PickOne

A One Minute Video ...

2011-09-12T14:41:00.000+01:00

For what it's worth here is my little video that I put together for Prof. Mike Press to present to all his shiny new students at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. The production values aint that great, but I think it's what was required!

Weave Course Information.

2011-08-10T13:46:00.000+01:00

Developmental Images PT.IV

2011-07-18T23:28:00.001+01:00

I-ON article.

2011-07-10T22:01:00.002+01:00

Here is a wee interview I did as part of I-ON's regular "MY I-ON DESIGN" ... The link is above and is on page 76 - 77 ... I hope I didn't embarrass myself to much!

A Week In My Life

2011-07-01T00:02:00.001+01:00

I was a asked to write a piece for Craftscotland, which was published on their website titled "A Week In My Life"

It was kinda hard to write a concise piece as my week/weeks are so varied and it was tricky trying to get it in the alloted word count ... which I failed to do!

Let me know what you think and feel free to pass the above link on to other interested parties.

Normal service will resume, once I catch my breath from my wee holiday to Berlin!

Large Drawings Pt III.

2011-06-06T23:59:00.002+01:00

Large Drawings Pt II.

2011-06-06T00:09:00.001+01:00

Large Drawings Pt I.

2011-05-25T23:07:00.004+01:00

A Creative Pause.

2011-05-25T21:06:00.002+01:00

More Mark Making.

2011-05-23T00:07:00.002+01:00

Light Drawings

2011-05-23T00:05:00.000+01:00

Variation IV - Off Message

2011-05-22T23:08:00.001+01:00

Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show

2011-05-18T09:40:00.002+01:00

Looking forward to meeting up with all the other exhibitors at todays Craftscotland briefing day for the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show which is happening later this year, specifically November 2011. Will try to tweet from the event itself and take some pics so I can blog about it.

Variation III

2011-05-18T09:22:00.001+01:00

Variation II - Black & White

2011-05-09T00:48:00.003+01:00

Variation I

2011-05-09T00:25:00.000+01:00

Further i-Phone drawings.

2011-05-03T00:01:00.001+01:00

i - phone musings

2011-05-02T01:16:00.002+01:00

i-Phone drawings.

2011-05-02T00:09:00.002+01:00

Edinburgh Spotlight

2011-04-28T20:32:00.001+01:00

More info on my weaving classes at Edinburgh Spotlight website. While looking at the info about the courses I run from my studio, you may want to take the time to look see what else goes on in this fab city that I live in.

Please share this info with all your contacts & any other interested parties.

Thank you!

Craftscotland Profile Update

2011-04-19T08:50:00.003+01:00

I have updated my profile on the Craftscotland website which gives you the latest update of what I am doing with my hand fabrics. Please share this with all your contacts and other interested parties.

I will be posting more visuals shortly, further documenting my process ... I have been busy in the studio weaving and refining my treble cloth structures over my Easter break and have been on a bit of a roll with it all.

Thanks for sharing!

Philadelphia

2011-04-14T09:24:00.001+01:00

It's official ... I have been selected for the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) along with 24 other crafts folk from Scotland as part of their Guest Country Programme. More information can be found at the above link on the Craftscotland website who will be working alongside PMA.

I last did this show in 2003 and it was the best direct selling show I have ever been involved in.

More information to follow when I get it!

Thanks for looking.

The Warp and Weft Blog

2011-02-23T09:31:00.001Z

I have been blogged about! http://thewarpandweftblog.blogspot.com/ Follow this link for the article and other interesting info regarding the fab Laura Thomson. Thank you

Spacing

2011-02-14T00:54:00.004Z

Apologies regarding to my spacing between text and images ... I know it's a tad all over the place and I am sure I will get better as I persevere with it.

Thanks for looking and all the feed back, both is good and appreciated. Thank you.

Marking The Marks

2011-02-13T22:51:00.016Z

This posting is detailing some of the marks and drawing I made, some whilst on my travels and some made based on the photographs I took whilst on as detailed in previous postings.

Bluster

Reed

Fair Island Morning

Fair Island Rain

Untitled

Untitled - Detail

Distance Surface - Detail

Distant Surface

Marks on the Landscape.

