a wee note to say that my work has been featured here: http://www.whitecoffeemagazine.com/2012/artist-showcase-morvern-odling/
nice to know its getting out there. After my birthday shenanigans I am no longer allowed out there but must must must get everything crossed off this list.
Having seen it together, the yarn should more match the grey of the felt making the printed design the colour feature. It stands on it’s own, the stitches giving it rigidity.
Thanks to my brother, Gylen, I have the final dimensions for the first of the installations. Again I am reminded how lucky I am to be surrounded by useful, awesome people! Unfortunately there isn’t enough fabric for two installations large enough to have any sound buffering effect. So I’ll start with the round based pyramid one as that was the main problem area in the café and visually it is much more interesting.
Monday, first day of printing at Superclub.
I printed a few things, here are the photos. I don’t really have the words to explain how effing fantastic it was to be working in my own space. Effing fantastic and just a little scary (especially when the meter ran out and all the lights turned off).
I have tubs with lids. Thanks Mum!
Testing screens with useful things,
A small something
a small something else
I tried out a few colours for the installation, and combinations of passes and strengths of pigment. Yesterday I also tried out pva, to see if that would add an extra plasticity to the texture. It didn’t make any noticeable difference and I had to put more pigment in to get the same strength of colour, so it’s out.
Pyramid Trials
half concentration on the right.
pva samples
I cut out one pyramid and printed it with the salmon/rust red colour.
I’ll sew it up today and see what’s next.
Halloween week came and week in a flurry of things. The night itself was an evening of plastic flowers, face paint and gin.
In other news, my first squeegee arrived. Having had a good look at it, I’ll definitely be buying my next squeegee as handle and blade separately. This way I will hopefully be able to buy a blunt edged blade rather than a square edged one. Personal preference.
I stretched a couple of screens using some leftover mesh and a staple gun. Lesson learned – the staples need to be close together and parallel or the mesh rips more easily.
I was very careful with my old acetates from 4th year, they were expensive and now they can be a good test before I finalise the new artwork.
I exposed them over at Contemporary Crafts, handily just around the corner from my flat. A light box just large enough for my wee wooden screens, it took the reptile strip bulbs just 3 minutes to expose the artwork. It aint perfect, but it’s good to have them. Printing starts tomorrow.
Constantly reminded of how much stuff you need to screen print today I wrote a final (ish) list of the things I have left to get before I can start:
Sponges, washing up liquid, small buckets, scissors, washing line, pegs, J-cloths, towels, tip-ex, cup hooks, gum strip, marker pens…..
As I said, printing tomorrow.
The Forest Café is an Edinburgh institution. Ask anyone, they’ll have at least heard of it and most people enthuse on its brilliance and importance.
Having only recently moved into their new premises on Tollcross, a very different space to their previous home, there are still kinks to be knocked out. The parallel concrete floor and ceiling provide a tinny, clashy, clamour where people have to fight to hear or be heard.
As these things usually happen, a dinner time conversation has grown into a proposal on my part to reduce (hopefully eradicate) this problem with some sound buffering fabric installations.
Industrial felt is what you need, I said.
Industrial felt it is, in this case in the form of recycled wool rich carpet underlay
(I used this for the wadding on my print table, useful stuff.)
As I build my studio having this project to work on is brilliant, keeping the stress and therefore motivation levels at a comfortable high. It will allow me to work out my new set up and get me printing not faffing.
I came up with a few ideas, and through a couple of meetings we settled on these two for now with an aim for the oblong one to be done by Christmas. (comfortably high)
These are just wee paper examples, as I work out the unavoidable measurements headache the shapes will develop.
Print wise I return to familiar ground, rock structures and patterns created by geological formations. I can run, but I lost my legs and am building them from scratch so for now, I’m walking. Colour wise I will use the warm mottled grey of the felt to match with and I’ll try out a few colours and textures of print. The panels will be roughly sewn together with bright, gaudy yarn.
I should be printing tests by the end of the week, I am fortunate to live around the corner from Edinburgh Contemporary Crafts. Head crafter, Lou, has been brilliant letting me coat two A3 tester screens which I will expose there tomorrow.
It’s always interesting to see how other people choose to display your work. At Futures in Excellence I particularly liked the presentation of my fabric works which allows the light to shine through the print, not dissimilar to the effect I had captured through photography for the paperworks.
The exhibition is at the top floor of the Borders Textile Towerhouse in Hawick and is up until the end of November.
