Friday 31 January 2014

Becoming interested...

A college relatively local to where we live, has an open day once a year. It serves two purposes - one, to showcase their student's work and two, to show what the college can offer and in turn interest prospective students.

A few years ago, I went to one of their open days, primarily to find out about their courses in textile work. That particular tutor wasn't present so I was spoken to by tutor's from the Access to Art & Design higher education courses. They thought I would be better suited to what they had to offer as the textile courses were predominantly 'populated' by youngsters, extremely noisy etc and felt I might be put off. Having walked past such course rooms later one, they were right as I do like to work in relative quiet.

Anyhow, I decided to apply for the Access course, and was duly interviewed (with hardly any work to show them). I can only assume my extreme interest won the day and I was offered a place. Going to college (and then onto University) is quite overwhelming when you have not been in education for a very long time. The Access courses are a way of not only getting you back into education but also to show you the level of interest and hard work required to complete it and any subsequent courses you move on to.

The element of this course that interested me the most, at the time, was textiles. We only had a short 6 week course to complete the module and other than the initial (drawing) element, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Now that I am becoming interested in quilting and patchwork appliqué, I thought I would show you some of my exam display elements before they are re-used and/or further felted.

We were on holiday the week before setting up for assessment so all my work came with us and every night, I assembled different elements, worked on my journals and completed anything still requiring the finishing touch.You should be able to read what is written on the labels if you click on the photographs.

The first (Shibori) and the second (Devore) are very quick pieces (one lesson only) in dyeing fabric:


There was another piece but it didn't survive for long so has gone into that great bin in the sky!

11 comments:

  1. I love the piece Devore, bright colours are my thing, its beautiful.
    Briony
    x

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    1. Thank you. Considering I had no idea what I was doing at the time, I like it as well.

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  2. I think it is brilliant to choose to do something like this as a 'mature student'. I did City and Guilds Patchwork and Quilting and thoroughly enjoyed it - courses like this just stretch you that bit further. Now of course I have no desire to push myself any more in this way, but I am so glad I did it - I recognise the sample boards, I still have some of mine somewhere!

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    1. Me too. I am glad I did it when I did. I did try and go on to do a Master's in a different place, but the first year was so awful, I knew I didn't want to carry on.

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    2. I would love to do the C & G Patchwork & Quilting course; I was working in a University centre that offered it, and it was mainly populated by retired ladies, so different from the youngsters that attended the Uni. I remember that in their first term, many of them moaning about the amount of 'design' work (ie non fabric homework) they had to do - they just wanted to get on and sew, but by the end of the first year they could all see the value in it. I used to nip off and watch them working, it was lovely ...

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  3. They're both beautiful and yet so different.
    I absolutely loved my Access course . A lady I became friends with was the oldest at 45, and the youngest was 19, yet we all got on really well together. Uni was completely different - the younger ones wanted nothing to do with anybody older. There was one other mature student in my group and he was 10 years younger than me. The rest were 18 year old girls. It was awful most of the time. My English specialism sessions kept me sane. The tutor was an absolute joy, though the younger ones were scared of him - he expected them to have done the reading and would direct questions at them to ask for their opinions and ideas. In the vast majority of sessions I was the only one who had done the reading, which made for very quiet seminars as in the end I refused to share my ideas with lazy people who contributed nothing. I learned so much from him and will be forever grateful.

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    1. I think our Access course ranged from 18 to 53. Uni course 20 to 65. Their oldest, previous student was 89! I too refused to share projects (where possible) as those who tried to join in with me (to share the work) usually didn't do anything and if you shared, the marks were divided! It may sound callous but the graduate course was hard enough without pulling someone along who didn't want to be pulled!

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  4. Lovely pieces of work DC. I don't think I'd be able to work in a noisy environment either. I decided not to go down the Masters route either. Enough was enough but like you glad I did it when I did. x

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    1. So was I, couldn't even think of doing it now, too much brain power needed for too long.

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