Furniture Design

For my personal project, I have decided to focus on furniture decoration. These pieces were found in a department store in Madrid and really inspired me to continue one of my interests even though I have no prior experience of doing anything like this. I like working on surfaces rather than in my sketchbook and this has been particularly apparent in recent projects. It is daunting as many things could go wrong but if I could pull it off I think that it will be a really rewarding project. It also has an element of entrepreneurship about it where I could sell the pieces on afterwards.

Research

Time for some niceties!

I listed in the things that I am inspired by: Textile design, and in particular Marit Fujiwara. Marit graduated in 2009 with a truly amazing collection. I can only guess at the time and effort she put in to produce such adoringly beautiful work. It may seem a little odd that I am inspired by a textile design, but I am inspired by her hard work and efforts. Everything is practiced with precision, if a single hair is out of place she comes across as the type of person who would start all over again. I admire her use of colour, her use of fabrics and her sketches are pretty damn good too! Get a glance at these beauts...

It's photo time!

Here are some of the photographs I took whilst out and about in Madrid. I have to say that it is a very pretty city (although after exhausting the shops there wasn't much else to occupy our time with!). These photos are of a building which had some delicate paintings of figures on them. It must have made for pain staking work up on a ladder for the amount of time they must have taken to complete!

The building can be found in Plaza Mayor in the old part of Madrid. Little boutiques, restaurants and cafes line the square making a very attractive destination for a spot of lunch and afternoon shopping.

Madrid

I'm baaaack!

I got in at 2am this morning after a long journey from Madrid to Liverpool and then from Liverpool home. It didn't help with the group of 13 year old lads on the back of the plane trying to outdo each other with ridiculous jokes and general immaturity.

My initial reasoning for branching out of the Manchester area to look at art was to see Guernica first hand after deciding to base my dissertation around it. It was in the Sofia museum in central Madrid (we managed to bag ourselves free entrance with being pauper students!) and about 2 minutes walk from our hotel due to Philippa's handiwork.

Unfortunately, we were unable to take any of our own photographs and weren't allowed within 6 foot of it and was guarded by two security men. We were filled with anticipation, was it round the next corner, was it round the next... but when I eventually saw it, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Maybe it was all the Japanese tourists in front of us that blocked my view but it didn't have the impact I was expecting.

Sure, it's big(ish). But I expected it being much bigger. I anticipated more grandeur, more oomph more zest. I suppose I got some relatively good notes on details which are not apparent in images available online or even in some books. But I was unable to get any hard literature to aid my dissertation writing as it was all in Spanish or German. Please take note Sofia Library - we require more books on Guernica, in English please!

After walking the streets of Madrid for hours, we were still unable to find anything on Guernica in English. Looks like trusty Amazon will have to do. So after all the anticipation and hype over going to see what could be argued as one of the most famous pieces of art in the world, I was bitterly disappointed. No photographs, no literature. I could have got as much information from Wikipedia.

Rant over, this is not my photograph, if only.

Summer Brief

Over the summer, I have been briefed to start a personal project. Preferably on something that I am really interested in and that I would like to spend around 4 weeks on. Note to self: do NOT include ALL the things that your are interested in. Next... how to pick 1 thing of interest out of my list of hundreds?

Things I am currently considered (please note that this could change at any time with my wide ranging interests getting bigger by the day!)

1. Exploring textiles - inspiration Marit Fujiwara, lamp shade covers, cushions

2. Furniture restoration - inspiration Laurence Llywellyn Bowen and Auction Party, ITV, reupholstering chairs

3. Cake - exploration of texture, taste and aesthetic

4. Travelling - trip to Tunisia 3 weeks ago and Madrid on Monday 06/06

5. Alexander Girad, Eduardo Paolozzi, Style Bubble blog

6. Decay - metal decay, human decay, rust

7. Print - newspapers, magazines, literature in general

8. Melted carrier bags, Katy Aston, Claire Caudwell

My list is endless, let's hope that the adventure to Madrid helps to narrow it down some ...