environmentally friendly shopping bags

I have looked at this website www.envirosax.com, an Australian company who make reusable shopping bags. They have a graphic printed range and an organic range of bags ( the two images show a bag from each range). I thought they were relevant for me to look at as research for the types of bag designs I could develop...

This is what they say about themselves on their website:
"Envirosax bags provide an exclusive range of reusable shopping bags, while introducing an exciting new medium for the message of environmental sustainability. Design-led, in-expensive and colourful, Envirosax® environmental eco friendly shopping bags will carry the environmental message to a world ready to embrace a brighter ecological future.

Using eco-friendly reusable shopping bags instead of plastic bags is a culture, which will evolve over time. Envirosax bags makes the ‘move in the right direction’ easier by providing a bag that rolls up and becomes a lightweight and portable, 40 gram package. These groovy bags, available as single items, also come as an assortment of 5 durable waterproof, lightweight bags contained in a small pouch. The pouch is small enough to stow into a glove box or a handbag - Forgetting your green bags again is now a problem solved!

Challenging the lack of stylish or fashionable eco-friendly reusable shopping bags available, Envirosax has succeeded in providing an answer - producing bags, printed with exciting trendy graphics. What results is a tasteful and smart solution!"

Narrative and design

The following are quotes and notes from an article about:
"Humanizing design through narrative inquiry."
"The field of design has a long history of using narrative metaphorically - that is creating designs that tell a story..."
This article argues that:
"... narratives nurture responsivness on the part of the designer, encouraging them to:
1. shift their focus from the product to the person
2. embrace multiple veiwpoints outside their own"
The article also discusses the inportance of narrative:
"narratives or stories are more than mere child's play; they are a way of making sense of the world around us and our role in it."
storytelling "organizes raw experiences into memories, and gives meaning to human experience."
"stories allow designers to set goals that reach well beyond aesthetic intervention, to include the intangible, emotive design attributes that are often difficult to represent through more traditional methods."
Narrative used metaphorically, and used to inform the design process. A way of getting a deeper understanding of the context and individual for whom you're designing. My postcard research into the types of bags people use and the objects they carry in them has been a way for for me to do this. I now plan to feed this research, these stories, into my design process.

References:
Danko, S. Meneely, J. Portillo, M. 2006. 'Humanizing design through narrative inquiry'. In: Journal of Interior Design, 31 no 2.

interpreting postcard research about bags and their contents

Interpreting postcard research about the contents of our bags and the types of bags we carry with us everyday.
From 150 postcards received between February and March 2008.
I identified 21 different types of bag:
1 basket
4 satchels
1 pouch
14 backpacks or rucksacks
15 bags with the brand name described: “from Tescos it’s dirty and muddy” (6) or “My lovely Cath Kidson red mini dot book bag! Very tough, hold everything!” (i).
12 with some of their history described. This is perhaps one of the most interesting parts of my research as it gives clues as to why some things are treasured -often it’s the stories behind them. One person wrote: “My bag came from a house clearance. The woman who previously owned it had died. It is actually a knitting bag, which has embroidered flowers stitched on either side. It must have taken weeks! I collect rubbish in my bag like most people… I use this bag everyday because I love it so much. It is weird though that another lady had it before me.”(i). This is the story of a bag loaded with history and mystery, which makes it unique and gives it value. Other postcards described bags with a long personal history: “my bag is a record bag I’ve had since year 8. I recovered the font myself with comics, pictures, pirate gold and patches.” (i) – A bag entwined with an individuals life, something remaining constant as time passes by. Some postcards described bags that bear traces of where they have been and what they have done: “bag borrowed from my friend Catherine. It’s a bit mud stained from walk and climbing trees!” (i). In contrast to bags that have history, one person says “it is a kind of a leathery satchel – looks too new at the moment” (o) – the idea that it will look better when it’s slightly old, scuffed and worn.
3 shopping bags
12 shoulder bags
22 just described as bags
12 handbags
1 drawer string bag
23 were described as coloured
15 black bags
15 brown bags
26 bags described as large or big, with lots of references to bags containing everything, or lots of rubbish: “A Mary Poppins bag, its massive!” (i) Or “My bag is big – like a sack” (f) or “It’s like the Tardis!” (f) Or “A big black bag to fit everything I own in” (e
7 small or little bags e.g. “a little brown bag” (l),
6 medium bags.
(There were none of the descriptions or metaphors for the small or medium bags that were noted with the large bags. Does this suggest that the larger bags embodied something more personal? Perhaps a personal space when away from home where we can carry everything we own or might possibly need?)
31 leather or fake leather bags
11 fabric bags
(The remaining 108 postcard respondents had not specified the material their bag was made from)
9 with decoration or pattern
5 old, dirty or second hand bags

