hey everyone!

I finally finished making this balaclava last week, and it really pushed my resilience. I haven’t been so good at being precious with my work, especially creating samples, because there isn’t anyone at stake, whereas producing for someone else has more pressure added to it. especially since the pattern needed to have adjustments added to it, I found myself continuously adding/ altering it. this internship so far has helped me think more critically both within my craft and how I present myself in a working environment, in particularly managing emotions. I hold a high standard of work to myself and often get frustrated when I don’t achieve what I want to. but Rome wasn’t built in a day ;). (p.s id attach a picture but I signed an nda)

POSITIONALITY

I wouldn’t say much of my direct heritage defines my work, but rather the environment I grew up in at home. my mother surrounded the house with infinite colours and patterns from Uzbek culture: there was a Persian rug in every room, intricate beaded signs declaring what room you were about to enter, and every painting she had ever made adorning the walls. it still remains like this today. I think this appreciation for aesthetics developed into a translation of my feelings to craft. I think handiwork both allows me to be calm in the act of creating something, and also express how I am feeling. additionally I went to a predominantly white all girls school until the age of 16, very focused on academics rather than the arts. I think in some aspects this restrained my ability to fully express myself as I didn’t feel as connected to the other subjects, and I wasn’t exposed to a lot of diversity in culture. when I went to college and met lots of people I was able to learn a lot more about different communities and their practices’, how art/ textiles is represented in peoples individual cultures, which encouraged me to explore my own.

over the past year I have done a deep dive into my parents history growing up in Uzbekistan and this has unlocked a curiosity of the origins of various fibres and how different cultures utilise them both in tradition and now in the modern world. (such as vicuna I love Peru and vicuna) I bring forward the use of a chosen colour theme, as well as details within my work to explore how I can storytell in the means of physical media.

sorry guys this turned into an essay!

bye xxxx