Land Meeting

Fair Isle IV - Detail

Part of my research was spent in Lerwick, Shetland with a fair proportion of my time spent in the new Museum (www.shetland-museum.org.uk) going through there archives. I was as I suspect are many people drawn to their rich and varied archive of knit wear, especially the Fair Isle pieces and samples.

I was drawn to the repetition of pattern and the rich colour, many of which were taken from natural materials within the environs of Shetland itself. Many of the islands have a history of using what ever was around them to product a varied palette of colour which was in turn used to dye fleece, to make into clothing and fabrics to keep out the cold.

Untitled

This juxtaposition of ideas, images and layers excited me and my craft based visual thinking and research. I set about looking at ways I could combine and fuse these knitted marks with the landscape of the islands from hence they came. The layers of meaning and thinking motivated me greatly.

I initially explored the landscape using marks and images I happened upon within the confines of Shetland Museum. While the energy of the mark making was deeply satisfying the notion of using the found imagery was not. This was a real stumbling point as while there was focus and discovery in my own personal mark making, I did not want to regurgitate images and symbols that had been used for, sometimes, centuries. Rather I wanted to invent my own. Symbols that flowed and meant something to me and my personal journey as a creative crafts person.

Fair Isle I - Detail

This was a relatively taxing and frustrating time. I found my response to this conundrum equally fascinating as an anxiety "to get it right" hampered rather than empowered this development. The images I developed mixing the physical with the meta physical proved very contrived, while I enjoyed the idea of the mix I was still striving forward with combining these two elements, I was convinced they would meld but at this stage I just hadn't discovered the how.

Fair Isle I

Untitled

Collage I

Collage II

Untitled

View From Burra - Detail

View From Burra

Burra I

At this stage there was a visceral and tactile joy in the physical marks I was making which I found deeply satisfying. I hope this comes across in the images I have selected for this blog entry.

These selected images were going to take me in new and diverse directions with the help of a contemporary technology which I don't believe had been used in a craft research context before ... certainly not by me.

Grimsay I

Grimsay Light

Grimsay IV

This last image, below, is a detail from a wall tile at Glasgow School of Art, which I took after the previous images were made. I have enclosed it as I enjoyed the visual link between what Charles Rennie MacIntosh was doing with his detailing and what I was doing in my image making and mark making through colour and surface making. I enjoyed the commonality of the visual, not that I am any where in the same league as MacIntosh!

Glasgow School of Art - Wall Tile Detail.

Light Drawings

2011-02-06T23:20:00.005Z

Uist, to me has such a barren landscape, yet I found the outcrops of lights from distant dwellings on horizons strangely beautiful, romantic and haunting.

The haunted landscapes fascinated me, especially with the movement of distant lights in the forms of light houses and speeding cars which flitted erratically across the twisting roads.

Lighthouse Lighthouse VII

Car Brakes

When taking these images there was an uncertainty to what I was actually going to get. I enjoyed and liked playing with the ethereal qualities I was generating. Getting the perfect image became a tad addictive as I felt the next image would always be better than the previous. Thank goodness for digital technology as completed images numbered in 100's, displayed here are just a fraction of what was taken.

Driving Rain

These images became the basis and part of a series of drawing which I later developed in my studio, but at the time I was unsure how if indeed these images would be used, but they were to become integral to both my visual research and my new woven surfaces.

Grimsay

Untitled

Dancing Light III

Dancing Light

Brake

Apparition II

Apparition VII

Apparition XI

These images were taken while driving to my ferry connection in Lochboisdale, Uist to the mainland at about 05.30 in the morning. Even at this time of the morning I was surprised at how much activity there was on the roads and how much light emitted from distant dwellings.

These images gave me interesting apparition like marks in the landscape, that constantly surprised me. I had a fantastic voyage across to the mainland from Uist studying the results from my digital camera.

These images were later used in drawings as you will see.

Winding Forth

Dancing Apparitions

View From Barra

The image above is one of my favorite images and illustrates to me the isolation and the haunted beauty the Uists had over me while there in November 2009.