Contents of bags:
I identified 9 categories
Clothing, pens/pencils, electrical items, food/drink, paper, keys, toiletries, containers, and miscellaneous

178 electrical items:
1 battery
11 laptops
7 cd’s
1 clock
85 mobile phones
3 calculators
4 Nintendo’s
3 DVD’s
33 ipods or headphones
3 mp3 players
16 cameras
18 memory sticks
2 torches

363 paper items:
1 piece of plain paper
3 birthday cards
41 banking related items
3 address books
11 tickets
1 Tate modern brochure
25 receipts
1 post it note
8 leaflets/catalogues
67 sketchbooks/notebooks
1 paper needing to be marked
5 flyers
9 newspapers
19 lists
47 diary’s
18 id’s/pass cards
2 family photos
5 business cards
41 tissues
1 folded brown paper
12 scraps of paper
32 books
1 paper flower
1 magazine
2 maps
5 folders
5 vouchers
13 letters/post

114 pens/pencils:
81 pens
9 pencils
4 broken pens or pencils

89 Keys:
16 house keys
13 car keys
5 work keys

301 toiletry items:
9 inhalers
6 plasters
15 perfumes
7 wet wipes
39 make-up items
2 dentil floss
1 soap
34 painkillers
63 lip balm/gloss
11 items for nail care
29 moisturisers
1 razor
1 toothbrush
5 deodorants
3 eye drops
12 tampons/sanitary towels
11 mirrors
49 hair items
3 condoms

176 containers:
141 wallets/purses
7 plastic bags
4 shopping bags
11 pencil cases
11 make-up/wash bags
1 bag of badges

49 clothing items:
4 tops
2 pairs of socks
23 gloves
9 hats
7 scarves
3 pairs of pants
1 pair of trainers


146 Miscellaneous items:
2 sewing kits
1 crumbs
2 fluff
2 sand
1 grit
1 dirt
2 rubbish
1 mask
37 glasses (inc sunglasses)
3 pritt sticks
2 rescue remedies
7 loose coins
1 piece of amethyst
1 piece of brass
1 watch
1 block of wood
4 shells/pebbles from the beach
3 buttons
3 knitting
1 tape
9 lighters
9 tobacco/cigarettes
6 rizla
7 jewellery
1 tools
12 umbrellas
3 stanely knives
6 tape measures
1 masking tape
1 metal file
1 nappy
2 spoons
7 sweet wrappers
1 art piece made from tea bags
1 toy soldier
1 pedometer
1 cable tie
1 key ring

103 food/drink items:
1 yogurt
15 chewing gum
3 sandwiches
17 pieces of fruit
26 sweets
8 tea bags
1 sugar sachet
26 bottles of water
4 flasks
1 crisps

Journey Through a Hummingbird's Garden

I have been analysing inspiring printed textile designs as a way of gaining an understanding of the language of printed imagery to enrich my own design process. I was inspired with a print design by Clare Perkins entitled ‘Journey Through a Hummingbird’s Garden’. The title itself seems to suggest narrative. The image has a sense of flow, with curving hand drawn lines suggesting paths, roads and trains of thought; the eye is lead on a journey around the image. This is punctuated with repeated imagery of hummingbirds, trees and figures, all helping to tell the story of a of the journey through the garden. The soft haze of colours in the background creates a dreamy cloud-like quality; and the mixture of fine details, washes and contrasting blocks of colour, combine to create a sense of layering and depth in the image. This design is classed as a conversational pattern. “conversational patterns… contain images of objects or situations. In these designs the artist’s inspirations are not always immediately apparent until examined closely… some patterns... tell a story without words or promote a point of view.” (Cole 2007: 9)

Reference:
Cole, D. 2007. Patterns. Laurence King Publising Ltd.

Pattern design resources

I've just looked at this website which has a useful resource of textile design terminology and an extensive list of reference books about printed textile design and pattern.

Poetry inspired textile designs by Jenny Smith

I have just been researching people who've done work experience with the Designers Guild, and I came across the work of Jenny Smith. Her textile designs are illustrative with rich colours. Designs have painterly gestures and hand drawn linear qualities, depicting exotic birds and flowers. She was inspired by her “personal response to descriptive poetry from Eastern Asia, India and South America” (Smith 2005: web). She places a “strong emphasis on colour and detail, while ensuring an illustrative and light hearted quality to them.” (Smith 2005: web). The technical process involved the designs being “produced digitally onto fabrics and papers and then selectively printed onto using dry printing processes to enrich the imagery.” (Smith 2005: web). An interesting way of exploring poetic narrative within textile design. The images above show examples of her work.

