LAUREN BOWKER

I have a found my inspirational icon...and her name is Lauren Bowker.

This afternoon I had the most inspirational tutorial with Lauren Bowker, an ex TD4Fer who graduated 4 years ago. I walked back to my desk after chatting to her for an hour and felt so excited and pumped for the degree show that I felt like I wanted to air punch.
She inspired me to push myself harder and see that 2 months is actually quite a long time to really get stuck in and produce something great.

I began by quickly explaining my concept and she said 'sounds great and F*** the external examiner!'
This is just what I needed to hear to give me a boost.
Although that was a long time ago I think I still lacked a bit of confidence showing how much I like this concept incase I offended people. But Lauren gave me the hard shake that I needed to realise does it matter if what im looking at isn't flowers and bubbles but I produce some great work that achieves what I set out to do.
From the beginning I said I wanted to provoke an emotion and if anything I definitely did that!!

She gave me some great designers and artists to look at. Encouraged me about my idea for a drawn lookbook, Im excited for this because I think if I really spend the time on these they could look pretty cool. My concept will flow through my prints and illustrations.

I went on to chat about my design for the bags that I want to produce. She understood what I am hoping to acheive but said that the strap along the arm has been done. The bag I will produce will be completely new but the idea is not. I should think about how the concept could travel through the product design. I ghave been looking at falling bodies in my print design. Why not look at how they held there bodies and could htis be something to develop in my design? I loved this idea!!
It all started after all with people holding there bags without straps and impractically. Why not make it impratical but completely new.

Im heading home for easter today and have been flicking through the telegraph magazine and started looking at how people hold 'things.'...It made me think, what about looking at bodies once they have achieved rigamortis...what does the hand do? Although this is a slightly gross thing to look at it could be quite beautiful.