My name is Kelly McGrath but I work under the name/brand KellyDawn Riot. I’m Irish but moved to Glasgow to do my MA at GSA. I’m originally from a purely printed textiles background, but have transitioned into a both a print and menswear designer in recent years. The opportunities in Glasgow have been wonderful and so I have decided to stay here as so far it’s been very kind to me.

Photography: Gabriela Silveira, Model: Bejoy Sanjeev

Since completing my MA two and a half months ago, I’ve been lucky to have had fantastic opportunities come my way quite regularly, but that’s not to say that they fell into my lap. A lot of it was days spent searching for opportunities online or going the extra mile to go out of my way to approach people.

The GSA Promenade and accompanying publicity was a launch pad as it provided great exposure for me. I was featured alongside two other classmates on The Herald and on the college website. From this, I was contacted and offered two photoshoots, one for an online retailer, and the other for GUM magazine. Following this, GUM offered me the main space for a fashion show at their launch event in December.

I think it’s important that if you meet like-minded creative people that you keep in contact and network as much as possible. There’s a lot of people who want to collaborate with other creatives and the photoshoots I have on my website were the result of this. Gabriela Silveira Photography and Bejoy Sanjeev were two people who really just wanted to get involved and be creative and I think you can see that in the shoot.

Since finishing college, I have ensured that a large portion of my time was spent entering both large and small competitions. Although it’s sometimes incredibly disappointing not to win or to hear that they don’t want you, it’s good to see who wins and what their website or CV looks like so that you can better yourself and improve on things (like your website, like I did).

However I have recently been awarded The New Talent Award for Scotland Re:Designed which was an exhilarating experience. It has provided me with fabric, funding and a mentor which is more than I could have asked for. From this, I was offered a fashion show with Glasgow University and have had the most amazing feedback and compliments from various creatives such as the director of Grazia and the director of Victoria Beckham.

If I had any advice it would be to network constantly and to research, research, research.

Comment below or on Twitter using #LifeAfterArtSchool & mentioning @CenSta with your experience after art school.

Stay tuned for updates from art school graduates all this week. In the meantime see a preview of what to expect from the Life After Art School features here.

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Looking for more blogs? Visit here.

Collect Scotland are a team of Scotland based textile designers. Created by designers Chloe Highmore, Marion Parola, Mhari McMullan and Yvonne Elliott, the team show work twice a year at the Indigo, Première Vision trade show in Paris.

Collect are looking for new talent to work with in advance of their next show in February. Submissions are open to textile designers, illustrators and artists born or resident in Scotland.

Find more information about this opportunity here.

Deadline: 15 November

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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Find more opportunities in our weekly bulletin here.

Scotland Re:Designed is a fashion and textile based platform which seeks to connect Scottish born or Scotland based fashion designers and textile companies with the industry and media. At the same time the platform acts as a sustaining force providing support that enables designers and companies to take the next step with collaborations, sales, and PR opportunities.

Created by mentor and curator Chris Hunt of Genuine PR, the platform recently selected several fashion, textiles and accessory designers to exhibit at the upcoming Scotland Re:Designed Showcase in Glasgow. Featuring the addition of a new set of workshops and presentations, the Glasgow showcase will take place 19 – 21 November at SWG3.

Find out more about Scotland Re:Designed here.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Glasgow based Liverpudlian and graphic designer Geraldine Traynor tells us about her work…

I’m from Liverpool, originally, and I came to Glasgow in 2007 (via Barcelona) with a view to getting back into education and to pursue a more creative career. In 2011 I left Cardonald College, (at 29) with my HND and an Advanced Diploma in Visual Communication, then went straight into full-time work as a Graphic Designer.

In my spare time, I rent a space in MANY studios in Merchant City. I try to get in there a few times a week to get some ‘illustrations’ done. At present, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of what I do and where I want my work to go. I get distracted at home really easily so having a studio space has really helped me. Recently, I’ve found that I’m able to experiment more freely and I’m finishing work much faster. By nature I’m averse to any kind of routine so my process (and thought pattern) can be, sometimes, chaotic. Having somewhere to go, to sit with a specific purpose, has helped me to improve my discipline drastically.

I guess what I do could be described as a combination of Graphic Design and Textile Design, though I wouldn’t say it’s that complicated. I’ve no clue what to call what I do, I just do what I enjoy and that’s simply stitching into cardboard. I take something cold, and two-dimensional, and add texture. I find I’m drawn to making straight, hard-edged things look and feel more organic. I like giving my subjects a tactile quality. This then makes them more accessible to me. If I see an object, a phrase, or a word (or even someone else’s work) that I like I have to bring it out of the page so I can touch it. It’s almost like Braille. That probably seems odd but I just feel that if you can interact with something by touch, it makes it more real.