New Designers Exhibition

I've just looked at the new Designers website www.newdesigners.com, and plan to visit the exhibition at the Business Design Centre in London in July, to get some inspiration. I also plan to use this as a focus to aim to exhibit there myself next year...

On time...

… On time…
“Time too is nothing. It persists merely as a consequence of the events taking place in it.” (Heidegger 1992: 3)
“Time is that within which events take place.” (Heidegger 1992: 3)
“Time is thus an unfurling whose stages stand in a relation of earlier and later to one another. Each earlier and later can be determined in terms of a now which, however, is itself arbitrary.” (Heidegger 1992: 5)
…Thinking about continuous line drawings… like a trace of time from the past to the present (now). The objects within these drawings are like a fixed, a constant, as time passes by them. The only way we know time has passed is by the signs of wear and tear on the objects – traces of time, human presence and activity. Slowly the objects that seem fixed, and constant will turn to dust…
“…into the ‘how’ in which all ‘what’ dissolves into dust” (Heidegger 1992: 21)
…dust as a metaphor for death and the passing of time… the dust on butterfly’s wings… how the solid and substantial becomes insubstantial and disappears… traces… poetics… fading like memories…

Reference:
Heidegger, M. 1992. The Concept of Time [trans. McNeill, W.]. Blackwell publishers.

On mementos, memories and the everyday…

…Georges Perec…
On mementos, memories and the everyday…
“…elements that form part of the texture of everyday life and that it may well be you didn’t notice…when you used to give your metro ticket to the ticket puncher so he could make a hole in it. No one paid any attention! But if you put it into a book, it forms a part of a memory.” (Perec 1999: 127)

On the objects on his worktable: things that document a fragment of a life…
“ There are lots of objects on my work-table. The oldest no doubt is my pen; the most recent is a small round ashtray that I bought last week.” (Perec 1999: 127)
“ Its several years now since I contemplated writing the history of some of the objects that are on my work-table…” (Perec 1999: 147)
“…thus a certain history of my tastes (their permanence, their evolution, their phases) will come to be inscribed…” (Perec 1999: 127)
reference:
Perec, G. 1999 (first pblished 1974). [trans. Sturrock, J.]. Species of Spaces and other Pieces. Penguin.

...On collecting... and on narrative

…On collecting…
John Windsor writes:
“ The most succinct psychological analysis of collecting STUFF that I have come across is that of Susan Pearce… she divides collecting into just three categories: systematics, fetishism and souvenir collecting. Systematics is the construction of a collection of objects in order to represent and ideology of revolution. Fetishism is the removal of the object from its historical and cultural context and its redefinition in terms of the collector. In souvenir collecting, the object is prized for its power to carry the past into the future.” (Windsor 1994: 50)

Collections are a group of objects put together with intention behind them – as well as including museums this can also include the contents of a wardrobe, jewellery box, an envelop or interior space (ways of telling the stories of our lives). “…this definition appears to hold equally for interior decorating, the composition of a wardrobe, and subscribing to a book or journal series…” (Bal 1994: 99)

References:
Windsor, J. 1994. ‘Identity Parades’. In: Elsner, J. and Cardinal, R. [eds], The Cultures of Collecting. Reaktion Books Ltd.
Bal, M. 1994. ‘Telling Objects: A Narrative Perspective on Collecting’. In: Elsner, J. and Cardinal, R. [eds], The Cultures of Collecting. Reaktion Books Ltd.


…On narrative…
‘Fabula’ is the plot of a story. “According to Aristotle… a fabula has a beginning, a middle and an end.” (Bal 1994: 101)
“Only retrospectively, through a narrative manipulation of the sequence of events, can the accidental acquisition of the first object become the beginning of a collection.’ (Bal 1994: 101)

“Objects hang before the eyes of the imagination, continuously re-presenting ourselves to ourselves, and telling the story of our lives…” (Pearce 1992: 47)

“Collecting is an essential human feature that originates in the need to tell stories, but for which there are neither words nor other conventional narrative modes. Hence collecting is a story and everyone needs to tell it.” (Bal 1994: 102-103)


There are different ways of conveying narrative “…verbal texts are not the only objects capable of conveying a narrative…” (Bal 1994: 98-99) Mieke Bal argues, “What if the medium consists of real, hard, material objects…can things be or tell stories?” (Bal 1994: 99)

