Creative Magic by Claire Morton, Textiles Foundation Student

Our world is made up of stories. If you don’t like the one you’re in, you have to redesign a new one and so it is with creativity.

More recently due to the Coronavirus epidemic, I have found it necessary to use the important skill of reinvention for my own sanity and for my creative process. 

For the last three months I have been living in a world full of separation and pain and as an artist this can be stifling and even stop the creative flow due to tension and worry.

In my difficult times in isolation I have had to give myself permission to play each day, to let go, enjoy the process and be kind with myself and gently accept whatever has been produced. When I have wanted to get into my creative flow I’ve used a combination of head, heart and a lot of bravery. Now I have the luxury of time to Look back over the past year, I am blown away with how much I have created on the Textile Foundation Course at Morley College.

If you are interested in studying the Textiles Foundation Diploma, you can see more information on the course here and see the courses end of year show here.

I am excited, happy and a little bit surprised with the quantity and quality of all the amazing techniques I have learnt and the artwork and designs I have managed to produce. The amount of ideas and inspirations that have sprung forth from the fun and sometimes challenging exercises that were given to us are like nothing I’ve experienced before in my creative life. Each term new projects were set for us and after lots of informative demonstrations from the experienced tutors the ‘You try now and test it out approach’ was given to us and off we would go. Play-time would begin.

The studio was fantastically equipped, well lit with natural light and had plenty of space to accommodate all the students and was a joy to work in each week.

At the end of the sessions we would share our results and ideas with each other. Which I found incredibly helpful. More minds, more ideas, more learning. At one point in the course we were asked to bring in some of our favourite objects from home, which we then displayed as though in a museum, thus raising our humble objects to collectable, note worthy pieces which the audience could view. We then became the audience and walked round the gallery/museum, later writing about our experience of the space, place and objects. We had fun getting into the roles of  curator and audience and I found  it very helpful to hear other people’s viewpoints on these inanimate objects.

I also enjoyed hearing the stories from the other students about what they had brought in and why they had chosen them, thus adding their own history and characters to the objects. We then went on to draw, design and print fabrics from these objects. The results from my classmates were stunning. I however, was not so keen on my own results, but it didn’t matter. I was happy to learn from the experience and gain inspiration from the works produced by friends.
All the techniques, ideas and results were either evaluated further or stored away in our Art Journals and portfolios’ for future reference.

At some point in the future when ‘Lockdown’ has been fully lifted in the UK I will be using mine to apply for other courses, maybe interviews or for sale on my website.

The fun and laughter shared whilst in the studio and on our weekly Zoom calls  and the gentle help and support given by our wonderful and knowledgeable tutors made me feel inspired and blessed.

These past few months have been magical. I have made new discoveries about myself, my practise and how I like to approach ideas, assignments and projects and I am creative once more.

Invaluable.

So thank you to my classmates, tutors and Morley College.

Claire Morton

If you are interested in studying the Textiles Foundation Diploma, you can see more information on the course here and see the courses end of year show here.

The fun and laughter shared whilst in the studio and on our weekly Zoom calls and the gentle help and support given by our wonderful and knowledgeable tutors made me feel inspired and blessed. — []