For more photos check out http://www.morvernodling.co.uk/?page_id=28
So, I built a table. Usually printing tables are made with metal legs, so they won’t shift or wobble. However as I have a studio in a basement and I am working within a very tight budget, I went with wood. With the right structure and a lot more effort I have a table that is rigid and “sturdy enough to Can-Can on” – Dad. The advantages of building my own table don’t stop at cost effective, it has also meant that it is exactly the right height for my 5″11 frame and my carpentry/handyman skills have improved no end.
I should point out all of this was only made possible with the help of my useful people, in this case Dad and Tom. Without them I would be in dire straits.
Sketched measurements, B&Q provided the wood for the legs and the loft flooring which made up the main structure of the table. It may look rough but it’s precise, meaning less wastage and no disastrous mistakes.
Laying out the pieces, the floor isn’t even so I’ll have to add some wedges of paper when everything gets settled.
When the main frame was constructed we lined up the loft flooring so the overhang was equal all the way around. Modelled by useful Dad.
Drilling the table top, this last bit of constructing the frame and top of the table ensures its rigidity.
Stapling the carpet underlay flat and smooth means the table top will have an even surface.
Carpet underlay is great for the wadding as it has even thickness, I’m planning on using it for another project so it made sense to buy it on a roll.
(The above 2 photos are courtesy of Tom)
Smoothing out, stretching and stapling the pond lining. This required two people because I was aware that creasing the material would ruin the surface and it was heavy and difficult to maneuver.
Finished.
For under £200 you can build an 8″ by 4″ (144cm by 122 cm) textiles printing table.
I have kept all of the measurements, perhaps I’ll build another one and have an even longer/deeper table in the future. For now I have a long list of things to do before I can start printing again but I am one huge man leap forwards.
After a month of searching, agonising and generally worrying – I have a studio. Done, paid for, key on my keyring.
I’m delighted, but the challenges of building my own workshop are now realities and my lack of knowledge on how to construct anything means I’m at the bottom of a steep learning curve.
Print table first, everything else after. Luckily the ledge at the back of the space will allow me to store my screens there with a bit of carpet on the floor – meaning one less thing to construct. Ofcourse there is stretching and coating and exposing said screens, but I’m not getting into that yet.
Note the bloody useful distance between where my table will be (along the lefthand side wall) and the sinks.
So, to build a print table. I am making mine from scratch to avoid a wobbly, too low, too small surface. Mine will have a 90cm high table top which will be roughly 8 by 4 (or 148cm x 122cm in metric/ normal people speak).
You will need:
-One useful person who knows how to construct things, best if they come with own transport
– Lots of wood. 6 legs (70cm square posts are good) need bracing both along diagonals and around the bottom. I will be using various dimensions of wood for this, my useful person will give me the details as we go.
-if you have a van you can buy a sheet of 8 by 4 mdf or plywood, if you have a Nissan Micra you can buy loft flooring which tongue and groove slots together. This will mean more construction, but less van.
-Wadding. I will be using recycled carpet underlay, but I have yet to order it….
-Rubber table top surface. Pond liner is apparently the stuff for this, but again I have yet to order it…
Alongside these things you’ll need: a hefty set of saw, hammer, screwdriver and staplegun. You will then of course need the right nails, screws and staples.
I am very lucky to have my father as the most useful person anyone could ask for, and he has promised to make sure I learn so that in future I can do it all solo. Maybe then I can be a useful person too, one can only hope.
Not wanting to jinx it I won’t be writing about my new studio space until I have damn well signed on the dotted line.
In other news.
The Forest Cafe sound installation has been given a budget, approved at this stage and I have a week to get some models together with samples. A wonderful gift in the post this morning was some samples of industrial felt which are reasonably priced, ah I am delighted but distracted today.
Applications are tedious and finding the right words which will make me stand out make me rewrite the things over and over.
I still have to update this site, some things are still missing.
ah well, work time.
Life still feels much like it did when I was at Uni, which is odd – I was expecting some great revelation or depression or something. But nope, I’m sitting in the kitchen of my flat working away on things feeling pretty much the same.
The most noticeable change having graduated is discovering that most of my time is taken up with mundane things: emails, applications, website updating, working and yet more emails. I need a project and a space so I can get the creativity which is bouncing around my head out and onto fabric and paper. Ofcourse to get these things I have to first email, apply, work and update. So I do.
Trying to cover all my angles and give each aspect enough time makes me feel like a juggler, which is worrying as I was never any good at such things.
Here’s giving it my best though.