When in a collection: “…objects are deprived of any function they might possibly have outside of being collected items…so fundamental as to change the nature of the objects.” (Bal 1994: 111)

Objects lose their objectivity (function) when they become part of a narrative/collection, instead they become ‘signs’ or ‘signifiers’ (semiotics); they become embodied with new meaning and metaphor (the poem object). For example within my print designs I have used the image of a butterfly, an envelope and 11 peacock feathers as a way of conveying a story. The envelop containing the 11 peacock feathers loses its function as an envelope for posting letters, and instead becomes a container for thoughts, memories and dreams; and of all that the feathers have come to symbolise and embody…

“…objects are inserted into the narrative perspective when their status is changed from object-ive to semiotic, from thing to sign…from presence to absence. The object is turned away abducted from itself, its inherent value, and denuded of its defining function so as to be available for use as a sign.” (Bal 1994: 111)
“ The new meaning assigned to the object… is also always metaphoric…”(Bal 1994: 111)

References:
Pearce, S. 1992. Museums, Objects and Collections: A Cultural Study. Leicester and London.

Bal, M. 1994. ‘Telling Objects: A Narrative Perspective on Collecting’. In: Elsner, J. and Cardinal, R. [eds], The Cultures of Collecting. Reaktion Books Ltd.

Jean Baudrillard and Collecting

In this text Jean Baudrillard writes about collecting, I have picked out a series of quotes that I have found interesting in relation to my research:

In 'The System of Collecting' Baudrillard writes about ‘The loved object…’ (Baudrillard 1994: 7)

…it is related to subjectivity…

‘…for while the object is a resistant material, it is also simultaneously, a mental realm over which I hold sway, a thing whose meaning is governed by myself alone.’ (Baudrillard 1994: 7)

‘…the objects that occupy our daily lives are in fact the objects of a passion, that of personal possession…’ (Baudrillard 1994: 7)

... on the difference between a functional object (something that is used) and ‘ The object divested of its function…’ (Baudrillard 1994: 7)

‘Possession cannot apply to an implement, since the object I utilise always directs me back to the world. Rather it applies o that object once it is divested of its function and made relative to a subject… in a mutual relationship…’ (Baudrillard 1994: 7)

‘Thus any given object can have two functions: it can be utilised, or it can be possessed.’ (Baudrillard 1994: 8)

‘The object pure and simple, divested of its function, abstracted from any practical context, takes on a strictly subjective status. Now its destiny is to be collected. Whereupon it ceases to be a carpet, a table, a compass, or a knick-knack, and instead turns into an‘object’ or a ‘piece’. (Baudrillard 1994: 8)

‘Once the object stops being defined by its function, its meaning is entirely up to the subject. The result is that all objects in a collection become equivalent…’ (Baudrillard 1994: 8)

References:
Baudrillard, J. 1994. ‘The System of Collecting’. In: Elsner, J. and Cardinal, R. [eds] The Cultures of Collecting. Reaktion Books Ltd.

On 'Animate objects'...

…on moving…
…on the things that surround us in our everyday lives…
…on ways of classifying things – not by function or form but by what they mean and how they’re valued; by the memories, thoughts and associations attached to them…

In Things Magazine, in the Article ‘Animate Objects’, Krystal Chang discusses the objects that have come and gone in her life, things that have remained; things lost - that only remain as memories, traces. This is interwoven around the concept of moving house. She explores the categorisation of objects, making lists of types of objects…

‘There are some things we kept and some things we left behind.’ (Chang 2004: 166)

‘Things left behind… a dead moth to be sold according to my grandfathers instructions.’ (Chang 2004: 166)

‘Things we wished we still had… the snoopy ice shaver we left in New Jersey.’ (Chang 2004: 166)

‘Ugly and useless plastic things that have decorated our house: a plastic cube with dimes floating in it…’ (Chang 2004: 166)

‘Pretty but equally useless things: a giant pinecone from a national forest, a set of nesting Russian dolls, a dried up pear…’ (Chang 2004: 166)

‘Ungiven things…tiny swords made out of fishbones, tied together with brightly coloured thread…’ (Chang 2004: 167)

‘Things I gave and took back: a ceramic green dinosaur with blue spots and a smile and a gold thread…’ (Chang 2004: 168)

There’s something poetic about things classified together because they’re all ‘ungiven things’ (does that mean they stay wrapped in wrapping paper, never arrive, never become, a ‘not being’) or ‘things left behind’ (existing only in memory, a sense of loss – is the memory better than the actual physical object?)

