Every year, the Degree Show at Edinburgh College of Art is a date not to miss in the arts calendar of the city. This year’s show just finished but we take a look at some of the student work that caught our eye.
Kate Livingstone – Masters of Fine Art MFA
Menzie Zhang – Fashion BA
Kirsti Beautyman – Illustration BA
Dorothy Jackson – Combined Studies BA
Performance Costume BA
Hugo Maximillian Ross – MAFA
Rachel Millar – Graphic Design BA
Marie Varley is an Irish artist running a small screenprinting business, creating prints that explore national identity and how this has been celebrated in the past particularly through the form of ephemera such as postage stamps and matchboxes. We interviewed Marie to find out more about her education, love for print and her recent move from Edinburgh to Dublin.
When did your interest in visual arts begin?
That’s a difficult one to pinpoint but for as long as I can remember I have always been completely obsessed with colour and the tactility of paint. As a child, most visits to friends’ houses involved pulling out the poster paints and brushes! In secondary school I first discovered modern artists such as Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock whose work and concepts really resonated with me and the decision to go to art college was firmly made.
Why did you decide to focus on screenprinting in particular?
Throughout the four years I spent developing my practice at LSAD, my work always dealt with found imagery and in particular imagery which represented national identity. In one way or another these themes always entered my work and in my final year I began looking at postage stamps, disassembling the imagery and what the intended meanings were for the individual countries. My degree is in Fine Art Painting however as the imagery in postage stamps was originally printed I wanted to stay true to my source material by utilizing a printmaking technique. Having briefly dipped my feet in the screen printing process during a module in my second year, I was familiar with the properties of screen printing and loved the flatness of print in contrast with the oiliness of paint. I had about 6 months to master the art of screen printing and thanks to the amazing – and patient – printmaking technicians at LSAD I managed to screenprint my whole Degree show! My degree show pieces were a mix of several layers of print upon paint. The show consisted of 8 pieces which measured 2 metres x 1 metre and I absolutely loved making them.
Please tell us a little bit more about your interest in national identity and ephemera.
For me it is fascinating to gain an insight into the social context of a country by the imagery used in the 2.5cm x 2cm space of a postage stamp. Countries had varying messages at different times. One stamp in particular, a German DDR stamp from 1981 which depicted a whimsical plug character had quite a powerful message. The stamp reads “Rationelle Energie Anwendung” (translating to Rational Use of Energy) to support the German governments recently introduced energy efficiency policy, at a time in which the country had a serious concern about energy waste. It is difficult to imagine a postage stamp holding this much communicational power these days but in a time before the internet, these ephemera were really quite powerful. Similarly a piece which I created for my Degree show “Kenya” which included a series of reproduced Kenyan stamps from the 1950’s with safari animal illustrations can seem quite stereotypical. With stamp collecting a hobby amongst many and air travel was a luxury, this was a way of visually communicating the identity of a country.
What are your plans for the upcoming months?
I am working towards a solo show so the next few months will be a busy few in the studio. I am hoping to complete a series of prints based on matchboxes from the 1950’s. I have 6 separate images already printed and I am hoping to print at least another 4 or 5 new editions. My prints have recently been stocked on the super online print shop Department Store based in London so that’s quite exciting!
You’ve recently moved to Dublin from Edinburgh. How do you compare the creative ‘scene’ in these two cities?
The creative scene is pretty exciting in Dublin at the moment. In a city only just about recovering from the recession, artists and creatives have set up studios in unused shops and vacant warehouses. The studio where I make my prints for example is a small studio set up by Kim Willoughby in 2011 as the first affordable pay-as-you-go screenprinting studio in Dublin. This allows for a wide range of studio users where fine artists work alongside graphic designers and Illustrators alike.
