COMMON GROUND project journal

Common Ground Project Journal

Development
Research
Colour palette
Design
Installation


Development
My project is about allotments, but at this time of the year most of the allotments are empty, so I went to Columbia road for inspiration.


Sunday 21st April
Columbia road flower market.
Columbia road is a mixture of flowers coming from around the world- it's metropolitan, just like London.
I have been going there for many years, as I love the atmosphere, it is a representaion of London in plants.
I like the effect that you can see plants from all around the world, just like London has people from all around the world.
Because it is local to Hackney, I decided to go there for my starting point.
I was running around looking for inspiration. I saw a lot of flowers, but I have always been fascinated by orchids, as they are my favourite flowers. I decided to chose orchids for my colour palette.
I chose a purple orchid, with mauve, dark mauve. I really like this as the colours are rich and dark.


Monday April 22nd
Common Ground project; my diary.
I chose the allotment because I have been very intrigued by the idea of allotments, and how people are attached to the earth since I came to England. In preperation for the Olympics, they took over an area of allotments for the Olympic site. Many local people were affected by this and protested the destruction of the allotments to make a footpath. One placard at a demonstration of residents read '100 years of cultivation wiped out for 4 wks of footpath'.
That really affected me living in Hackney. I heard an old woman talking on the bus, as I was sitting behind her. She was retuired, and this was part of her life every week.
She went to the allotment to meet other members of the community and  grow her vegetables.
I chose as a Common Ground project to investigate the allotment movement.

April 23rd
I visited the studio of Mary Restieaux in Herne Hill.
She talked about how she was a student at the Chelsea College of Art, and her experiences. In her time she didn't pay to study, and she felt very priveliged and she felt very sorry for us, as we had to pay to study. It was very interesting. She spoke of her fascination as a student and create he own style of weaving.

I was fascinated by her designs and her fabulous garden where she took her inspiration for her colour palette, and the changes of season.
Fabulous flowers growing. I learnerd a lot spending a day with her in the studioo
We went through her pieces, including the piece she is working on at the momment
She showed us her Ikat technique. We did a little bit of Ikat and some winding.

April 25th
I researched the history of the allotment in Britain

Brief history of allotments http://www.nsalg.org.uk/allotment-info/brief-history-of-allotments/

What is an allotment?

Allotments have been in existence for hundreds of years, with evidence pointing back to Anglo-Saxon times. But the system we recognise today has its roots in the Nineteenth Century, when land was given over to the labouring poor for the provision of food growing. This measure was desperately needed thanks to the rapid industrialisation of the country and the lack of a welfare state. In 1908 the Small Holdings and Allotments Act came into force, placing a duty on local authorities to provide sufficient allotments, according to demand. However it wasn’t until the end of the First World War that land was made available to all, primarily as a way of assisting returning service men (Land Settlement Facilities Act 1919) instead of just the labouring poor. The rights of allotment holders were strengthened through the Allotments Acts of 1922, but the most important change can be found in the Allotments Act of 1925 which established statutory allotments which local authorities could not sell off or covert without Ministerial consent, known as Section 8 Orders. Further legislation has been listed over the intervening years which have affected allotments, the latest of which is the Localism Act 2012.