References:
Chang, K. 2004. ‘Animate Objects’. In: Things, 17-18 Spring 2004

Classifications

In the article Communicating Vessels: Andre Breton and his Atelier, Home and Personal Museum in Paris, Dagmar Motyka Weston explores ideas around objects and collections. Here are some quotes and some of my thoughts from her article:

She discuses types of classification that are intuitive rather than logical … objects as a way of capturing a thought or making it solid… narratives told by the relationship of objects with one another in a collection…
‘With an intuitive understanding of the spatial dimension of thought and memory, Freud saw his personal museum as a kind of spatial embodiment of the human soul. Each one of his objects became for him a mnemonic device for a theme, making tangible the element of thought.’ (Weston 2006: 103)

‘The spontaneous juxtaposition of daily, sometimes broken objects – highlighting the analogical connections between things…’ (Weston 2006: 104)
… The classification of objects leads to the formation of groupings and collections – thus when creating an illustrative print narrative within my own work, do the objects that form that narrative become part of the same collection or category simply because they help to tell the same story? A house or tin-box in the same category as a feather or a butterfly?
… A description or list of a collection of objects in an individual’s everyday bag, begins to tell a story of the person who owns that bag… told by the types of objects within…. One singular object doesn’t tell enough of a story… a collection gives just enough information to begin imaging the rest of the story of the person…
‘… the recognition of the peculiar power of things in our world to act as ‘positive’ fragments… their ability to import memories of their original situation into new assemblages, thus greatly extending their meaning.’ (Weston 2006: 104)

Types of collections: cabinets of curiosity
‘The Kunst or Wunderkammern, and Studioli, which thrived in the European culture of curiosities of the sixteenth and seventeenth Century, were private collections of naturalia and artificiala, containing wonders of nature, scientific instruments, treasures of art and exotic, bizarre or occult rarities. These objects possessed a magical, fetishistic quality for the collectors…they were grouped together thematically within the space of a specially designed room or container in a way in which revealed their latent resemblances and contrasts.’ (Weston 2006: 110 – 111)

…Objects and imagination, the magic in the everyday…the everyday object interested the surrealists…
‘Restoring to them the richness they possess in the poetic imagination. This phase of the movement’s explorations produced many new kinds of surrealist object, including the object trouve and the poem-object. It also heightened sensitivity to the ways in which things in daily experience inevitably harbour associations, memories and meanings that make them a powerful source of the marvellous.’ (Weston 2006: 112)

References:
Weston, D. 2006. ‘Communicating Vessels: Andre Breton and his Atelier, Home and Personal Museum in Paris’. In: Architectural Theory Review, vol 11, no 2.

phantom limbs

Phantom Limbs by Gaby Wood:

Gaby Wood wrote about prostheses in the Chapter ‘Phantom Limbs’ in ‘The Phantom Museum’

‘…the orthopaedics room with its stack of well worn arms legs and crutches’

Hildi Hawkens and Danielle Olsen wrote about Gaby Wood's chapter in the book: she ‘combines the strictest historical rigour – in its definition as closeness to the known sources – with the highest degree of sympathetic imagination; and her path leads us straight back to one of the oldest forms of storytelling, the fairytale. Storytelling, after all, is not always about making things up; and some of the best stories are true.’ (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: xii)

…of prosthetic hands:
‘They seem to be pointing, or beckoning, fingers, folding inwards – gesturing towards towards a story they cannot tell. Where have they been? What have they done?’ (Wood 2003: 79)
“of these stories, these losses and rescues, we know nothing. The hands remain mute, frozen in a language of meaningless signs.’ (Wood 2003: 79)
An object that has a sense of intimacy told by traces of wear and tear. Once used, and now remaining, living on after its owner has died – ghost like…
‘…a delicate things in a light brown leather glove – perhaps a woman’s... shows signs of wear – dark patches along the thumb muscle, heavy creases in the joints of each finger.’ (Wood 2003: 79)
‘it would remain floating in the world, disembodied and senseless, a phantom of some former self.’ (Wood 2003: 80)



References:
Woods, G. 2003. 'Phantom Limbs'. In: Hawkins, H. and Olsen, D. [eds]. The Phantom Museum, and Henry Wellcome’s Collection of Medical Curiosities. Profile Books.

The Collected

Hari Kunzru’s 'The Collected' in The Phantom Museum:
‘Hari Kunzru’s series of evocations, ‘The Collected’, explores the space between the things’ existence as museum objects – only the most recent phase of their rich and varied careers – and their former lives: their spirits.' (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: xi). The idea that they are somehow alive because of this sense of history – alive because of the idea that they have spirits or souls – becoming human-like?

