Lab Stories
Norma Anderson
 


A conversation with Susan was the beginning idea for work based around the theme of a journey. Steph described a project the students had done with the title 'chance findings on a journey'. Christine had also been speaking about shoes and templates and the differences between peoples feet, and these ideas all developed into my exploration of a personal journey. I had thought about drawing feet etc., when I realised that a more focussed idea and image would be from direct prints from my feet. I did a few prints using black gouache and tried not to make too much mess... Especially on the snowy white towels of Burrastow! These prints were not successful, but were a good starting point for work at the college.

Print was a new direction for me and I felt liberated by not knowing what results I would get and trying new ideas. I began by making lots and lots of footprints on A1 sheets which developed into a 4 meter banner. This was covered with monochrome footprints all going one direction and fading out, and then I picked out one set in a contrasting colour. I wanted to put these prints on a screen and print 'properly', so Steph took me through the process and explained the techniques for printmaking. I made up Kodatraces in the same way, by inking my feet and walking on them. These were made up into screens and I happily experimented with them for the rest of the week.

Some of the ideas discussed about my 'journey' were: we can only leave one set of footprints in life. Growing and developing through to decaying / fading away. Depth of marks made. Life path footsteps can only be made in one direction, etc. I tried to explore these ideas in different ways. I eroded fabrics by sanding the edges with sandpaper so that the images on them would become more and more faded and the fabrics disintegrate. I also used the heatpress and discovered that the pigment in the printing ink would absorb more of the dye from the heatpress paper than the surrounding fabrics. This gave me shadowy images on the heatpress paper which I printed again and again to echo the idea of fading away. There was also beautiful images left on the protective paper for the heatpress.

Having decided that I would not be working towards a final product, I ended up printing my designs on tights! I had chosen not to restrict myself with product since I had always worked this way in the past. I found it very liberating and took directions that I would not otherwise have done, and ended up with images that could be applied to a range of textile products.

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