OUIL603 Extended Practice - Into the Woods/Pretty Nasty, Part 7

I took a research trip out to Yorkshire Sculpture Park - firstly, because they have a lot of really interesting plants there, but also they have a really good gift shop, and the products they sell there are a lot like the sort of things I want to make and sell. 

They have a lot of artwork stocked by local independant artists - people like Louise Lockhart, who is also known as 'The Printed Peanut'. I adore her work, its bright and colourful but still looks really professional, which is the balance I want to strike in my own stuff:

Visiting YSP also made me think about other places I would want to see my designs selling. I really like websites like Papier (which is like a posh moonpig, or funkypigeon) - especially their in house designers, Hip Hip. Their work is really fun, but still has really strong design elements going on with them.

I want my cards to have a similar audience - bespoke design, in more upmarket or independent design shops. People like Colours May Vary - or other gallery shops and small fashion boutiques. 

On a larger retail scale - People like Waterstones, Paperchase, Urban Outfitters, Topshop and Joy are all shops that buy in that type of on-trend stationary and greetings cards to sell as add-on sales. These are all places i'd look to put my own work forward to after this brief is over.

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In terms of work, however - I took loads of photos of different plant species that were growing in and around the sculpture park grounds. One think that really struck out to me was the amount plants living ON other plants - ivy and ferns that were literally sticking out of tree bark, like some sort of zombie plants. It was a little bit morbid, but I found it really fascinating.

Seeing these plants reminded me of another type of creepy invasive plant-based matter - types of fungi that invade creatures and take over their nervous systems, called 'Cordyceps'.  

This is what bugs look like taken over by Cordyceps fungi:

They're super creepy and grotesque, given how gruesome the insects often meet their ends. But at the same time, I do think there is something oddly beautiful about the way they look. This became a turning point in my project - focusing much less on general 'Into the woods' stuff, and more specifically at making really grisly invasive plants and fungi look beautiful - which is where the 'Pretty Nasty' comes from.

I came up with this idea of making mushroom-infected people, that I could possibly make into ceramics, but I thought it would be too time consuming to pull of successfully. However, I was still really into the theme of it all, and I started to look at invasive plant species that are problem in the UK instead.