This chapter tells stories of:
A shrunken human head: ‘I was once Juan Ignacio Perez-Santos, out of Havana (Kunzra 2003: 55), who travelled through the jungle in search of gold. ‘The hot green pulse of the forest thickened the air, which became heady and stifling, hard to take down your lungs. We travelled for weeks, pushing ourselves up the silent brown river…’ (Kunzra 2003: 56). The story is told partly from Juan’s perspective, then interspersed with grisly factual information about how to shrink a human head: ‘First you have to sever the head. Then you cut a slit at the back…just simmer. The thing will disintegrate if the liquid gets too hot.’ (Kunzra 2003: 56). ‘There in a few words, is the story of Juan the idiot who believed the stories he was told in bars. Juan who paddled up the river and got his throat cut.’ (Kunzra 2003: 57)

Hari Kunzru weaves a fairytale-like narrative, interweaving factual information with the voice of the object now in the collection. Taking you away from its current context in a museum, to imagine and visualise the story (or possible story) behind the object, now sitting on a shelf with a label, gathering dust…

… and the story of a locket containing an illustration made from human hair… ‘My lover…wanted his memento to be finer to confirm that his love and thus his loss were greater than the other man’s’ (Kunzra 2003: 60). A memento speaking its story of how it came to being… ‘Now when I think of love, I think of hands. I think of jewellers delicate hands, taking strands of my hair and teasing them into the shape of trees… even now that I am here, the property of the collector, I am marked by the touch of those hands.’ (Kunzra 2003: 60)
…ghostly traces and memories of a life… now a memento of the passing of time…

Hari Kunzru writes as though the objects in the collection are talking:
‘It is dark in here…
In the rooms filled with rows of numbered metal racks…
But I am here.
There are others too.’ (Kunzra 2003: 47)

‘Even in nothingness one has to have something to think about. I like to contemplate certain ironic aspects of my situation. The one I like best is that the collector is here too, caught in his own afterlife. Skin follicles. Saliva. A single moustache hair that fell when he was examining a new curio. Enough to trap him here, one of us, crouching in the darkness.’ (Kunzra 2003: 73)
The collector becomes the collected. Writing about the thoughts or dreams or yearnings of the collected objects…


References:
Kunzru, H. 2003. 'The Collected'. In: Hawkins, H. and Olsen, D. [eds]. The Phantom Museum, and Henry Wellcome’s Collection of Medical Curiosities. Profile Books.

The Phantom Museum

‘One of the most poignant aspects of the world of inanimate objects is their longevity. They endure and we do not…they are unspeaking witnesses that can never tell us what they have seen…’ (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: vii)

I have been reading a book called The Phantom Museum, and Henry Wellcome’s Collection of Medical Curiosities. The book links to my interests in telling stories about objects and collections - here are some quotes from the book and some of my thoughts:

‘The Wellcome Collection is a vast repository not only of objects, but traces of physical sensations, ideas and emotions, a reliquary of thoughts and fragments of memory. The soft, fleeting and ungraspable stuff of life is conjured up by matter of an altogether different nature, now lying inert in an anachronistic institution and very slowly turning to dust.’ (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: viii)
…collections as containers of memories… finding ways to express those narratives in a way that is subtle enough to be suggestive; allowing the viewer space to imagine….
Ideas of dust bring to mind the dust on butterfly wings - something physical that is fleeting, insubstantial, ungraspable – if you try and touch it, it will disintegrate. One must be gentle with these things and these thoughts
…ideas of poetics and object as metaphor (the image of a butterfly has appeared in my print designs as a way of lightly suggesting this sense of insubstantiality, these echoes of the past that can become embodied within an object.)
‘...this book is full of subtle resolutions, quiet shifts towards the light.’ (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: xiv)
…writing and exploring with a lightness of touch…not being too heavy (link to lightness discussed by Gaston Bachelard in poetics of space?) – this allows for subtleties for the little perhaps unnoticed things to be noticed remembered and treasured…

Creating imaginary narratives that are sympathetic to the objects and their history, yet also go somewhere ‘other’ – beyond their literal physicality.
‘Here in the Phantom Museum, the objects are investigated using a different method, that of the sympathetic imagination.’ (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: ix)
‘Our fiction writers …were priming their imaginations with a thorough grounding in the known facts about their chosen objects – although very often that knowledge was incomplete.’ (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: xi)

