Throughout my life and specifically in my textiles practices I have always been heavily inspired by history, the history of art and ideologies that have come before us and how I can interpret that into my present day thinking. I take History of Art, Sociology and Textiles so you may see where my influences have grown from! I have always had an interest in these and the textiles course allows me to explore what I love making and learning about.
The teachers are very supportive of your ideas and you can kind of create anything you want! In my projects, I have been drawn to textural and illustrative work which includes lots of mix-medias, hand embroidery and machine stitching. I have been influenced by feminist thinking and in my final major project I have been influenced by how the male gaze so often over-looks the true character of a person and only portrays their looks. I have turned it on its head and looked at these people through the female gaze, I celebrated the achievements of important women and have made points about where society needs to improve! Textiles is a lot of hard work but it is so rewarding when you can step back and finally see your work mounted on the wall and think 'I made that!', it's a very cool feeling.