That’s it, that’s all

Here I am, back in Brooklyn and happy to be home. I am slowly recovering from the intensity of Copenhagen and absorbing the wonderful learning and inspiring experience. I have also grown a greater appreciation for all of my little comforts and conveniences I tend to take for granted (like my bed, iced coffee and a drier). I wanted to post one last time, with some pictures from my last day in CPH.

This is city hall.

I visited the Danish Design Center where they had an exhibition showing the ten most important contributions to Scandinavian design on the past ten years.

I also finally made it to Tivoli amusement park/pleasure garden (after four previous failed attempts). Luckily, the rain held off for a few hours. Tivoli provided Walk Disney with the inspiration for Disney World and the similarities are quite apparent. There is a large church across the street from Tivoli and it seems to always be in sight as you walk through the park. I couldn’t help but wondered if this church inspired the vision for the Magic Kingdom. There were also many Hans Christian Andersen influences throughout Tivoli, which were nice to see and recognize from the many stories I have read. Mostly, Tivoli is famous for its glittering lights and fantasy gardens. We visited the park at dusk and took most of our pictures at night to capture the magic of the many colorful lamps.

Thank you all for accompanying me along this exciting journey! Your feedback has been greatly appreciated and very encouraging. I hope you have enjoyed the posts and the pictures. Perhaps another blog will be in my future. I look forward to catching up with all of the New Yorkers and wish my fellow textile designers all the best on their future endeavors!

A tourist in Copenhagen

I have really enjoyed my days here since school has ended. Unfortunately the monsoon-like weather has put a slight damper on some of the plans, but overall I feel lucky that the summer has otherwise been very bright and dry. I spent Friday as a tourist in this beautiful city! I put on my sneakers, my raincoat and my back pack, grabbed my umbrella and headed out to explore all of the things I have been wanting and meaning to see since I arrived.

My first stop was the Jewish museum. The museum was conceptualized by Daniel Liebeskind, a Polish-born architect. There is not one right angle to be found in this building. All of the corridors are made up of drastic inclines and all of the floor boards are on a slant. I believe the concept is to give the feeling of imbalance and uneasiness, and that is most definitely achieved. I kept feeling disoriented and like I was going to fall over. It was a cool architectural experience and the museum had a nice display of Jewish artifacts. One of the interesting things I learned at the museum is that Denmark was the only country in Europe who didn’t turn against the Jews in World War II and was actually responsible for relocating most of the Danish Jewish families to Sweden to save them from the concentration camps.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t allowed to take pics in the museum. But here’s a link, if you want to check it out. Dansk Jodish Museum

Once I left the Jewish Museum, the sun came out for the rest of the day! I walked up to Nyhavn Street which is the quintessential Copenhagen tourist sight. The buildings are a bright rainbow of colors and there is a dock with lots of sailboats. Prime picture taking…

A few other scenic pictures along the way…

As I made my way up to the Kunstindustri museet (Museum of Art and Design), I came upon Fredrick’s Church (also called Marble Church). It was so grand and amazing!

The Museum of Art and Design was great! The museum features collections from historical design to modern innovations. It focuses mostly on Scandinavian design but also incorporates interesting European and Asian influences. Some names to Google: Arne Jacobsen, Verner Panton and Alvar Aalto (architects and furniture designers).

Tapestry

Embroidery

Textile print by Marie Gudme Leth (also worth Googling)

Amazing detail on an Art Nouveau cabinet

Polyether chair, by Gunaar Aagaard Andersen

Chairs by Verner Panton (I don’t remember the names of these ones…)

Lamp design here is a big deal! There are lamp stores everywhere that showcase lamps similar to the pictures below. Every famous Scandinavian designer or architect seems to have contributed to the growing collection of quirky and fantastical Scandinavian lamps with his or her interpretation of what a modern lamp should look like.

The museum also had on display a great exhibition by Margit Brandt who was the first female Danish designer to really gain recognition and become famous for her style and designs in the 80s. Her collection was shown to the beat of 80s rock music that accompanied the display. It seemed like Brandt, who worked alongside her husband, had great drive and ambition. I especially loved seeing her sketches.

From the Kunstindustri Museet, I walked back down through the city and ended up at the Round Tower. I decided to take advantage of the sunny weather and walked the curving path all the way to the top to check out the observatory. At the Round Tower, they also had an exhibition of African art that I thought was a lot of fun!

When I reached the top of the Tower, the view was fabulous! It’s always amazing to see a city from above.

In the distance of the image below, you can see the bridge to Sweden.

Well, my bags are basically packed and I am very excited to be coming home tomorrow. I will be posting one more blog entry, once I am back in New York, because tonight I visited Tivoli Gardens. Tivoli in an amusement park and pleasure garden that was Walt Disney’s inspiration for Disney World (and some of the inspirations are very obvious). There were also a lot of reference to Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales throughout the park, which was cool. It was beautiful and fantasy-like, and luckily the rain held off all evening so Amy and I were able to really enjoy this experience.