I absolutely loved the three years I spent in Edinburgh! Surrounded by hugely talented and professional artists at Edinburgh Printmakers where I was a member was hugely beneficial for me. I learned invaluable tricks of the trade and I learnt a lot about artist and gallery relationships. The Edinburgh creative scene has a real community spirit which I thought was unique. Just before I moved to Dublin last year I attended the Hidden Door arts festival, a non profit, volunteer run arts festival which took place in an abandoned spaces on King Stable’s Road. Not long before that I took part in a Creative Pop-Up market in nightclubs which were empty during the day. There is a real ‘anything is possible’ attitude in the Edinburgh Creative scene.
Last month we were approached by Marriott International and asked to recommend some of our favourite places in Edinburgh to visit during the Festival. We love the cultural and entertainment offer that visitors can enjoy during the Festival month, but sometimes it can get too hectic and we recommend exploring the city’s streets to find some of Edinburgh’s cafés, restaurants and shops outside the Festival’s circuit.
That’s the reason why we’ve created this video featuring five different places you can discover if you’re visiting Edinburgh during the Festival: Scottish homeware and furniture shop ANTA, coffee shop Cult Espresso, tapestry studios and gallery Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh-handcrafted gin Pickering’s Gin and restaurant and bar Blackfriars.
You can find more information about each of these places on Marriott’s Edinburgh Festival Tumblr, where you will also find good advice on how to make the most of your visit to Edinburgh during the Festival!
Sarah Drummond is a service designer, graduated from Glasgow School of Art. She runs Snook, an award winning service design agency based in Glasgow, specialising in creating exceptional customer experiences.
Not intentionally, Sarah also became one of the co-founders of CycleHack, a global movement with a mission to tool up citizens to take a pro-active, DIY approach to make cycling easier, more accessible and fun. Hacks created in 25 participating cities can be searched in an open catalogue – some of our favourite design solutions include Penny in Yo Pants, allowing woman to cycle in skirts, and Stack Rack, a more efficient way of parking your bike on the street.
Sarah was the last speaker at CreativeMornings/Edinburgh. In her brilliant talk, Sarah spoke about design as a non-violent way of creating a revolution. Whatever the challenge, she believes in the power of inspiring people with design tools to take change into their own hands and take on the world.
As part of the CreativeMornings/Edinburgh team, we filmed Sarah’s talk. Get inspired watching her presentation below!
Photos by John Duncan
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Santander recently got in touch to tell us about their 123 current account, a new service offering cashback on council tax and bills. As we recently started Future Positive Studio, we’re interested in getting the most out of our bank accounts so we asked Santander to tell us a little more about the 123 current account and its benefits.
One of the strengths of the 123 current account is the easiness of switching everything from your current bank to Santander – it only takes 7 days for direct debits, standing orders and salary to be moved. To mirror this hassle-free process, Santander invited us to have a day to ourselves without having to worry about anything, taking us for brunch and dinner around Edinburgh.
This hassle-free day couldn’t have come in a better moment, as we’re currently finalising the last details of a new City Guide to Edinburgh. We decided to walk around the city and visit some new places to us.
We started our morning having brunch at The Gardener’s Cottage. This small restaurant offers a menu that changes daily based on the availability of local produce. We enjoyed a couple of Beetroot Bloody Mary, roe deer and fava beans dips with artisan sourdough bread, and Arbroath smokie and meatloaf sandwiches.
After our brunch we went to Stockbridge, one of our favourite neighbourhoods in Edinburgh. We had a look at some of the recently-opened shops and took the peaceful Water of Leith to walk to Dean Village, one of the areas we wanted to photograph for our City Guide.
We explored Dean Village’s buildings and its numerous hidden streets and after that, we walked to the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art to check Roy Lichtenstein’s exhibition, which we hadn’t been able to see yet, and also enjoyed a stroll around its gardens.
We decided to end our day having an amazing dinner at Blackfriars. This independent restaurant and bar located in the heart of Edinburgh’s city centre offers delicious food and a great selection of craft beers. Although we had been to the bar a few times before, it was our first experience in the restaurant and it didn’t disappoint. We enjoyed a special 4-course dinner paired with tasty beers by Redchurch Brewery – we couldn’t have asked for a better ending to our hassle-free day!
