Welcome to Nature Armour :The Journal Choice for Creative Artists.

Image: Previous images of fashion, Created for global market place.

Natures Armour

Hello, and Welcome to my personalized blog spot. Feel free to respond via links provided at bottom of my posts.It's always nice to receive messages and feedback responses .Meaningful engagement to advance current trends is appreciated.

I am currently and will be posting information on my current Masters Degree thoughts and processes linked to my design concepts and current project developments.Including design theories connected to theoretical and conceptual. I am currently studying an MA in Design at University Lincoln.

From the window of my new MA studio( space looking across to Lincoln Cathedral. Hoping the 2 years study will be interesting and as successful as my degree course.)

Biography of Artist and Designer

 I was born in Liverpool, England in the 1960’s within an affluent suburb linked to the new generation of music and entertainment, social culture that was Liverpool at the time. 

My parents met at Loughborough college were my dad was studying Engineering as well as being a keen Rugby player and semi-professional racing driver (racing head to head with James Hunt in the late 50’s, being taught to drive by Sterling Moss) for his family business promotions.

 My mother was studying Fashion, they married in Loughborough a few years later. My father’s Dad was a wealthy businessman, statesman type who had studied law, like my grandmother who was also in law and become a queen’s court judge (being from working class stock, however with a large Nobel historical background, bigger than my grandfathers which became the family joke).

My grandfather ran a large automobile corporation with his 3 sons (one of them being my dad) he also became an MP (for the Wirral) like his uncle and eventually became Lord Major of Liverpool.

 My dad’s family come originally from a small village called Sefton in Lancashire being steeped in history including heraldic knights being attached to the family tree who had in contemporary times ran a large blacksmith within several very old barns just outside the village (for several centuries). The family home of many centuries been sold off due too it being to grand (however it still stands today).

My father went to boarding school where he made many aristocratic friends including cousins due to nobility links to the family tree.This is were he became interested in photography becoming a keen film maker filming many family trips of which numerous were spent visiting beaches and special locations including our local zoo.
One of which was filmed in the early 1960's at London Zoo. See clip below

The way in which wildlife conservation has changed for the welfare of captive animals has developed dramatically since this early visit. Chester zoo has developed into an important conservation heritage centre and advocate for global ecology recovery of our natural resources to save current habitats.

My mother’s parents were working class, becoming self-made middle classes through my grandfather’s professional footballing career.

While I was working through my education my parents unfortunately divorced. My parents were married for 10 years, due to a possible affair on my mum’s side and my father’s perpetual desire to continue living a playboy lifestyle with his rich aristocratic friends and celebrities from the entertainment industry, drinking too much and parting the night away.

 It felt a bit like a car crash at the time and gave me a lot of strength eventually once I was over parents on a general foot note.

My mother them married the local butcher’s son who suspiciously she played squash with on Saturday mornings while my dad looked after me and brother and sister. I never liked my apparently new step dad. He looked like he was straight out of Saturday night fever with a lot of what you would call classic jock (being the local regional squash champion). I was used to my dad’s tuxedo and straight suit look (again fashion seems to be taking a lead in my opinion).

 Personally, speaking it didn’t look like it was going work out that great. They emigrated to Spain when I was 18 years old, just like my dad had emigrated to Australia when I was 9 years old). Divorcing 20 years later due to an affair with a local nanny (you couldn’t make it up).

I have two siblings a brother and a sister (I am the youngest of three). I went to a private prep school at a very young age and loved my school uniform as it came with a straw boater hat with a deep stripy ribbon, my blazer was also tipped in yellow and white ribbon. It was very like Saint Trinnions and clearly were my aspirations for creating my classic fashion pieces within adult life may well have originated from.

I then went to a local Primary school called Booker Avenue (a lot of my face booker friends are from my school days) were I discovered Art was available in lesson format :and not just a hobby activity.

At the same time, I was going to a ballet school at weekends where I learnt classical ballet and modern dance. 

I then purposely flunked an interview to go to the local grammar school as the art section was very limited. I then went to my first-choice school Quarry bank (John Lennon’s previous school).

So, continuing on with my educational history, after secondary school I went to Sir John Moore’s University for one year where I completed a foundation degree in Art and design before entering into a 4-year BA honours degree in a specialist textile. (experienced a student exchange in New York City studying at FIT and loved every minute of my life in NYC).

While I was doing this I was going steady with a boyfriend from Liverpool unfortunately we drifted apart mainly due to me over educating myself?

After my degree I went to work as a professional Designer for a couple of years before starting my own business. While I was doing all this, I met someone I previously dated from Liverpool who I got on with well.  The relationship grew through a new business partnership; however, I was running the designing and manufacturing part and he was supposed to be running the retail side.

I was continually bailing him out financially and therefore in the end he became a liability due to his inability to settle down in all areas of the meaning of the word sensible. Years later he admitted to having a breakdown, such is life.

Once I removed him from my business and personal life my business took off (it was obvious he had been taking money from me).

