Starting off my Design Process …

When starting to design my collection to accompany my BTech research report, it seemed the only logical step was to do it on my family. Basically at the end of every year we put together an exhibition of our years work and display our manufactured pieces, generally students work to theme … i guess it makes things easier, some students even base their Btech on the pieces they made. It paints   picture if everything is coherent and connected…so I am designing my pieces around my family tree you could say.

I am not embarking on tracing my family linage to way back when, just going as far back as to my great grandparents. I am very excited about the whole process, I sat down with both grandmothers and questioned them about their folks, gathered photos and documented dates. Its not going to be a very in depth study as I’m not a genealogy student but I have been finding that it makes great design inspiration!

Paternal Grandparents

Maternal Grandparents

My artistic aim for this collection will be one of manufacturing physical objects that represent these people that I know as my family. For me personally, its about making a tangible object that captures these people as individuals. I have started with my immediate family, which makes it easier because i personally know them quiet well, but i know that come to the great-grandparents it will be rather challenging as i never met them let alone know them. In those cases i am going to be working more from source material, like little stories my grandparents have told me about or photographs.

Old photo of my Mom