Final Exhibition

The final exhibition for the textile design, furniture and architecture programs was on Thursday evening and it was a really great event! I was so impressed by all of the work and the professional quality of the projects on display. Everyone seemed very proud of their accomplishments, albeit a little tired. All of the teachers were there to support us and it was so nice to share compliments about the work and the program’s success overall.

As for me, I was very happy with my final fabric and my creative process throughout the summer. There happens to be one award given out to one student in each program in recognition of Academic Excellence. I was incredibly proud to receive the Textile Design Award this year!! Yay!

Here are a whole bunch of pictures of the textile and furniture projects. I hope you enjoy seeing what everyone produced.

TEXTILES

Me, Juliana & Tatiana (the Brazilians):

My print and process work:

Amy’s textile (Sidney, Australia):

Cramer’s textile (The Corcoran, Washington, DC):

Danny’s textile (Pratt, Brooklyn, NY):

Juliana’s textile (Sao Paulo, Brazil):

Susannah’s textile (The Corcoran, Washington, DC):

Anna’s textile (University of Oregon, Portland, OR):

Anita’s textile (Pratt, Brooklyn, NY):

Steph Chudy’s textile (Pratt, Brooklyn, NY):

Lauren’s textile (Purdue, Indianapolis, IN):

Tajunique’s textile (Pratt, Brooklyn, NY):

Tatiana’s textile (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil):

CHAIRS

In the Furniture Design program the students spent the summer conceiving of and designing a chair. They were assigned one of three materials: hard wood, veneer or metal. They could also combine several materials, if they chose to. They did a fantastic job and the chairs looked amazing. It was fun that the exhibition was interactive where people could sit in many of the chairs and experience the quality of the design.

Here I am enjoying Sefako’s beautiful chair design:

My roommate Lauren’s chair:

I spent yesterday as a tourist in Copenhagen, so more photos to come in the next post! I can’t believe there are only two days until I head home. It has been a great summer but I am definitely excited to get back and catch up with everyone!

Digital printing for my final fabric

For our final fabrics we used a digital printing method. Essentially, we prepared digital files for production and printed them on an enormous and amazing ($150,000) fabric inkjet printer. The imagery and line quality reproduce very accurately. However, The main concern with this printer is its effects on color. At first, the colors print fairly pale, but after the ink dries and the fabric steams the colors have a wonderful vibrancy. Then, once the washing out process is complete, the colors lose a lot their intensity and can change by several shades. This just adds another experimental process and learning experience to an already exciting summer program.

We started off by test printing samples on four different types of fabric. After seeing the effects of each fabric, I chose to use a heavy canvas cotton for my final print. The prints were to be 1 meter by 1.5 meters. We were also asked to do two colorways (color variations) to accompany our prints.

I had several goals with this project. Firstly, I wanted to create a narrative textile design that recounted the main components of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale The Bottle. I wanted to fuse my illustrative style with a more graphic structured pattern. I also wanted to create layers of imagery, where the more you looked at the print, the more you see. I was focused on the concepts of storytelling and communicating through textiles.

We had to show our pattern in repeat, to practice working within these constraints (I did a 1/3 step repeat). I chose a pretty subdued color palette, based on the fact that my imagery was fairly complex. I did, however, have a little more fun and took a bigger risk with my color variations/colorways (which were printed at a smaller size). These had much  more vibrancy and contrast.

And, here it is, my final print! (click for larger image)

A few details:

Awesome printer:

Colorways:

After all this hard work, we are presenting our portfolios and final prints at a big exhibition on Thursday. We will be exhibiting with the Furniture Design students, so it should be a great celebration. I will take lots of pictures and post many of the projects (textiles and furniture’s chair designs) on my blog once I’m done. I’m also hoping to head out on a photo excursion around Copenhagen on Friday (weather pending). I’ve spent so much time in the studio, I can’t wait to get out a explore the city in greater depth. I hope you have enjoyed my work and hearing about my learning experience here. Please keep the feedback and comments coming. All of your responses have been so encouraging! I will be home on Monday and look forward to catching up with everyone. Stay tuned for a few more posts…

Catch up

Well, I feel a huge sense of relief. Today was our final presentations of our portfolio, prints and working process and it went great! The semester has ended and I just came back from a celebratory dinner and drinks. I am now enjoying a large piece of carrot cake, as a treat for my hard work and accomplishments.

But, I do need to catch up on my blogging since the past few weeks have been so jam-packed, there has been little time for sleep, let alone posting blogs. When I last left off, I had promised some pictures of what I had been working on.  Just a reminder that the theme for my textile designs this summer was Hans Christian Andersen’s story called: The Bottle. The Bottle tells about the journey of a wine bottle along its travels and the many different purposes it served.

I was very inspired by H.C. Andersen’s paper cut illustrations. Here are some of the images I have been looking at:

Here are some heat transfer samples. We would paint on paper with polyester inks, and transfer the designs onto fabric with an intense heat press. Lots of fun surprises and experimentation.

The screen prints below were largely experimental, and I was focused on the process and unexpected outcomes as opposed to the look of the final print. I worked a lot with different color palettes, layering effects and using my screen in creative ways. We also did a number of prints using cutouts and stencils, as well as various textures. I have become increasingly aware of the effects and qualities of different fabrics, so for silk screening I printed mostly on heavy cotton, linen and sateen.

