research

It's nearly the end of the first part of my design residency here in Helsinki with the British Council and HIAP... 

Täkänä Exhibition at CraftCorner, Helsinki | 7 - 8 Sep, 2017.

It was a long four hour drive to my next museum but it actually went by in a haze. I think my brain was whirring over all that I'd seen and experienced so far and thoughts were forming. I think a lot of my best thinking happens when I'm on the move…in the car, on a bus, riding my bike…maybe it's because it's somewhere no one can get me? I'm busy pedalling or steering or something which means my brain can think things over, it's just how it's always worked for me. I just need to make sure I grab a pen and paper as soon as I stop to catch the thoughts before they're gone.

If you ever find yourself heading towards the Russian border in the south-eastern corner of Finland, I encourage you to take a detour off the main road to this incredible (and I mean incredible) place called Pulsa. It was recommended to me by Elina earlier in the week (Elina and Petra, the owner of Pulsa are both textile designers and friends) and I had a last minute change of plan so thought I'd give them a call and I'm so glad I did.

Today involved more travelling and learning...this time to a small village north-east of Jyväskylä called Hankasalmi. A chance introduction with a lovely textile designer called Anna-Kaisa whilst doing some solo exploring in Finland last summer led me to this exciting part of my trip. I'd been trying to find someone who still weaves täkänä through the other contacts I have but it was proving difficult. Täkänä is no longer a popular form of weaving in Finland and has disappeared significantly off the weaving landscape in the past thirty years.

Today was a day on the move…leaving Helsinki for Tampere but first a Finnish friend of mine had put me in touch with a Helsinki based designer called Elina Helenius. Elina seemed really interested in my project in her emails and had suggested we meet at a café in the centre of Helsinki called Cafe Aschen Jugend. Sadly this was shut (Elina wanted me to see the architecture) so we went to the nearby Kappeli – a beautiful building on the Esplanade that first opened it’s doors as a café in 1867. Elina was an inspiration to meet. Her career spans several decades and has also crossed over from print to weave. She’s worked with many companies I admire and has a warmth and openness that was wonderful to be around.

So I am just back (well it's been a week now) from an incredible trip to Finland supported by a Creative Scotland Open Project Funding Grant to research and learn about the Finnish form of weaving known as Täkänä to inspire some new work and new thinking. The trip was an intense ten days of reading, talking, learning, travelling, listening and absorbing information and experiences to develop new things.

I was totally delighted and grateful to hear last week that Creative Scotland have chosen to fund this exciting new project I have proposed in their latest round of Open Project Funding. This will involve me travelling back to Finland very soon to research, develop and produce a series of rugs, prints and wall hangings inspired by the Finnish form of weaving called Täkänä.

Mölkky is a Finnish skittle game that I discovered during my residency at Arteles last summer when another artist on the residency returned from a shopping trip with a set of wooden skittles in their basket. It became a kind of after dinner ritual – where we would all put our work to one side and spend an hour or so just playing.

Panel is an independent curatorial practice led by Catriona Duffy and Lucy McEachan from Glasgow whose work I have admired for a long time. They create exciting, ambitious and diverse projects that promote design such as Scotland Can Make It! 2012 and The Inventors of Tradition (which are two of my favourites). So I am delighted to share that myself, artist Bernie Reid and fashion researcher Mairi MacKenzie are working with them on an exhibition this summer called Seine Net Queens for Timespan in Helmsdale.

Back in January this year we launched our new Disruption collection at Maison & Objet in Paris. 

With a fresh colour palette of blues, pinks and greens, this new series of designs is a continuation of our interest in 'Nature's Camouflage' (see our Eyespot print launched last september for the first design in this series).