Sunday 28th
Visiting Robin Hood Community Garden
I decided to stay local. I found a local community garden  near the river Lea. I met some of the people who are developing this communal space. I talked to * who is one of the organisers. She told me that the space used to be a children's centre. It was abandoned years ago and became a waste land. When the Robin Hood people started working, they had to cut thick brambles. In the garden there is an old pub sign from the Robin hood pub. This pub once stood just next to the gardens. When it was knocked down, a local took the sign and kept it on his boat. When the Robin Hood gardeners started clearing the site, he came up to them and said "I've been saving this for when it was needed".
What i like about the garden is it is different and inspiring. They have little parts and people from differnt countries grow plants from their country to share with others. This brings the community together. You dont have to pay to grow vegetables, you just have to come and meet the other members to integrate. Thet meet there every weekend, and the sunday that i went there, I met a woman who used to live there, but she lives in london Fields now. She came back to celebrate her sons birthday in the garden, and to meet the other members. Iwas fascinated by the atmosphere, they were very warm. I introduced myself and told them that i was interested by the garden, and what i wanted to do, and they were warm and welcoming. One woman offered me her snack to share, as I arrived as they were putting out the picnic for the little boys birthday. I said excuse me so I dont interrupt, but she said "no,no, you are welcome".
It is a beautiful place, right by the river, with boats going past and people who live on the boats. It is such a nice place I am so glad they turned the garden into such a lovely place. It doesn't look like a normal garden, there is weaving on the gate, made by local children from recycled material. Even the compost bins are painted by the community members.
The garden looks unfinished and organic. There are piles of dirt, leaves composting, hand written signs, a half broken bench and vegetables growing. It is like it is broken, and not broken at the same time. I think there is something I can do for my project.

The colours of the compost

I found my colour pattern echoed in the compost, the signs for the compost and the herbs. There is a beautiful woven fence which was created by the children of the members and other local children.

The woven fence

May 5th Garden museum
I went to visit the Garden museum on a beautiful sunny day. I decided to go there there to find more inspiration for my project. It is on the south bank next to Lambeth Palace. It is a beautiful museum, in an old church. I saw thay had a beautiful gardn full of spring flowers, yellow tulips and purple irises which reminded me of my orchid. Ifound a book on the table in the entrance  from the Royasl Horticultural Society- an Encyclopedia of plants andf flowers. Inside they talked about "flamboyant, exotic, even seductive orchids..."
Pictures of Orchids

They had a full selection of different orchids- including the one I had chosen. for my clour palette.

 The orchid I chose for my colour palette

My  colour palette






Development Drawings

I wanted to develop different forms of my orchid. Because I started by looking at my orchid and Robin hood garden, the soil, the allotment frames, the frame for a bent wood hut, the shapes in the compost pile, all the lines on the ground.

I used the form of the orchid, and my memories of the images from the gardens to create my expressions and play with shapes and feelings. I want to use these feelings again in my weaving for this project.


8th May
I looked up various animals that produce protein fibres on the web.
I loved the Llama and the Alpaca, which look so cute. The Vicuna looks like a goat with a giant neck.
I spent the evening researching for my essay, and catching up on my note book.


Weaving

My thread colours using deep natural dyes

Satin weaving on the loom

A vision of the allotment
The squares from the wooden plant boxes (raised beds). The green from the allotment and from my orchid.

I wanted to leave the threads loose, as I wanted to express my vision of the allotment when I visited it- as they were preparing the soil for planting, removing the weeds, the shape of the sticks in the compost, and in the bent wood hut.

18th May
I went to visit the common ground again, and then went across the river to Walthamstow Marshes. Across the river is a popular riverside pub called the Anchor and Hope. It was a beautiful day, and people were sitting outside the Anchor. Some of them live on canal boats at the back of the allotment. It was beautiful with the canal boats and the Lea footbridge. I went there because I wanted to explore the area around the common ground and talk to people in the area. I spoke to a man who remembered when the train bridge across the river was built, he said he had lived in the area for more than thirty years, and his parents had lived there for many years before he was born. I love this area, it is a beautiful area, with a stable and many horses grazing.

The footbridge over the river Lea, by the Common Ground allotment

Below, the railway bridge near to the Robin Hood Community Gardens

People were having picnics, cycling and walking across the footbridge, people were passing on trains across the railway bridge, and people were sitting near their  house boats by the bridge. You can see this bridge from the allotment. The lines on the bridge reminded me of the form of the compost bins at the allotment. I decided to use the bridge as a canvas for my weavings, as it is easy to see for people walking and cycling in these lovely marshes, outside the pub and working in the community gardens.

Installation
I chose to create an installation for local people, in the spirit of the Robin Hood Community gardens.

