I have never really considered myself an artist or designer before, at least not until now. I always just saw my “art” as a hobby, something on the side, I typically engaged with through designing clothes and scrapbooking. But the more I thought about my art journey, the more it became clear that I am an artist. Growing up, I have always been creative and incredibly fond of all things beautiful, from attending painting lessons, singing in musicals, to sewing clothes. The best part about art is that it’s all-encompassing and is all around us, from the little things of our countryside or our everyday lattes.
My inspiration are from all of the incredible fashion designers before me, such as Alexander McQueen, who is one of my idols and biggest inspiration to my work, having read books and watched movies on him, I have found his work and life memorising or designers such as Jermery Scott’s Moschino and Thom Browne. Inspirations that I took towards my fashion designs, where I merge the playful with the formal, I often define my work as elegant but fun, usually with bright colours and strong silhouettes. My inspirations typically came from something that I was dealing with, such as the theme of change and freedom. At times when I felt lost in life, such as moving to university and navigating friendships or my academics, I turned to the page to share my thoughts. I have found designing and creating clothes as an incredible way to destress and merge my creative ideas together from my childhood cartoon shows.
Sometime in my summer holidays, I have begun scrapbooking and junk journaling, which is a low maintenance way of getting in touch with my creative side, rather than solely designing clothes. Scrapbooking is where I create a collage of things that I collected throughout the weeky along with pictures. It is such a lovely way to documenting my time at Exeter, where I can look back fondly from taking “junk” from TP and EGB wristbands, cafe receipts and all sorts of Exeter memorabilia which I kept over the years. Collaging them all into notebooks, filled with joy and happiness of my memories, is such a joyful way of connecting my love for art and my experiences.
I have found junk journaling a wonderful way to repurpose everyday objects to create unique colourful, texture pages of art. I particularly enjoy spending time with myself, a movie playing in the back and creating these pages or even scrapbooking with my friends with a side of gossip!
My relationship of art have often been the few constant relationships of my life, despite all of the challenges and changes of life, I know that I can turn back to the page designing clothes or scrapbooking.
