I was commissioned by the V&A shop to design a print for their successful range of exclusive special editions. After some time of researching the history of the building and institution, and visits wandering the vast and labyrinthine corridors of the wonderful architecture my outcome is 'Phantasmagoria' . The print in essence explores the nature of observing a place in the context of its history alongside experiencing it as an individual, resulting in a personal map of the museum.

'We have almost lost the idea of a museum being a work of art in its own right. Instead it has become a complex machine for the presentation and display of objects. For the interior decoration of a museum to be anything but subservient to the artefacts it displays has come to be regarded as almost a crime'.

I was interested to learn of the many lives of what we now call the V&A museum. The RCA's initial residency, The Museum of Ornamental Art, The Museum of Construction. For years the purpose of the site was unclear- instead the excitement lay in the architecture and interiors of the building rather than its contents. The officials were all keen on experimenting with, and reviving the use of mosaic in glass and ceramic, tile, terracotta and mural paintings, the dedication to this intent was so much so that family, friends, RCA students and convicts, were brought in to complete the decorative floor work. Structurally forward thinking too, the emphasis was on using 'new samples of building stones and marbles, specimens of all the best cements and asphalts'…even down to the guttering and pipe work new innovations were used.

Growing up in London,and visiting the museum at many different stages of my life the building holds for me personally layers of experience. In the same way memories and dreams can interweave one another, the hallways, staircases, and the surprisingly vast rooms that I have walked at one time, or another, always retain the traces of something other than the present, shifting and rearranging itself in my absence, and presenting a new self to me on every occasion.

Available in the V&A shop or online here.

Printing by Manymono.

Quotes from 'The Victoria & Albert museum- A history of its building' by John Physick.

In our indian summer a few weeks past I went up to the barns in wales. Autumn is a beautiful time to be in the Brecon Beacons, the intense greens now spotted with fiery flecks. I took my loom with me, and tried some outdoor weaving, trying to take in the surroundings of the barns.

Photoshop experiment

I was asked by Computer Arts Projects to create an opening illustration for a feature they were running on how designers can go about creating and selling their own prints. The brief was to show this process in situ. A really enjoyable quick job, the issue is out now.

Final image for the feature

Layers on the rack

Back in the summer I made this weaving in response to my friend JR Seaton of Call Super's EP Staircase. There was something in these tracks that got me interested in thinking about the correlation between weaving and music within their processes.

Before I have talked about planning vs experimentation in the weaving process. There is definitely a joy in improvising where you will begin to be led by the rhythm of the process, and it will build up a pattern as you go- perhaps more specific and true to the present.

A few months ago I went on a day trip to Chichester and had a look in the cathedral, noticing a medieval songbook in one corner. I was wondering about how the notation and visualisation of music came about and how that might change in the electronic/digital age where perhaps there aren't so much specific notes but sounds and beats.

reverse

reverse