otro mundo es posible

More than slightly subdued by the dreadful news of the fire at Glasgow School of Art, we nevertheless had a successful launch to our degree show with the Business View on Thursday, followed by the Family and Friends View on Friday.  I was honoured to have my second cousin Elspeth and her daughter  Susan Moir Mackay  attend, along with my mother and sister, Kathryn. Elspeth's mother, Dorothy Moir, attended ECA, graduating in around 1925, we think, and we had a great discussion conjecturing about her experiences as a female art school student in those early days of ECA. Susan also graduated from ECA in 1992 with a BA (Hons) in Art and Design, and I am proud to be the third ECA graduate in our family in 2014. Do come and visit us on the first floor in Studio E4 and see if you can work out what is in the jar! We are open 11 - 5 until 1st June, with 2 late nights on 28th and 29th May until 8pm

Excitement mounts this week as we prepare our studio space for the degree show. Having to pare down the vast mound of work accumulated over my final year to select a few pieces that best represent me in the small patch of space allocated has been an illuminating exercise. Displacement The theme of Displacement is represented in my work of the same name. My interest lies in new theories of the movement of civilisation from West to East in ancient times, traced through evidence in weaving patterns and cloth samples among other things. I was fascinated by similarities I noticed in ancient Japanese stitched symbols such as 'Hirayamamichi', a protective pattern sewn on the edges of a garment to ward off evil spirits, to Guanche cave markings and ritualistic stone carvings. The idea that traces of different cultures may be picked up along the way when people are displaced led me to make a composite piece where these could be brought together. Displacement in current times, such as...