Photographic Source

2011-02-02T22:58:00.006Z

These images are a small selection of what excited me from my travels to the Uists in the Outer Hebrides and the Shetlands in 2009. There are a couple of shot of me in them that were taken on another trip to Harris and Lewis a few years earlier. I have included them here as even then I was looking at the Scottish Landscape with an eye that informed my woven work.
On my trips in 2009 I was fascinated by the small and insignificant as well as the large, dramatic scale of these rich landscapes.

The camera allowed me to compose and examine, colour, texture and the juxtaposition of one surface against another. It allowed me to record and reflect. A method which was to become important and vital to my developmental research in to this new body of work.

These images were instrumental in moving my practice on in a new, diverse and exciting direction, where diversification became my buzz word during this research. Yes I am and always will be a weaver and interested in surface through the woven cloth, but with this research I became aware of what I can and could do with a series of marks on paper.

This will I hope become apparent as I populate this blog with more postings.

Seductive Ceramics

2011-02-02T22:16:00.002Z

If I did ceramics I would hope I made work like this by Clare Crouchman .... very seductive. Good article about her in the current edition of Ceramic Review, as well as an article written by my studio chum Ben Murdock.

Archival Images

2011-01-26T21:22:00.001Z

These are a few images from my back catalogue dating back to 2001 ... I think. I no longer weave using this technique as you will see in the oncoming weeks. I have moved on from this layered way of working, at least with less emphasis on the floating warp and weft and more toward geometric shapes within the form of the flat cloth, which I will go into more detail as I move forward with this blog.

I think in the importance of documenting the present and all the visual design processes that I have gone through to get there I feel I have to document the past so you, the viewer can see where I came from. I will try to do this in a logical process as possible. Being very aware of the dyslexia I have this may not be that apparent, but I will try.

The first three pieces have been woven using Scottish Shetland yarn with the top piece being a commission to Ann Sutton. The commission was was taken the first time I did the Chelsea Craft Fair in 2001.

The rest are woven using mixtures of lambswool, mercerised cotton, dip dyed silk-linen and Shetland Yarn. All were woven on a 32 shaft dutch made computerised Louet loom, which I still use today ... excellent for storing information on and quick to use with the fly shuttle. The only disadvantage I can see is that I have one box on the fly shuttle ... I say disadvantage, it's not really as it has forced me to be more creative with my warps to get more colour and I suppose texture into them.

Over the next wee while I will document my practice and will cover my inspiration from the Scottish land and sea scapes. I will document my photography, my mark making and my use of the i-phone as way to generate design possibilities, through to my sampling on the loom to the finished items.

I will throw in my mistakes, dilemmas and disasters to show that it aint plain sailing or easy ... time management being my biggest dilemma. I co run the craft based shop Concrete Wardrobe in Edinburgh with my business partner Fiona MacIntosh, I have a .5

contract at a Further Education College in Dundee, I teach a night class at Leith School of Art as well as participate in their weekend and summer school programs. I also teach weave classes from my studio in Leith, Edinburgh. I am also currently taking part in a TQFE qualification to help with my teaching ... it is all doable and it continues to be for the most part. For me it's a life style choice ... one which I enjoy hugely with all the challenges it brings.

I have been meaning to get this blog up and running since I received a Creative Scotland Development Award in 2009 to document my practice and now feel the time is right.

Please feel free to pass this on to any other interested parties and share my blog with anyone who feels they may benefit and enjoy it.

Weaving Soundscape

2011-01-26T01:19:00.000Z

Weaving Soundscape - Have a listen ... bliss!

The C Word

2011-01-25T23:31:00.001Z

Just in case some of you haven't seen this .... This is the Craftscotland cinema ad which I appear in. I have also just received some VERY exciting news which I will share at the beginning of March 2011.

Today was a tad full on what with one thing another ... I was in my shop Concrete Wardrobe today, which is ALWAYS busy ... never a quiet moment in there.

Tomorrow is a studio day! Hurrah!

The Craft Voice

2011-01-25T01:10:00.003Z

Please join and share with any interested parties.

Judy Scott

2011-01-24T23:00:00.003Z

Please have a read of what one of my ex students has been up since leaving Dundee College at the above link. I even get a mention!

Monday ...

2011-01-24T16:53:00.003Z

Monday and I am feeling very organised ... taxes done and paid up to date, lesson plans completed for Leith School of Art night class, TQFE stuff up to date for Dundee College and ... well, all is well! Great to get to this position and now just have to keep on top of it all!

