One of the frustrations of having had a broken back has been that my OCA Textiles Degree work was effectively on hold between March and December. As I was supposed to have finished, not only Module 2 – Mixed Media for Textiles – but also Module 3 by the end of September this is not so good!

I have, however, finally finished Assignment 3 of 5 (moulding and casting). It was an interesting assignment and I think I can safely say that I’m not going to be moving from textiles into plaster, resin and clay any time soon! Not because I didn’t enjoy it – some of it was great – but how do people cope with the frustrations of working with something so fragile? My clay pieces cracked and disintegrated, my plaster of Paris set too quickly (or not at all!) and my attempts at casting from kinetic sand were, um, less than ideal. I shall persevere though (not least because I have a ton of clay and plaster to use up) but it will be nice to get back to some tactile, non-fragile textiles!

I found some fascinating artists during my research and I thought you might find them interesting too. Their work is both challenging and inspiring and I’m hoping it will inform my own textiles work, encouraging me to expand my horizons.

You can find my current research (and the rest of my MMT coursework) on my separate blog here. In the meantime, here’s a little sample of the work I’ve been doing….