Katie Nolan

Unit X Development Since beginning the sampling stage of Unit X, my group have been meeting and discussing our ideas and developments and me and another member of my group have decided to collaborate within the group as. After meeting and showing our work to 3D students, we realised that our work was aiming to move in the same direction and we were addressing the same issues as well as making use of similar materials and processes. As well as this, our group as a whole, despite having different ways of working and interests in terms of subject matter, I have noticed that the collective colour scheme, and our focal point being the same craft, our work is moving in the direction of an interesting collection of work that works cohesively but also allows for each persons work to achieve their own distinctiveness. I began my sampling by producing a series of fringes and tassels using wools and yarns, making use of various techniques to achieve different styles ...

Unit X Initial research When receiving our Unit X Brief entitled “Endangered crafts” our group initially decided to try and change the perception of the word ‘Craft’ into something with more of a contemporary connotation. We discussed Using scale to change idea of craft as a small and time-consuming activity into something that can be more widely used and enjoyed. We also eventually came to the decision that we would look at one craft collectively to make sure our research was cohesive. The two main issues affecting the viability of Heritage crafts that we chose to focus on were: Recruitment -A lack of awareness that the craft exists as a career option, Ageing workforce -few or no younger people entering the craft We began discussing Key issues that we can try and tackle within our project: How ?    - Make craft more appealing to young people -        Create a piece that changes preconceptions of ‘craf...

Initially, I began the project with a pre-existing image of the type of work that I was going to produce, this made it hard to develop my work in the first couple of weeks of the project as In my head the work I was producing was what I liked doing. However, as I was shown more processes, began to think more critically about my work and took more influence from my drawings I became less precious about retaining my desired style, and became more focused on experimenting with material and process. This change in the way I approach my work has definitely aided the development of my studio work and has opened me up to far more than I expected. My initial ‘100 Objects’ sketchbook was fairly small and didn’t provoke much inspiration in terms of translating my drawings into textiles. It soon became clear that in order to take my work further I needed stronger inspiration, which wasn’t coming from my sketchbook. I began working on loose A2 sheets, this different way of working immediately...

So far in this unit, I have definitely grow in confidence with regards to my approach to working. I have been pushing myself to use different processes, colour schemes and materials. With regards to my drawing I have slowly become more confident in my drawing and therefor haven’t been limiting myself to a small sketchbook and have been working on bigger sheets. Due to my drawings becoming larger, my samples followed suit, this allowed me to form a stronger link between my drawings and my samples, although I am still working on this, I didn’t expect to work so large scale considering the size of my samples produced at the beginning of this project. Giving myself more surface to work onto, I found myself keeping my work simpler, something I was probably afraid to do before. In comparison to the last unit, I feel more engrossed in my work, and have been working better independently, utilising the studio more outside of taught hours. I better understand how to develop my own wor...