born in seattle 1988, aidan koch is a contemporary artist exploring sequential art. she attended the pacific NW college of art in Portland, oregon from which she received her BFA. she is the author of three books known for their subtle approach to storytelling. she finds ways of exploring a narrative whilst still challenging the viewer. Using limited text and unconventional layout, there is plenty of space for the viewer to interpret her work in many ways. leaving intentional gaps and uncompleted illustrations, she finds a way of creating a narrative providing as little obvious information as possible.

There is something very therapeutic about her work, the drawings are paced slowly and capture a small moment in time. the lines and colours are soft and delicate creating an atmosphere of calm drawing attention to things you might not have noticed in a typical comic. The subject matter is mostly people or selected parts of them, along with lots of natural setting i think this ties back to a moment of thought or pause. Alongside this, her use or language is complementary to the setting and creates a back and forth relationship between text and image.

she talks about how instead of single image based illustrations she uses multiple scenes in a composition as it opens up the opportunity for suspense, tension, and contradictions. I think that this kind of approach could be really useful for me when talking about a dichotomy, i am aiming to discuss both sides of receiving nurture and lacking it. when talking about parent child experiences there are also many varied feelings towards it, so using this kind of process would allow me to contain multiple truths instead of present one portrayal. Something i also like about koch’s work is that they often present a question instead of trying to directly provide an obvious story. This pondering of thought is something i would like to incorporate into my work.

During this project i have spent lots of time writing, mostly exploring ways i can use my own experience and memories in relation to this project. After using the imagery of milk bottles in my previous drawings i wanted to see how this could look in a video setting. I’ve also been thinking about memories and how they can be altered or forgotten, after speaking with my dad about my childhood i realised there is a lot that i don’t remember or things that i have sugar coated. i visualised this with written memories on cloth and washed them away with milk (the most recognised source of nurture).

I think that this has strong links to the theme and can be explored a lot more. i particularly like the idea of washing away of something and leaching into the milk, perhaps I could look at washing the weaving to connect it to some other work. i think the softness and subtlety of the words through milk looks really interesting but is perhaps just me trying to find another was to hide my writing. i love the way that words look but maybe if i lack confidence in my writing i could just pick specific and significant words to explore the visual aspect of them. I have written up a few bits of writing in word to see how presenting them as something by themselves gives me any ideas.

I played around with spacing and line, to see how it could affect the words. Something about a solid bit of writing feels too obvious or not very thought through. Although, i love reading other people’s writings, poems, stories because of the intimacy you can feel from it, i don’t enjoy reading these bits of writing. I think instead of over analysing the content of it, i need to look at them from a more visual perspective. After joining Neil Nodzaks sequential art workshop, i am beginning to consider how i could look at exploring the visual aspects of it. i also am starting to see a link that could happen between video and sequential work, i will start by creating work out of the writing and then see how it translates into video.

Vanessa barragao is a contemporary textiles artists working in Porto, portugal not far from where she was born. she grew up in a seaside village surrounded by countryside, something that has clearly inspired much of her work. she found crochet and drawing to be her first experience with expressive art, learning both as crafts from a young age. She completed her undergraduate and masters in lisbon studying fashion design where she learned about her interest in ecological issue and connected them to her work. She left to continue on her focus in textiles working as a designer and gradually came to find her own projects, eventually opening her own studio.

She approaches each project without a strict plan, allowing the material and her feelings guide her; this results in a very organic looking outcome. She uses a wide variety of techniques such as latch hook crochet, weaving, embroidery and felt creating an interesting array of textures that couldn’t be achieved with just one process. These techniques are also ones taught to her by her grandmothers and through her work she wants to carry the traditions forward so that they don’t get forgotten in time. It is important to her that all the materials she uses are waste from portuguese factories, her work tackles themes of environment so her practice has to be sustainable.

Her work abstractly replicates coral reefs with layers of varying textures and crocheted structures. It doesn’t follow the typical form of a wall hanging because of the irregular shapes, i like how it spreads out differently and avoids any strict structure. she uses mostly bright colours to replicate an ocean floor but also blanks out areas with beiges and whites to represent the bleaching of coral. i find these parts particularly interesting as it reminds me of skin or body like shapes and crevasses and it allows the viewer to see what her techniques can achieve. I am also inspired by what she can achieve with only wool, i would like to try and utilize some of her techniques to enhance some of the textures in my weaving. When reading about textiles artists ive noticed that most often their first encounters with those materials are from female figures in the family, this reminds me of the connotations around this material and i would like to delve further into this to tie it back to my theme. I feel that when you look at her work you can see the hours that went into it, i think that tapestries relate closely to storytelling. Im thinking that this also relates to the idea that someone’s experience of nurture can be a long path that is very rarely steady, i like the idea of creating something that provides a feeling of nurture whilst also telling a story.

Teeth/braces
i have started to explore the links that teeth have to my project; the switch from adult teeth to baby teeth, rotten teeth, teeth falling out, the alterations of them (braces). Im thinking about the biological makeup of my body and how it was affected by the genes i inherited from my parents- i had lost of trouble as a child with having an underbite and too many teeth for my small mouth, receiving braces for nearly two years and now experiencing troubles with jaw pain, teeth grinding, bite, headaches and toothaches from growing wisdom teeth. I can find similarities between this and my parental relationships- painful, troublesome but ultimately necessary and useful? Teeth are made up of four different types of tissue- Pulp, dentin, enamel and centimentum.

The earliest recorded attempt of braces were found in roman burial sites, they used thin gold wire to correct their bite. From this point on there were many more version of apparatus aiming for the same result and in the 1700s advancements were made to create something similar to what we see today. At this point we now have a more streamlined, discreet version called ‘invisalign’.
Id like to use wires to perhaps manipulate some other materials like soft plaster, clay, playdoh. im am seeing more and more strength in the teeth imagery as i go so i will keep exploring.

Mothers milk
Ive begun to explore the direct nutrients i would receive from my mother through breastfeeding. For a baby, milk is the most essential thing, it prevents infection and diseases, provides nutrients, high levels of calcium for bones and growth, and creates an emotional bond. To tie in with the project i am imagining a circumstance where maybe the milk i was fed was toxic or off- linking towards the lack of bond. I think milk used as a material offers lots of potential, it also could be interesting imagery for my writing.

“Feminine crafts“
weaving, sewing, knitting, crocheting were all typically tasks of the women in my family. Even though roles have come a long way in the past 100 years, these roles have often remained with mothers passing down their skills to their daughters. i spent lots of time learning them as a child, it as one of the more positive memories i have with me. Using these materials will be a good way to connect with the nurture a child can receive. The fabrics/materials also link heavily to comfort, i have many blankets and quilts made by the older generation of women in my family. These blankets have provided me with many experiences of warmth, comfort, care, play