Saying that I am feeling a tad social networked out ... Facebook, Twitter and Blog ... what else? I have let the Blog thing slide but I will try to get back into it as I see it as an important networking tool for promotion and advertising, which in the current climate has to be a good thing. Will try to do better!

The back ground and the image enclosed is what I call one of my app drawings, which I designed on my i-phone using three separate apps. This was a photograph of a drawing, then put through three differing apps (... all free at the time ... ) then used as source for my treble cloth woven structures, which can be seen on my FB page (PickOne)

I will keep adding images and as I said in an earlier post try and keep it more visual ... STILL trying to get to grips with it all, especially with all the ovr lap, so will see what works best.

Please let anyone you think maybe interested in this blog know about it as I seem to have gotten stuck at 16 for quiet some time!

My fault!

PickOne.Blog: Social networks ...

2011-01-24T00:54:00.000Z

PickOne.Blog: Social networks ...: "I have just set up a Facebook Page for my PickOne label. Type in PickOne into the search bar, join and share with all your chums. I have po..."

Social networks ...

2011-01-24T00:34:00.001Z

I have just set up a Facebook Page for my PickOne label. Type in PickOne into the search bar, join and share with all your chums. I have posted up some images of my treble cloth scarves ... more to follow.

I can also be followed on twitter @pickoneweaver

Keep sharing!

Killing Craft

2010-04-14T02:19:00.000+01:00

Read Read more about "Killing Craft Through Educational Vandalism" on this Face Book Fan page and if you agree with the statement join "Killing Craft Through Educational Vandalism" on FB and ask all your friends and get them to ask there friends to join ... Make your craft voice heard!

Studio Shots

2009-08-14T23:20:00.026+01:00

Some shots of my studio, taken last weekend. An unedited version of images can be found on Flicker at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41452558@N07/sets/72157622040273262/

All the images of my work you see on my

web site www.pickone.co.uk were woven on the

Louet Loom which can be seen in more detail on

the images on Flicker

This is all still new to me so bare with me if links

dont work and you see duplicates of

images in Flicker. Any problems let me know.

Happy viewing!

Proposal

2009-08-06T22:35:00.005+01:00

This is all very wordy, but if your interested this is the proposal I put into the Scottish Arts Council for the Creative Development Award. Once read it may help one understand the purpose of the PickOne.Blog, what I will be Blogging about and what I intend to do with the Award, from this moment on I promise this will get more visual!

Read on ...

Since setting up my studio and textiles label PickOne in 1995 I have taken up a rigorous yearly cycle of events which have included international trade events and high profile national and international exhibitions, some of which have been self generated and some have been supported by the organisations such as the Scottish Arts Council and the British Crafts Council. Due to the cyclic nature of these events and the way in which the work is designed, produced and promoted, very little valid time is given over to the development of new work, which includes combinations of cloth structures, yarn development and suitable colour analysis. Any development currently carried out is of an incremental nature and not very satisfactory from an aesthetic, developmental or personal point of view.

Receiving help from the Creative Development Fund would allow me to buy time to invest in my creative growth as a designer maker.

I am keen to point out at this stage that a blog would be developed through out which would feed from my existing web site www.pickone.co.uk The blog would be linked into other social networks to encourage audience development, this would visually document and track the whole process, demonstrating the differing stages of the design process. Acting as an on line sketch book the blog would make visible a process which is largely unseen and this documentation would evidence my progress through out to primary stakeholders and audiences that may otherwise be overlooked in this process.

The project timetable can be broken down into three stages Research, Development and Production of new hand woven structures.

Research

Approximately One month. This will include the recording of visuals both through mark making, drawing and the use of digital photography of the Scottish land and seascapes. An area already earmarked to give a variety of locations are the Shetland Islands. The visit to Shetland would also enable me to visit the Ann Sutton Foundation Shetland (ASFS). As well as a space for textile designers to work from the ASFS also houses a large personal collection of weave books amassed by Ann Sutton through out her life, this library along with a large yarn store is open to the public by appointment and will inform a large part of my initial research into new cloth/fabric structures.

