Dream project

Collaboration thirty years in the making

This months’s theme the

illoguild

is talking about is collaboration. For a creative person collaboration can come in many forms: artists collaborating with each other in creating a joint project, mentors getting inspired by their students and getting a fresh perspective of their teaching, creators working with brands and designing lines of exclusive products.

My latest collaboration is a result of a dream that started thirty years ago when I was a student of textile design in my hometown Ljubljana. Back then digital printing on all kinds of surfaces we know today didn’t exist and collaborating with a textile factory to get our designs printed on bolt fabric for our individual student project simply wasn’t possible - the process of setting up the printing machines for new designs was too expensive and the minimal quantity of fabric they were willing to print was way too bulky for our needs. So we burned our own screens for screen printing and produced the desired small quantity of fabric by hand, as messy and unpredictable as the process was. Nowadays one no longer need access to a photographic studio for developing screens for their own textile printing experiments - new digital printing technology enables fast and affordable service of having our designs printed on any kind of fabric, in smallest of quantities.

My new art assignment, titled “The colour of my memories”, was a perfect occasion to test that service. As an inspiration I used an old photo from my childhood, showing a year and a half old me in my mother’s kitchen in front of a 1970’s flowery wallpaper. Those flowers in warm, autumn tones were a faithful backdrop of all the birthday photos and family gatherings in my childhood photo album - the wallpaper has since been papered over but the memory of it still very much alive.

I extracted the flower shapes from the wallpaper and arranged them in a new repeat pattern. Then I tried out a few colour combinations, trying to stay as true as I could to the original palette. The idea for my final project was to have the pattern printed on a sturdy cotton fabric and then sew into an apron for my mother.

I was excited to find a fabric print on demand provider in my native Slovenia, Tiska fabrics, a small company that has developed as a vibrant new branch of an old and still very reputable textile factory whose beginnings go back to 1828. The package arrived last week and the print is crisp, vibrant and gorgeous (much prettier than in my photo!)

I’ve come full circle now. My student self would give anything to be able to hold these precious few feet of bolt fabric in her hand and now I can happily start sewing!

(Part two with the finished apron coming soon - once I surprise my mother with it on my next visit!)

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You can read more about what collaboration means to my fellow illustrators in this month’s Substack contribution from

illoguild

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And join us next Monday, February 17 for a Live Zoom session on the topic of collaboration! This session will explore how we can build stronger connections with fellow creatives and with clients. Whether you’re navigating your first commission or looking for new ways to collaborate with peers or clients, this discussion will be sure to provide inspiration and practical insight for your next steps.

​We’ll cover how to identify opportunities for meaningful collaboration, what sets successful partnerships apart, and how to make the process successful for everyone involved. this is a conversation you won’t want to miss, so bring your questions and we’ll see you there!

Use the button below to sign up and check your local time as clocks change this month in some parts of the world:

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