In October when I drew objects at Helston Folk museum the labels on the objects I drew affected the way I related to and understood the object; with no label you are lost…or perhaps completely free to make your own story…
In the Wellcome collection: ‘Some of the most mysterious objects now even lack the labels which might once have helped us decipher them; their meanings have become impenetrable.’ (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: ix)

…ideas about random types of classification – how do I classify the objects I use as inspiration for my print designs?
In the collection in Blythe House in Hammersmith ‘objects are classified by room – Glassware, Oriental, Surgery – giving rise to a higgledy – piggledy arrangement in which snuff boxes rub shoulders with mourning jewellery, ear trumpets with dentists chairs and anatomical models with human bones’ (Hildi Hawkins and Danielle Olsen 2003: x)

… in my work… illustrative print designs, combine imagery and text, real and imaginary narratives… grounded in factual research and fragments of real information…lightened by imaginary fragments… suggesting – allowing the viewer to engage with the work to develop their own personal response and narrative… when these prints are applied to an object in a design context – is it perhaps a way of making an object more than just another thing…to become a thing with a soul, with the ability to ‘speak’ and tell part of its story?

References:
Hawkins, H. and Olsen, D. [eds]. 2003. The Phantom Museum, and Henry Wellcome’s Collection of Medical Curiosities. Profile Books.

I've just looked at this website: www.sfgirlbybay.com, it has links to loads of inspiring design websites and blogs...
It also had a link to this blogspot: www.inspirationboards.blogspot.com, which has an interesting interview with Maira Kalman (an artist, designer,author, illustrator and photographer) - she talks about collecting and found objects, and the way they can tell stories. Here's an extract from the interview with Maira Kalman by Lori Pickert on 23.03.08:

'What do you collect, and how does it inspire you?
First and foremost I collect books. Those are my treasures and if I had to give everything up, I would in a second, but not the books. Then there are all the collections of odd ephemera. Old notebooks, boxes, fezzes, cafe napkins, moss, doll clothes, interesting packaging. Inspiration comes from shape, color, text, misuse of text, humor, honesty of intent. All of those things play in making something. The endless possibilities are always encouraging.

Can you say something about found objects and how they inspire you?
First of all a found object is free. And that is always exhilarating. It was waiting for you and you took it. It had a life and now the life continues. You may pass it on to someone. Or forget it for years and then refind it in a box. It is mysterious and yet tells a story.'

I've been researching blogs:
I've looked at camillaengman.blogspot.com, and was interested by her illustrations and the photos she's been taking of collections of objects...

design application research

I have been researching design applications for the illustrative print designs I have been developing; I have looked at these websites because the designs have an illustrative quality pertinent to the designs i have been developing, and also to give me ideas about context, pricing and website design: www.freckledesigns.co.uk, www.sylviefuller.co.uk, www.nadiasparham.co.uk

bag handles and fastenings research

I have been exploring the collections of objects we carry with us in our various types of bags. I plan to make a series of bag samples using some of my printed fabric designs. These printed fabrics explore the real and imaginary narratives around collections of objects. Making these bag samples will be a way of researching and developing relevant design applications for my printed fabrics; linking with areas of interest in my research.
I've been researching handles and others types of fastenings to use for making the bags, I found these websites
www.u-handbag.com, www.bagsofhandles.co.uk, www.kleins.co.uk, which look like they might be useful to source handles and fastenings.

...bags that tell stories... bags that are about ideas...

Postcard research

I have printed 500 of these postcards and plan to put them in the library at University College Falmouth, in my Exhibition space and in various galleries and offices. I then plan to develop narratives and illustrations imagining the potential stories of the people who own these bags, based on the objects contained within them. I also plan to use both quantitative and qualitative analysis as another way of reflecting on my research.

Old Clothes

I have been reading an article in Selvedge Magazine, issue 21, Jan/Feb 08. The article by Amy de la Haye is entitled Personal Archive, and is part of a larger article: Old Hat, Is Vintage Fashion Looking Dated?
This article asks:
'Why do we preserve and cherish our old clothes?' (Haye 2008: 75)
'...at what point and how do particular garments become elevated from 'old clothes', that have accumulated or hoarded, to revered 'object' or collection - our wardrobe as a personal archive?' (Haye 2008: 75)
The article continues:
'More often, it is the moment when clothing triggers a significant memory that it becomes imbued with new meaning and personal worth, valued over and above its style, materiality and utility.' (Haye 2008: 75)
'Or perhaps it is because we leave imprints on our clothes - their materiality is altered by the wearer - in a way that we do not leave traces on other objects that we own? A garments shaping can distort to echo body contours; it can become imbued with personal scent and bear the marks of wear. And, ultimately they disintegrate with the passage of time, a process which can be likened to human fragility.' (Haye 2008:75)

I picked these quotes because they link to ideas i've been exploring. I have been researching collections in both museums, and personal collections, to explore why some things are treasured, valued and kept and why others become discarded and unwanted. A way for me to begin to understand the type of object I want to design. Perhaps... something to be treasured and kept, to be used and then repaired or perhaps altered to adjust to new needs; to be functional and to interact intimatley with our everyday lives - not to be too precious not to use, yet beautifull enough to to treasure and want to keep.