Drawing and mark making is the basis of all good design processes and I consider this research vital to the success of the overall project, as this is one activity missing from my current practice, discovering and examining new sources will inform print manipulations and ultimately new directions in cloth structures.

Development

Approximately Four months. Marks and drawings recorded from this journey will be reinterpreted through printmaking processes such as mono printing to develop fields of colour and texture, at this point mono printing has been deemed the most appropriate method of mark making due to the spontaneous nature in which marks and surfaces can be made, this will act as a foil to the often time consuming elements of weaving. Development through printing will be carried out for two months at the Edinburgh Printmakers, Union Street, Edinburgh. These “fields of colour and texture” will then be developed into wearable cloth with sampling carried out to develop new woven structures. During the sampling processes, which will happen over a two-month period, new yarn types will also be experimented with in conjunction with the cloth structures to alter the existing cloth handle of current fabrics being produced.

As part of this development strategy, it is anticipated to include external advice from existing experts in the field of textiles and woven cloth. At this stage I have identified Reiko Sudo of the Nuno Corporation, Tokyo, Japan and Ann Sutton of the ASFS as mentors. I believe that with their global expertise either would be able to advise my creative development within the structure of this project. It is anticipated that no physical visits would be required, as all communication would be carried through e-mail and the use of the established blog allowing potential mentors and other stakeholders to track and view the projects progress, giving the whole project transparency. With this feedback a response of further fabric development would be embarked upon before finished pieces would be completed.

Production

Approximately One month. By this stage all developmental work and sampling will have been completed along with the mentoring sessions and this time would be used to produce the finished samples, a certain amount of designing on the loom would also be carried out at this juncture as this is a natural part of the design process within weaving.

Anticipated outcome

This activity would primarily benefit my practice by buying time to research and develop a new far reaching range of woven structures that will out live the yearly cycle that I have fallen into, it will also add to my already strong signature look and this will be built on with the time that the creative development fund would offer me as a textile designer. This time will also allow me to reflect on my practice, as well as give me an opportunity to reflect with assurance on the current activity based on this journey.

The applied arts sector will benefit through the documentation and promotion of the whole process through open source media, as it will visually allow designer-makers, primary and secondary stakeholders to view the design process from inspiration, development to the completion of this project. This process will make the invisible visible and help to tell an individual story as well as what we as designer makers do in general. This story is important to get across using contemporary technologies to reinvigorate (my) existing audiences, attract new audiences and edify other secondary stakeholders.

My ambition as a weaver has always been to challenge the general preconceived ideas of what a wearable decorative fabric is and to a certain extent I have achieved that with my past pieces. However I wish to build upon this further by developing technically challenging work with renewed vigour through the development of drawing and mark making/printmaking generated through observations within the Scottish environment.

Since graduating in 1993 with a first class B (des) in Constructed Textiles I have participated in a number of high profile exhibitions, trade events and lecture programmes. These events while stimulating have become cyclic, with the development of new work problematic due in part to the timing of these events through out the year and how the work is designed and produced. Having time out to reflect will allow me to grow both creatively and as a businessman where I can examine how and where I promote myself as a designer maker.

In 2008 I completed a Masters of Design at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee where I examined how Scottish based designer makers can survive in a global market, through this research I explored the use of current technologies to promote Scottish based designer makers. This activity would put the outcomes from this research into practice allowing the transparencies of process for all stakeholders to see through contemporary technologies.

This activity will visually aid my current practice through reflection, recording new sources with photography, drawing, mark making and printmaking, as well as the documentation of all processes through blogging and other open source medias.

Slowly ....

2009-08-06T00:02:00.004+01:00

Slowly but surely getting my head round the whole blogging thing! This blog will be populated with images thoughts and discoveries as I complete my proposal for the Creative Development Award, which I received from the Scottish Arts Council. I am still awaiting my award, but when I do my project will begin!

I will be looking for comments from ALL interested parties so I can continue on this creative journey and as this was an integral part of my proposal I actively encourage it for the greater good of all! Be brutal!

I will want to keep the PickOne.Blog as visual as possible, but initially I will want to give you a bit more information on my proposal, I will do this in due course so that you have a richer over view of the entire project.

Cheers!