapped them with showed no signs of the staining i had expected. So I left the trees wrapped and continued the dialogues in other ways.
Yesterday, while i was outside doing fall clean-up in the garden, i checked my wrapped trees and this is what I found.
Staining on the Arbutus wrap...

...and the Douglas-fir (image above), and also on the wraps of the maple and the cedar.
It made me realise i can't rush these dialogues because i am wanting to respond to cycles of time that are different to my own.

I also checked on another dialogue going on out in the garden at the present.
Leaves have started to fall on the table cloth lying out under the maple. The cloth is no longer white but i don't know if there is just dirt from rain and animals walking on it or staining is starting to take place.

I spent today working on sessions for the class i start teaching in November, 'Mark Making With Thread'.
People have been generously donating materials and books for the students to use. I went through the bags and sorted them according to how they could be used in the different sessions i have planned. One lot of fabric is big enough for everyone in the class to have a piece so i planned a session around it.
I also did lots of reading for my dissertation and some brainstorming on a white board to organise my thoughts for the next few chapters. I have done enough reading for now. Tomorrow i get back to the writing.

MISSA Day 3

Day 3 at MISSA I started another course. Photographer/designer/artist, Tony Bounsall, offered an irresistible course, 'Altered Imagery'.
Within the 1st hour he had us up on the photocopier rolling our faces over the glass after he had explained it was actually a slit camera. You can imagine the laughter coming form the copier room as 7 strangers produced distorted images of their faces. It was a perfect ice breaker for the new class, which showed Tony's skill and experience as a teacher.
We then went on to college these photocopies onto a board and worked them up with other media.
Here is my 'Grotesque Portrait'.

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Time for a quiet cup of tea in my favourite spot.

The next exercise was to transfer photocopied images onto paper. This is as far as i got with this one but it has potential.

I liked this technique so stayed behind after everyone else had left (I always work better when on my own) to continue working on this transferred collage.
I was playing around trying a few of the many options Tony had suggested, when i remembered the bottle of waterproof ink on our supply list. i had been impressed with Tony's demo so decided to try it. i opened my new bottle...squirt... it splashed out and flooded the center of the piece. Did i stop and wipe it up? No! I continued to spread the ink over the whole thing, making it all black. By the time i remembered i was to wipe it back it was drying fast. So then i got out a blade and started scrapping it back until I was gouging the original paper.
Hmmm... time to leave the room.

I decided to name this effort 'Unsupervised Play'.

Victoria College of Art

My big news is I have decided to go back teaching.
I have had a look around all of the schools in Victoria where art is taught and have settled on teaching at the Victoria College of Art.
The school is in this 100-year old building, originally an elementary school with a boys' entrance and a girls' entrance.

I will be setting up a Textile Arts programme and will begin with an intensive 6 week course on hand stitching. It is called Mark Making with Thread. Students will attend twice a week for 6 hours each day so they will be able to work in an atelier studio type of set up.

The last week will be for final critiques of work and the mounting of a public exhibition of their work. It is all very exciting and I'm so looking forward to teaching the course in November. In the meantime, I have to get my dissertation written for my own BA studies.

Each year the year-3s work together on a community/group project. The front doors of the school show the project last year's year-3 students worked on. It is made from painted and polished copper.

Teaching Fibre Art to High School Students

For the past few weeks I have been working with a grades 11 & 12 art class as they learn how to dye and paint fabric. They random-dyed and painted backgrounds then thickened the dyes to paint, print, stencil and stamp for the 2nd & 3rd layers.

This student is cutting out letters from a random-dyed background and is going to applique them onto the pink & blue piece above.
This past week we worked on stitching using straight stitch to add texture, develop a focal point, emphasise line or shape and to balance the composition.
They are a great group to work with. I am looking forward to seeing their stitching progress when I visit again in April.