Karen Little Lecture

Karen Little whom we met during our last project kindly came into college to talk to us about visiting the large trade shows for interiors. Karen has her own consultancy business called Little Designs for Life , she began her career as a cad artist for engraving and has ten years experience as a wallpaper designer. Karen gave us an over view of the Heimtextil trade show which is held in January in Frankfurt, she showed us a power point with images from the 2011 show , there are 11 large halls which cover everything from trend predictions for the next 18 months to the latest high tech wallpapers on the market. Karen felt that the advances in wallpaper technically are very interesting at the moment, she picked up that pattern is very much back in Vogue and lots of contrasts were evident in the form of animal prints as well as very heavily embellished examples including flock and crystals. Some designers and companies of note she mentioned were Barbara Hulanicki (who had designed skulls in flock ). Arte, Marburg, A S Creation , Graham ans Brown and Rasch. Karen said folk art was very prominent especially in fabric patterns and she really liked the collections by Leif and Kas.

Karen talked about future trends and said the Heimtextil prediction hall was named Reconnection and was split into 4 headings which were, sobriety, mix and match , utility and wilderness. It seems that these sub headings pretty much cover all tastes and styles so you can definitely find designs that appeal to every one.

Karen also observed that hand crafting is very much in demand and as with the back to basics and recycling themes she feels hand produced work will continue to become more and more the way forward, there were lots of examples of weaving on very large scale items.

Karen said that networking and being able to interact well with people was equally as important as talent in order to be a successful designer as this is the way you get your self known and are able to sell your work.Visiting trade shows and exhibiting your work are key for marketing and promotion as well as keeping up to date with whats going on in the industry.

Karen told us about Maison and Object trade show which is held in Paris in January and September, she felt it was far more chic than Heimtex and was well worth a visit, the trend prediction from Paris was named Intensity and the emphasis was crafted, simple , back to basics, distorted shapes and irregular patterns , Karen felt people of interest include Francois Bernard, Elizabeth Leriche and Vinvent Gregoire.

Thank you Karen for a very interesting and informative presentation.

http://www.littledesigns.info/

Julie Del' Hopital tutorial

Julie, a fine artist who we met in second year came in to college to look at our final major project work. She related to what I was doing and felt I needed to free myself up more and just let go of the control . I talked to her about what issues I wanted to represent through the work and Julie suggested I used the art as a way of dealing with how I felt about certain situations , for example Catholicisms, i had an image of the sacred heart which had haunted me from childhood so Julie felt I needed to deal with it in a creative way !

So I did .........

Julie felt that the more experimental I was the more interesting and exciting the results would be, she suggested that I look at the work of Max Ernst and this is the image that immediately caught my eye when i began my research ! He was brought up in a strict catholic household and it clearly impacted on his art as it has with my own .

The Blessed Virgin Chastising the Infant Jesus Before Three Witnesses 1926.

Julie said that my research and subject matters was quite dark and she felt that my drawing had a naive child like quality , she felt that the two worked well together and if i just allowed myself to be free i would get some very interesting results ! She pointed out to me that many successful artist had used their work as a way of dealing with their own issues and questions and it added depth and intrigue to the art !

Thank you Julie !

Another artist whom i greatly admire and uses her work to deal with her own issues and express her feelings is Tracey Emin. Emin is a very much in your face kind of artist who uses text to literally spell out her messages, she is bold and brave in her convictions and has caused controversy over the years with the content of some of her work, she is technically very brilliant i have seen some of her quilts in an exhibition at the V & A and they are stunningly beautiful.

Emin Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963-1995 (1995)

Emin For You 2001

Karen Little tutorial

Karen came into college to speak to us individually about our final Major project work. I talked to her about my ideas and research so far and she was very enthusiastic about my plans, she felt that my drawing was very strong and said that line drawing was very much in vogue at the moment both in fashion and interiors , she commented that i always laughed when i talked about what i was doing and said it was a good thing to use this time to help make sense of where i want to be in the future in it was clear to her that this is what i am doing , she is aware that i am not pursuing a career in the commercial design world and felt it was very valuable and relevant for an artist to produce work that reflected themselves and she feels that i am doing that in this project.

Karen told me that in her opinion a successful designer or artist needs two distinct qualities firstly they need to be talented creatively and secondly they need to be an approachable, likable and friendly person who is able to communicate well with people in order to network and create links with other professionals. She told me she feels i have both qualities but need to have more self belief .

Karen said it was good to see that i was being brave enough to use my own illustrations this time and was fascinated to see what i would produce at the end . Karen suggested links with literature such as the ass/human character of bottom in Shakespeare's Midsummer nights dream, she also gave me some visual references from a bridge in Paris that has a display of padlocks along its length.

I asked Karen for ideas about presenting a portfolio of my work as i was struggling with finding a practical way of displaying my ideas, she suggested mood boards in the shape of doors or gates with padlocks which had to be opened up to reveal my ideas and research again she suggested not to hold back just to go for it the more creative the better.

Thanks so much Karen you were a massive help.

http://www.littledesigns.info/