My screen:

Here is some great work done by my classmates.

Steph’s prints:

Anita’s prints:

Juliana’s prints:

My final digital print will follow in the next post!

Lots of studio visits

Last week we visited two inspiring artists at their studios.

We traveled across the river to visit Helle Vibeke (sounds like Helvetica when the Danes pronounce it which led to a little confusion) Jensen. Helle Vibeke is our fourth instructor and will be coming in next week to look at all of our work, help us assemble a portfolio of the summer’s work and assist is organizing/setting up our final exhibition on August 12th. She is a really interesting textile designer and illustrator. Given my interests in both of these areas, I was really inspired by the way her children’s books informed her textiles and vice versa. She creates sci-fi looking work featuring fantastical and quirky characters like a man with no arms or legs and a girl with a fish head. We also spent time looking through her amazing sketchbooks. She creates sketchbooks on all of her trips (as she travels 3 months out of the year). Her sketchbooks are collaged masterpieces that truly capture the design, colors, atmosphere and essence of each place.

I loved the way Helle Vibeke organized her reference material. These boxes contained a variety of inspiration categorized by theme.

We also visited textile designer Lisbet Friis. In my opinion, Lisbet is a master of stripes and circles (which are the only components she uses to create her designs). He studio is located in the middle of nowhere and we literally hiked an hour through a national park/forest, complete with deer and stinging nettle, to get there (renting a bus was apparently not an option…awesome). But Lisbet was a wonderful host and served us delicious snacks with a special elderflower drink (which is a Copenhagen specialty). I’ve also tried elder flower beer and it’s great! Lisbet uses unexpected color combinations and even though she works within such limiting constraints, her work is fresh and classic.

Lisbet found these great military pins at a flea market. They represent honors that were earned during service. She utilized these pins as inspiration for an exhibition and they had a big impact on transforming her work.

Lastly, we had Eva Lou visit our class this week. Eva is a 2007 graduate of the textile design program at the Danish Design School (which is affiliated with my school, DIS). She is working hard to succeed as a young textile designer and has been doing amazing work thus far for some impressive clients. Check out her website: http://www.evalou.dk/

This week has been intense. We have blown through transfer printing, screen printing and are finishing up our final textiles for digital print. I’ve been hopelessly devoted to my work the past two weeks, but it has been great! I’ve had so much fun and I’m really proud of how my patterns are coming along. Everyone in my class is doing a great job. I hope to show some screen printing photos in the next post and maybe even some samples of my digital print.

Hope everyone is enjoying the summer! Thanks again for all of your great responses!

Me & Amy:

On my toes

I have found time to emerge from the printing studio to post a blog just before bed (I didn’t think that keeping up with this would be such a challenge). But school has picked up, and we are swiftly moving through different methods of printing on fabric.

We started with heat transfer printing where you paint with dyes on paper, and can transfer the color onto synthetic fabric using a heat press (at 220 degrees for 20 seconds). The biggest challenge with this technique was color matching because the dyes appear very pale on paper but print in highly saturated hues. Since it’s a little unpredictable, this method allows for fun spontaneity and surprising results.

We have now begun screen printing and I am on my feet for most of the day, but having a blast! I love screen printing. It is definitely a slow process because you have to consider each color as a separate layer, and there is a lot of time involved in setting up the print and cleaning up after each pull. It also can call for additional hands, but our group has been working really well together. We were allowed to expose an image/illustration onto one screen, but the rest of the prints have been done using cut out stencils. We have also used a variety of unconventional materials for texture. I think I could probably be happy screen printing for the rest of the summer, but we will be moving to digital printing in a couple of days. I will try to maximize my time in the studio until then. I will also take pictures of my work tomorrow, so I can show you all what I’ve been up to.

As for more Copenhagen adventures… Last weekend, some friends and I went to the Louisiana museum outside of the city. The museum is beautiful and located on the ocean (with an amazing view). It is constructed in a way that seems to merge the outdoor and indoor environments. While we were there, I saw a Sophie Calle exhibit. She focuses on telling other people’s  (or sometimes her own) stories through unusual contexts. For example, she had a really interesting project where she visited the Bronx and asked strangers to take her to their favorite place. She learned a lot about people through this experience and it was really inspiring to me. I am always fascinated by story telling, especially from a unique perspective or framework. There was also an Andy Warhol exhibit called Warhol after Munsch where he merged his style/method with several quintessential Edvard Munch prints. It was ok. I’m not a huge Warhol fan, but I did find his color combinations to be pretty inventive (since I’ve been focusing on color studies a lot lately).

Here are some pics.

The view from the Louisiana Museum. By the way, this museum is the only museum in Copenhagen that I can pronounce.

Joan Miro:

Jean Arp:

Jean Dubuffet:

Frank Stella:

Patterns (I don’t know who created these…):

And, low and behold, look what I found in plain sight in the museum book shop (JRuff, this one’s for you…):

I have more to add because we also visited two amazing artist studios this week, but I am exhausted. I will hopefully post again in the next day or so. Thanks for all of your emails and comments! Goodnight.