Before my HND, I did an Access to Design course. I loved it. Part of the course was a Design Process for Fashion and Textiles. During this time I learnt different methods of drawing that I’d never considered before, like continuous line or using my other hand. This really loosened me up and opened my eyes to different ways of looking at form and line. This is the base for all of my projects. If my subject can’t be simplified into lined shapes, I won’t stitch it. Filling in blocks of colour with thread is more like embroidery and that’s not what I’m trying to do, I feel that would overcomplicate my work. I’ve never been interested in the end result of garment construction either, only the mechanics of the process.

As well as giving something texture, I like to simplify it with colour. As a rule, I generally don’t tend to use more than two colours for most of my work. I like to keep things looking clean, lots of white space, because I don’t like anything distracting from the stitches. I’ve been experimenting with very contrasting colours, layering card and cutting out sections with a scalpel. It seems to give my work an added dimension. This also helps to cleanly fill in blocks of colour instead of having just stitched outlines. I recently acquired a mountain of old card and paper samples from work, so I’ve been able to try some new things like incorporating slightly different textures of card. I like to scan my work at very high resolutions and zoom in on details, showing the differences in the card as well as the different stitches.

I do everything by hand because using a machine disconnects me from my work. If all of the stitches were uniform, it wouldn’t look or feel like I had worked on it. Those imperfections are important because I feel that they make my work unique and individual to me. I’ll always have the compulsion to do this it’s something that comes very natural to me, even if everything goes in a bag and no one ever sees it, it’s something that keeps me happy.

See Geraldine’s showcased work on Central Station here.

More: Website | Facebook | Behance

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Want to read more blogs by artists? Look here.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) will showcase work from some of the country’s best young creatives later this month when the annual Degree Show season gets underway.

The DJCAD Degree Show is the first of the flagship exhibitions held by Scotland’s four main art and design colleges each year. The traditional Preview Evening for the students, their families and invited guests takes place on 16 May, with the city’s largest annual exhibition of art and design, featuring the work of some 245 final-year students, opening to the public the next day and remaining open until 25 May.

Students from all 11 undergraduate programmes will exhibit their works across the two buildings and fourteen floors that comprise DJCAD. The show attracts thousands of visitors each year and is seen as a springboard for some of Scotland’s most exciting emerging artists.

DJCAD has a reputation as one of the leading art schools in the UK and many of its students go on to be world-renowned artists. Turner Prize winner Susan Philipsz and nominees David Mach, Louise Wilson and Luke Fowler are all DJCAD alumni. The standard of DJCAD students has been borne out by the number selected for prestigious prizes and exhibitions, such as the New Designers, New Blood, FreeRange and New Contemporaries on the basis of their Degree Show work.

Jeanette Paul, Acting Dean of DJCAD, said, “Over the coming months, thousands of talented artist and designers from across Scotland will be exhibiting the fruits of their training over the past four years and our graduands consistently prove themselves to be among the best in the country.

“This is demonstrated by their strong performance at New Contemporaries last year. This illustrious exhibition at the Royal Scottish Academy brings together the best work from all Degree Shows and the number of awards given to DJCAD graduates shows how skilled and creative the artists we produce are… Degree Show is always a special time for the University community, and indeed the whole city, and I’m sure the thousands of visitors who flock to DJCAD will once again be impressed by what they see.”

The exhibition will be open to the public from 17 – 25 May. Admission is free and the exhibition is open from 10am – 8pm (Monday to Friday) and 10am – 4pm (Saturday & Sunday).

The DJCAD Degree Show is one of the highlights of the city’s cultural calendar, attracting some 10,000 visitors each year and generating in excess of £1 million for the local economy in the process. It is part of the Ignite Dundee festival, which runs from 16 – 31 May and showcases the very best of Dundee’s creative talent.

Further details can be found on the DJCAD Degree Show website.

More: Website | Facebook | Twitter | YouTube

For more events, see our Weekly Bulletin here.

What:
patternsprints journal is a blog with a particular focus on pattern and prints. Written by Italian illustrator and freelance designer, Barbara Mazzoleni, the blog showcases decorative arts, graphic and surface design.

Yayoi Kusama

Why we like it:
It is not just a fashion blog, this journal features everything from illustration to interior design and jewellery. It gives a platform for the most interesting artists, illustrators, designers and emerging talents under the umbrella theme of patterns and prints.

Tine De Ruysser

Find out more:
Website

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For more creative delights we’ve Spotted on the web take a look here.

Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design (DJCAD) Degree Show 2012, one of Dundee’s cultural highlights and a celebration of emerging talent, takes place later this month.

Around 10,000 visitors are expected to visit the exhibition of work produced by nearly 300 final-year students from all 11 undergraduate programmes, including Animation; Art, Philosophy, Contemporary Practices; Digital Interaction Design; Fine Art; Graphic Design; Illustration; Interior Environmental Design; Jewellery & Metal Design; Product Design; Textile Design; and Time Based Art & Digital Film.

A series of lectures by some of the leading figures in the world of art and design will mark the beginning of the Degree Show season on Thursday, 17th May. Find information about the talks here.

This year’s Degree Show also forms part of the Ignite 2012 festival, a 10-day celebration of creativity and culture across Dundee, Angus and Fife.

Find out more about the Degree Show here.

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Browse through our event bulletin to find a happening near you.

The studio was established by Eleanor Young, a Scottish textile designer who graduated from the world-renowned Glasgow School of Art in 2007. Having received a First Class Honours degree in Embroidered Textiles, she set up Fun Makes Good in 2009 after realising the demand for high quality, hand crafted products with contemporary style.

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My studio up until now had been an ever changing space. Working from home, I used to have an annex room out with my flat, but as my business has grown and my collection of found chairs has increased I have grown out of my annex space and moved into the flat. I now occupy the largest room in my home and use every bit of it!

After re-arranging several times, I am now set up and have a very successful working space. I spend most of my time either at my work bench which doubles up as a cutting table or at my sewing desk which also doubles up as my computer table. As I work on a variety of projects at once I need space to store, to work and to think and my studio does all three.

It as a bright, busy and functional space. The only downfall is it isn’t the best space for client/designer meetings, so for commissions I tend to go out of the studio and visit my clients in their own homes. This provides a pleasant change of environment, and in doing so helps to inform my commissioned based work.

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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

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My workroom is a lot tidier in these pictures then it usually has been up till now. After being in this space 8 months it’s finally turning into the workspace I had hoped for. I painted the back wall a cheery bright yellow and found a brilliant beach hut magnetic board to keep notes on, as well as hang jewellery from. The bunting hanging on the wall I used to decorate my stall with at craft fairs. I don’t use it at fairs much now but couldn’t bring myself to part with it. Once I had a yellow wall the bunting seemed to fit perfectly.

I have been running SparkleSmith a few years now and in that time it has grown from prominently a jewellery company to now also creating purses, bags, bunting and all sorts of other little goodies. I try to keep my space organised but working in jewellery and sewing it is hard not to end up collecting thousands of beads, metals, ribbons, fabrics and loads more. Shelves and drawers are filled with jars charms, boxes bursting with pendants and pearls, and piles of gorgeous fabrics that I haven’t been able to resist. I have lots of storage boxes with little compartments and quite often thinking I have run out of materials I have restocked, only to find things a few months later in the boxes.

I work mainly at my desk but quite often need more space and end up sitting on the floor with materials spread out all around me. On the desk just now is a wedding bracelet I am making for a bride marrying next month. The coconut shells I have been collecting for years and I use them to stop tiny beads rolling onto the floor. I also use them to display products at craft fairs.

I don’t think my workspace is personalised enough yet. I have a few pictures I love up but they are mostly postcards or photographs from before the days of the digital camera. With everything being on the computer now I need to take the time to go and get some of my favourite snaps printed.
Over the next few months my circumstances will be changing dramatically (for the better) and I will be spending a lot more time in my workroom. I’m looking forward to seeing how the space develops and what I produce there in the future.

You can find out more about SparkleSmith on her website.

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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.

My weaving studio is a chaotic world of yarn, ropes, looms, shuttles and pirns, with flashes of neon colours and lots of bright natural light. It has been described as a psychedelic goldfish bowl, full to bursting with my colourful textiles and inspiration imagery: corals, anemones and underwater life all feature in my designs, with a sporty nautical influence from sailing and windsurfing.

I weave my designs on computerised AVL hand-looms, combining traditional techniques with modern technology.  I’m usually juggling several projects at once: making my own range of products, client commissions and developing new work.

 My studio is at the Briggait, a traditional fish-market which has been renovated by Wasps into artists’ studios and offices, housing an eclectic mix of artists, designers, craftspeople, dance companies, a circus school… I’ve got friendly studio neighbours and every now and then a pantomime horse wanders past, or music drifts along the hallway from performance rehearsals, reminding me of all the weird and wonderful things that go on around me.

www.angharadmclaren.co.uk

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‘Where I Make’ invites readers behind the scenes of artists from many disciplines to share photographs and a little insight about where they create their masterpieces. See more from the series here.