I became an independent business woman (a Thatcher yuppie). I jet set around the world met and befriended a lot of famous people along the way. I sold my designer lead fashion accessories to top stores around the world. It felt a bit like being Miss World to be honest.

However, this was just one direction I was taking. I also had another mission (call it mission impossible!). I was looking at creating my own family as well as finding my birth father who had took off to Australia decades earlier.

I decided my business was over dominating my life after one or two relationships dissipating into thin air after working too many hours and disappearing to Paris twice a year.

 My business was destroying my personal life, so I down scaled it started to freelance design, gained a job in a bar. Where I met my previous fiancé who I didn’t marry due to problems in his life, however, I got my precious daughter out of the relationship. He still has contact with her and to be far I couldn’t knock him as a daddy he’s pretty good.

When my daughter was a baby I studied a Post Graduate certificate in Education and started supply teaching a few years later, which is what I do today.

 I took the decision to move into the countryside 5 years ago and even though it’s a bit isolating I love it, my life has been incredibly full so taking space out of the rat race is something I enjoy.

I am currently studying a Master’s Degree at University Lincoln England where I am studying Design. My interest is in printed textiles and haberdashery using different technique’s in CAD, my theme is Natures Armour (outer protective casing, inner protective castings). I am wanting to do a bit of Armour interestingly, considering my heraldic family history. There is a clear need for protective clothing in civilian life in the world we live in today?

So, my personality traits this is the bit that is one of those things that is difficult to personally evaluate so to speak. However, I am happy, humorous, dizzy, daft, clever, complex, dangerous at times and most importantly incredibly silly most of the time.

 However, I continue to maintain, and I still carve out a life for myself and my daughter.

Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Pret-aPorter Fashion Show previous design work.

Evolution Natures Armour and Patternation.

 While considering a new professional working practice within Art and Design parameters I have always considered print making an exciting and interesting skill to wish for moving forward. Within new technologies the arena of print making has increased considerably. New photographic industrial machines means that peoples choices can be fine tuned towards a more personal approach. Bespoke designs are becoming more and more accessible to the majority of people who are interested in gaining a more personal shopping experience. 

Since becoming a designer some 20 or so years ago I have noted an interest in printed fabrics, I however choose to study knitwear design as I was interested in textiles as well as fashion and knitwear bridged a cap for me. However I believe since becoming a parent, I stopped running my fashion business to concentrate on my family and took to teaching originally Art and Design however I know teach a number of subjects across a wide range of learners age group and skill sets. It is a very interesting and fulfilling job role. However I am still a keen designer and have set my mind at learning and creating printed textiles for interiors and fashion.

 While considering this new skill it has become apparent that I will need to be dissecting in detail all my different influences and processes. Using a new and structured way of following a pathway of designer directions.This should take for the viewer to consider  an interesting look inside the mind of a creator. Therefore I will be discussing in a lot more detail the why's and reasons for my particular methodology this will include various links to previous work, life experiences and family history.

 I will start with a deeply paired down approach to my type of working practice skills set. The main research within what I look for in order to create are Colour ,texture and Patternation. When designing I am always considering ranges of designs and in this case it is fabrics using tradition and modern technologies.

1. Colour is a key aspect to my work, it doesn't have to have any colour (mono tone for example.) However precise colour and fabric use are exclusively selected for the best outcome. 

2.Secondly texture which is necessary for a tactile approach, it doesn't however have to be 3d it's purely its functionality to create mood and tactile harmony for the consumer. What I mean is it's important to think of the consumers ideas and directions and I do this by looking at current trends and also what is happening on earth and what matters? The viewer's appreciation and their desires to relax and enjoy are important to consider in detail. This links    to softness of fabrics and colours.

3. Patternation follows which can in fact be a detail ,an embellishment a finishing technique or a pattern. The pattern could be placed , all over or motif-ed. Patternation can however be limited to another area of the design i.e it could be separate from the design itself (packaging) for example.

Within these three areas of choice one main criteria is an absolute must and that is mood and affinity to embrace a feeling of romanticism, organic, historical morphing into a contemporary image.It is also important to do this throughout each process of design.

  What has been interesting for me over the last couple of months is that I have changed my medium (material chooses and it has made it even more clearer why I design and the purpose of what I create no matter what the end product becomes. Creating has always included for me a lot of juxtaposing of detailing within complex modernity's, in order to create new evoking cutting edge directional designs.There is however a need to be simplistic at the same time and I do this by pairing down in certain areas.This is important otherwise things can become confusing(kitchen sink :terminology for 

over designing something)

 I will be looking at all of my previous skill knowledge and adding them into a new why of creating fabrics for interiors and fashion. Mixing contemporary design concepts with historical reflections and the reasons why will be one of my key discussions and research while print making for interiors and fashion. The reasons for choices are much more detailed than one might of thought. I will be analyzing key points in terms of what sort of impact do I want my work to include. One area is eco-conscious view points, making a difference it terms of carbon foot printing help with the reduction of global warming.