Battersea antiques and Textiles fair

Last Sunday I visited the Antiques and Textiles fair run three times a year in Battersea Park, after seeing it advertised I went along with the thought it would be full of old and new textile, with upcoming designers and new, innovative designs, oh how I was wrong.

It was an experience to see but it was all very commercial, with stalls of upclass interiors and a main target audience of over 50's. it was very design, some displays and stalls proved very relevant to my current table theatre, all with a very large price tag though!

The fair was a place for potentail buyers to source a nice lampshade for their dining room or special plates for the kitchen, not something im particulary interested quite yet.

Some pieces were quirky, interesting, a taste of european design as well as British, there was even a walking stick made out of a stingrays tail- well what do you buy a man whos got everything?

"Neighbourhood colour" exhibition by Stage 2 BA Textile students

A viewing of the second year's students work, briefed to a "neighbourhood colour palette" of two contrasting London neighbourhoods and to capture the essence of both places.
After viewing the second years work it gave a good insight of what was to come for us, it seemed like an imaginative and interesting project which let the students really explore an area and different aspects of a place, much like our 'rough guide project'.
Everything was professionally displayed and fully mounted with all different varieties of medium and materials used throughout the specialism, it also helped me to realise the vast amount of materials and the boundaries that could be pushed within a set brief project.
Work I found which was most different to mine was that of Anjali D'Souza with her pixaleted boys work, she had taken inspiration from the glossy doors in Notting Hill and used print to create a series of Ties and Shirts, all in various materials and vibrant colours, it differed to mine in that her colour palette was so bold and bright and really captured the eye when first entering the room. Her use of print was also heavily emphasized on, something I have not used much of myself in my work.
Work more similar to my own style was that of Harriet Callingford, she had a piece named "Flock me" which featured a set of fabrics with her "addiction to rock steady Eddies, a far black fineliner, an idea of layering, and love of textured fabrics, a dream of merging digital and screen printing to an illustrative obsession". Her flocking and devoury onto fabric and different printing methods made the piece very interesting and different, with so many parts to a project Illustration is something I feature in my work, her style, with repetitive pattern and more "fun" Laura Mccafferty type textiles featuring real people and real objects interests me, the ability to work mixed media and experiment with different affects, I also like having different perspectives and meanings to work, to look at it one way and have it mean one thing, then to completely turn it around so it looks like something entirely different is very appealing to me.
I believe sustainability has been approached in the work, the students think more carefully about where their materials are being sourced from, but it may not be as noticeable or campaigned as other artists. It is not immediately obvious what has been recycled or sustainable from all the work.
On talking to current student Helen Truran, she explained that there was great freedom in the second year, anyone can pretty much do whatever they need to, and its good to experiment and use mixed media and cross over into different specialities, stage one is a time to learn alot in the blocks, its a good indicator of whats to come. She used different photographs and began to explore through photoshop to create a digitally metallic collection of menswear. Her timetable is flexible and second years mainly have long More progressive projects to go in depth and really get to grips with it, wastage is also kept to a minimum and sustainability always thought of! Looking around the show really helped to put work into perspective and make the realisation that no speciality is restricted to one area or way of working.

Visit to Blythe House

Blythe House is the current home to the V&A's vast collection of textile sample books and catalogues of past displays, all are archives, used for reference to the public and specially stored in room upon room of the history of (mainly) British textiles from the past.

Some of the books have been on display in the South Kensington Museum itself and others have been restored back to former glory after suffering damage, some were used in shops, haberdasheries and upholstery shops in previous years.

The books and catalogues have been donated and all are handled preciously.

We got the chance to view and read the books, looking at some of Liberty's original prints and Heal's furniture coverings. The trip was insightful to how important British textiles was and is, some of the patterns were inspiring and used age-old techniques, it's a rich resource to collate the history of the V & A and past textiles.

It all seems very secretive when your there, with the winding long corridors and unnamed doors filled with past history, it was definitely useful to know of Blythe House for future research and influences.