Classifications and collections:
Nineteenth Century Museums have a different aesthetic to the Modern art museum with “…an aura of curiosity…The diversity of its essentially ‘non art’ collection, which lacks the tendency of modern museums to over-interpret, inspires the imagination and tends to generate questions rather than give answers.” (Putman 2001: 8)
This draws to mind my initial interest in the collections at Helston Folk Museum: the way the labels of objects only give you a fragment of information. To me this is more interesting because you begin imagining the rest of their potential narrative.

The Wunderkammer – Cabinet of Curiosities – existed in Europe in C16 – C18 “This early ancestor of the museum possessed a special quality in tune with the creative imagination, a quest to explore the rational and the irrational and a capricious freedom of arrangement.” (Putman 2001: 12)

… On Karsten Bott…
“ many C20 artists have followed a collecting principle, akin to the Wunderkammer, which embodied an element of free association where the mind could roam at will. The subject of such a collection might be both eclectic and personal, bound up with memory and imagination…” (Putman 2001: 12)

Karsten Bott’s works links to ideas around collecting and classifications:
Karsten Bott’s instalation 'One of each’ is “…an archival exploration of everyday life.” (Winzen 1998: 82), in which “Even the most obsolete, broken and trivial everyday items are meticulously ordered in rows.” (Putman 12001: 39). Creating a collection of objects – perhaps things nobody else wanted - maybe lost things, like the collection of clothes I collected in a charity shop rag bag. In this installation he made categories such as “ …the kitchen, the garden shed, the bedroom…” (Winzen 1998: 82). And also categories like: occupations, festivals/customs and death. Into these categories he puts objects such as “…stockings, wage sheets, feathers, neatly folded plastic bags…” (Winzen 1998: 82). The images in this post are from this instalation.

Karsten Bott’s Trouser pocket collection 1996: “Bott gathers from the streets a plethora of colourful discarded items, each small enough to fit into his trouser pocket.” (Putman 2001: 83). These are displayed like museum artefacts, a way of classifying and collecting, somehow it seems to link to my project exploring the collections of objects people carry with them everyday in their various types of bags.

Matthias Winzen writes:
“Everybody collects. Something. Anything. Again and again. Sometimes consciously and with a long term strategy, other times without thinking much.” (Winzen 1998: 22)
(Again, I link this to the collection of clothes I explored in a charity shop rag bag and the ‘unconscious’ collections formed in people’s bags and pockets.)

…on shoes and ‘unconscious’ collections…
“Most people I know own more pairs of shoes than they regularly wear or at least have use for. These appear to be collections with no conscious intention behind them. They just have somehow accumulated.” (Winzen 1998: 22)

References:
Putman, J. 2001. Art and Artifact The museum as Medium. Thames and Hudson.
Reepen, I. 1998. ‘Karstenn Bott’. In: Schaffner, I. And Winzen, M. [eds]. Deep Storage Collecting and Archiving in Art. Prestel Munich and New York.

Real and imagined narratives: Sophie Calle

Real and imagined narratives: Sophie Calle
Linking to ideas around imaginary and real narratives that I want to start exploring when developing print designs inspired by objects or collections…
“ Sophie Calle’s works are concerned with representing absence. Since the late 1970’s she has been using found objects that she has collected, plus photograph, films and texts of her own, to preserve traces of what is disappearing or already past. These reconstituted memories sometimes tell stories from her own life…” (Gabner 1998: 96)
“…Remaining unclear throughout this poetic search for what is disappearing or has already disappeared is wheter the past ever existed, or whetere the search for traces is is merely the pursuit of an illusion which only takes form in the reconstruction of a fictional past. These documents lead us into a specific corridor of memory, where objectiviy, and subjectivity, reality and fiction intertwine.” (Gabner 1998: 96)

References:
Gabner, H. 1998. ‘Sophie Calle’. In: Schaffner, I. And Winzen, M. [eds]. Deep Storage Collecting and Archiving in Art. Prestel Munich and New York.