Saturday, July 17, 2010

I won an award!!

I am extremely excited and pleased to have won an award for my design work.  Students from the RMIT Textile Design and Development course were invited to participate in the inaugural Basford Brands Maurice Kain award.
The brief was to select from one of three categories:

  • Abstract Stripe
  • Children's Home furnishing - 2 Co-ordinates
  • Open Design Clear grounds - Contemporary
The designs could be rendered by hand or digitally and had to be in repeat suitable for drapery.  They had to be made 32cm x 35cm, ready to be developed to a repeat in 64cm x 70cm.  The maximum  number of colours was 10 but the majority of us used 3 or 4, probably because of our screen print class experiences that required 2,3 or 4 colour prints.  I know I was definitely influenced by this.

As Maurice Kain has a market mainly in Australia and New Zealand, we were advised to try to appeal to that market.  I decided to develop my designs in the Abstract Stripe category and to use local grasses as my inspiration.

I went to Rockbeare Park/Darebin Parklands and took quite a few shots of the grasses and used them as my inspiration.

I love grass - we used to do quite a lot of work around the topic when I was a primary teacher.  It is a fabulous topic for science, art, language, maths - the list goes on.  It is also beautiful in its own right, especially when it has its seeds.

I feel very privileged (amazed and excited also!) to have won, considering the wonderful designs that were submitted.  Congratulations to Rachel and Leah on their award winning designs also.

4 comments:

parlance said...

CONGRATULATIONS!!

Mary said...

Thanks Parlance,
I was very surprised and excited when it was announced. Am still excited!

theregatha said...

Hi Mary,
I was really pleased to see your designs chosen, as they appeal strongly to my sense of design. I also loved the colourways you chose. Nice to know my sensibilities are still intune with whats out there!
best wishes, look forward to seeing more.

Mary said...

Thanks therigatha,
It was very affirming to have my design chosen, especially when so many people have been commenting on my 'retro' designs that I do not think are retro.