I wanted something big, so that it can reflect the idea of the garden- to put the community together, and as I wanted to involve the community, and take this idea outside the community garden into the wider community. I placed the pieces on these bridges and the community pub where every one in the community could see and enjoy them.

Installations on two bridges on the river Lea, and on a popular riverside community pub.

Covering the footbridge by Millfields park

Covering the rail bridge near Robin Hood



My weaving on a canal boat and the front of the Anchor and Hope pub

I wanted to place my installation locally on the River Lea, near the Robin Hood community gardens- and visible from there.

Sculptural weaving on Walthamstow marshes

Alchemy-Drawing development

Alchemy- Fashion show

Fashion show at college-Alchemy

Waiting to go on the catwalk

We were split up in groups of three for this project. Claire was our tutor, and it was a very nice experience, and very strange as well seeing how you can work with other people, not making decisions on your own. It was hard and interesting. For example, I could not make a decision as I felt, about the garment, or how the garment fitted, without discussing with my two partners.

I found a model but my two partners thought she was oversized to wear the garments. At the end I had to wear the garments myself, as Claire thought the garments would look good on my dark skin, and I was a little bit thinner than the model. In the beginning I didn't want to be the model, as I had never modelled before, and I wanted to sit back a see the garments. I felt a little bit of pressure with this. I learned that when you work as a group you have to accept things even if it is not what you want to do.
The experience of modelling. I was nervous in the beginning, as a designer you want to sit back and look at your own design and see how it looks on a model. That is the only thing that I wish I could have done. In the end I quite enjoyed my self, even though I was very nervous, and learned how to work with people and take a decision as a team. That was a positive experience.

My task was to make a collection of jewellery. I experimented with cardboard and tree bark. The cardboard was very nice to cut, but when I dyed with natural dye it got soggy and lost its shape.  This idea wasn't successful, unhappily.

Cardboard dyed with turmeric. Unfortunately it made the cardboard soggy

Cardboard with gold paint. Successful, but not suitable to make a garment with. 

I also tried to use metal for my necklace, but it didn't settle on the neck.

Gold covered bark on soft leather, on a metal necklace. This didn't hang well on the neck, so I continued experimenting

I went with the soft leather instead.

My research and my design was based on nature, and I started to recycle different kinds of tree bark and experiment with them. I liked the idea of not using wood, but using the bark that fell off the tree. Some of the tree bark was from an old trunk I found near the university. I experimented with gold paint, but it didn't work very well, so I tried gold leaf, which worked better. Claire and my team suggested I went with the gold leaf on the bark to transform something cheap to something expensive- as the alchemists tried to make gold out of base metal.

Tree bark before I cleaned and prepared it

Tree bark 

Tree bark for the anklet glued on soft leather, before putting on gold leaf

Shoes before transformation

I also decided to transform a pair of old shoes by attaching gold covered bark to them. I had problems attaching the bark to the leather, as the glues I had didn't work. I tried at least five different glues to attach the bark. I also used soft leather as a base for my jewellery and used  a leather punch to make holes in the leather. Finally I went to a paint shop and they advised me to use a metal super glue that builders use to join metal- as it was the strongest glue that they had in the store. This finally worked. I also had a problem with using gold paint as the colour didn't match the colour I wanted- bright gold. I went to an art shop  and solved this by getting gold leaf.

Beginning of transformation

Add caption

The finished shoes

I made a dye made with mud, using paint thinner to make my mud dye. It was too thick, but I added more of the paint thinner to dilute it. I used this in the cracks of the bark before I put the gold leaf on.
In the beginning I used the wood workshop studio to cut the bark into little pieces, but it looked too straight and too finished. I wanted to have an organic look, so I talked to Claire on our next tutorial. And she agreed, so I began to break the bark with my fingers (after I'd dried it, - advice from the workshop staff).

One of my bracelets

Bracelet

Bracelet

Things I would like to do better. I must admit that my drawing wasn't strong enough to back up the idea I had. I have been working taking extra lessons to improve my drawing. I learned that sharing as a group was a good experience, because you just have an idea, and when you speak about an idea with your team you clarify that.