Pilot Project

Before beginning the main Whitworth Threads project, we were set a week-long Pilot Project, the objective of this was to produce a table top object – demonstrating how we could work together as a team to combine our variety of skills to meet the brief.

As a group my team consisted of me, fellow 3D student Rachel Penfold, textiles student Beck Banks (who specialises in knit) and print student Sasha Ray (who specialises in digital fashion prints). Together, we chose to produce a vase and a place mat as our table top objects. Initially we selected which skills we would utilise to produce our outcome – the skills we chose were ceramics, crochet and digital print. With these skills in mind we created sketches to demonstrate ways of combining them together – from these we came up with a vase and place mat that were half ceramic / half crochet. Rachel had the task of slip casting the vase and I the job of hand building the place mat and the handle for the vase, both of which Beck would crochet into (creating the neck for the vase and the other half of the place mat). However, we struggled with ways to incorporate Sasha’s printing skills, but eventually came up with a plan to use her capabilities. This plan consisted of giving her the task of designing an organic surface pattern that would fit our simplistic and curvilinear aesthetic, which me and Rachel could carve into the surface of the ceramics. Throughout the week we worked together to create our pieces, even though many challenges arose we managed to produce these outcomes (pictures above). The challenges we faced during this project included: surface pattern malfunctions – carving the pattern into the ceramics weakened the forms and an inability to fire – time constraints/breakages and reconstructions lead to unfired clay making the structures fragile. Furthermore, the task of handle making (which I was given but aided by Rachel in order to meet the tight deadline) proved difficult as not only was it hard to achieve the right form and scale but due to being unable to fire,  when attached to the neck of the vase it struggled to cope with the weight of the clay.  However, despite these challenges, I believe that we all worked well together and that everyone contributed in their own way to this project. Moreover, I believe that from this initial project that we all found that our group dynamic was successful and that from this we gained a positive outlook that would help us with the next leg of our creative collaborative journey.