As someone who loves print I feel it’s essential for me to involve this within this project. As my concept is emotional, I wanted to explore the art therapy concept further, as my colour palette evokes emotion based on colour association I wanted to take this forward with mark-making.

Looking at my previous prints I wanted to have the same expressiveness and fun feel. How could I involve mark-making and emotion?

I decided to physically start recording my emotions everyday. Looking at the colour association, I dedicated a colour to an emotion and everyday using mark making to record how I was feeling. This also was another way of gathering data especially since I do suffer from anxiety. By adding marks a day, it gives the print series a sense of mystery as you cant plan how it’s going to look. This relates heavily to the unpridictable nature of covid-19 and anxiety, anxiety suffers are constantly worrying about the future similarly to the public worrying about corona.

The example above was created during the mini lockdown of students. The blue evokes sadness, being alone in a flat for four days getting lonely, I decided to use windsor ink and a ruler, the ruler drags the blue almost as if Nicola is dragging out the lockdown and extending my sadness. I paired this with a crayon to give the piece some texture, the repetitive marks signify the sadness repeating itself over the course of the day. I decided to pair this with watered down lilac paint, this was covaying optimism, trying to stay hopeful with a mind full of negative thoughts. The paint being watered down creates a sense of worry, yes I’m optimistic but I’m still worrying for the future. I decided to have things overlapping to link to my samples, as the ruffles in the samples overlap so to does my emotions, constantly feeling the same emotions but also not quite knowing how to feel.

This in a visual recording of my emotions over a period of two days. You can see the difference of emotions I was feeling, The black being the stand out on day 1 meaning I had a lot of fear towards the rising number of covid patients. This again overlaps the pink and the purple as I was hopeful but above all fearful. I plan to everyday record how I’m feeling to create a stunning visual diary of an anxiety suffers mind.

 

 

 

Oct 3, 2020

When choosing a colour pallet I knew I wanted to look at emotion and colour association. As my project revolves around emotions I feel the best way to showcase this is through colour association using art therapy.

There is a huge range of information on colour association in which I just find completely fascinating. The article below goes into real depth about colour association which is worth a read:

Color Symbolism in Art Therapy

I wanted the viewer to have an emotional attachment to the textiles, I wanted them to evoke emotion:

Pink- I choose the colour pink to represent happiness. For me the colour pink is evident in everything I do and also how I present myself so for me it’s an empowering and personal colour, showcasing this in my textiles allows me to portray a little bit of myself and my journey with anxiety.

Black- When you think of black you think of fear which plays a huge role in Corona virus and anxiety. As my studies highlighted a whopping 90% of the public has a newly found fear, so black was a really important colour to have in my pallet.

White- the shade white has uncertainty attached to it. The pandemic screams uncertainty and an anxiety sufferer is constantly worrying about the uncertainty of the everything, again linking to the data I collected 65% said they were anxious or worried at the prospect of another lockdown.

Blue- The colour blue has healing properties but its also commonly associated with sadness. Living alone in my studio isolated from my family sadness has been a huge part of my lockdown. I also found that my studies showed that 90% of the population have experienced “down days” since lockdown started so conveying this through the colour blue was perfect.

Lilac- lilac is the colour of optimism, for me this is extremely important. Being an anxiety sufferer i always think the worst but having optimism settles my mind as i reassure myself thats its temporary.

All of these colours link to the data I have collected and also have a personal link with me. This is the perfect way to incorporate my sense of self and the publics emotional reaction into my project.

above is my print exploration sketchbook, exploring the colour association and also mixed media types.

 

Oct 3, 2020

I really love the work of Molly Goddard. Molly Goddard is a London based designer who creates stunning bespoke garments using traditional hand pleating, smocking with tulle fabric. I fell in love with the way the fabric manipulates almost effortlessly.

What really stood out to me with Molly Goddard’s work was the repetitive overlapping. My concept is about overlapping and intertwining of the corona virus and anxiety disorder so using this technique would work perfectly. I also really loved the playfulness the opaque fabric conveyed. Taking this technique forward I wanted to focus on creating opaque layers however with a twist. I personally love using alternative materials as sustainability is a huge factor for me and my work. So combining the use of alternative materials and traditional fabric manipulation was a world in which I am dying to explore

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/i-d.vice.com/amp/en_au/article/3kgzgk/sarah-edwards-molly-goddard-dress-portrait-exhibition

I looked at “dress Portrait” Molly Goddard’s exhibition and fell in love with these photographs, the way the clusters of the dresses mixed with the texture of the almost bin bag textures was so stunning. I knew this was a perfect way to incorporate alternative materials. Whats also really intriguing about the photographs is the contrast of textures, you have the light airlessness of the thin plastic material and the clusters of hand manipulated tulle.

After looking i went on the hunt and I was able to find these completely stunning florescent pink bin bags in which were literally screaming to be manipulated!!

After collecting the data from my survey I used the number of percentage of yes votes in correlation to the amount of stitches i.e 60% = 6 stitch lines. I used the sewing machine and carefully and slowly started to hand ruffle the bin bags. I especially wanted to convey loads of chaotic lines, (seen mostly when held in the  sun) to convey the erratic nature of the way corona sweeps through the nation.

I plan to experiment this technique on a range of other fabric and possibly combine and contort these all together to make some really authentic, funky samples.

Sep 30, 2020

I plan to explore the subject matter “Data and Network” through an anxiety suffers mind. The idea behind this concept is our national lockdown due to Covids-19. As an anxiety suffer I have been live with fears about everyday life, I plan to compare this to the newly found fear of corona virus. I want to highlight that anxiety suffers live each day as if they were in a pandemic. Just like a data base is a “network of programming” an anxiety mindset is a “network of negative thoughts”.

As someone who has suffered generalised anxiety disorder for the upmost of 10 years now this project is something I am truly passionate about. Living with anxiety and its side effects isn’t the easiest but its not got me down!!  Anxiety isn’t just panic attacks and heavy breathing, theres so much more to it. Let’s start with Anxiety as a topic, you have two parts, anxiety and generalised anxiety disorder. Generalised anxiety disorder is a chronic illness, something that affects the way your brain works and how it processes information, it also comes with a list of side effects that arn’t well known:

• trembling and shaking
• full body aches, muscle fatigue
• headaches
• sickness
• trouble sleeping
• heart irregulations/palputations
• excess sweating
• eyesight problems
• irregular breathing

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/generalised-anxiety-disorder/symptoms/

I also want to look and compare this against the worlds latest problem the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic has sparked a lot of new fears especially in people who have never experienced anxiety. The emotional impact on corona virus and the public has been huge. A mass number of global worry, fear and uncertainty has taken over. What I want to highlight is that a person suffering anxiety has lived and will continue to live everyday in this mindset. I have created an online survey and handed it to 40 people in the general public, with this comes tailored questions about the emotional impact of covid 19. With this data I will collect and analyse the results, this should give me the basis to start my sampling.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/results/SM-798YXZ7P7

below are some of the graph results:

These examples above take anxiety symptoms like “compulsive thinking” and “worried or anxious thoughts” and are applied to the public living through a pandemic in which 60 or above said yes to meaning they are experiencing right now what an anxiety riddled patient feels like everyday.

After collecting the data from the survey, over 60% of the population are now suffering from anxiety symptoms relation to the recent corona virus pandemic. This proves my theory that people are living in an anxiety suffers world.

Sep 30, 2020