Portfolio Visit One, Harriet Godden, Sausage Dog.

This morning me and Natalie took a trip to the Manchester Craft and Design Centre to have a look at the work there for ideas but also to get some portfolio visits. To my surprise and delight we managed to get all three visits done in one morning. The first person I saw was artist Harriet Godden (Sausage Dog) who makes really unusual and cute 3d stuffed toys and also paints canvas's of her creatures. I wanted to go into her studio to get some advise because it seemed quite inviting being really colourful and looking quite fun with the stuffed quirky animals, but also because I could see that she makes things and thought it would be good to get a 'makers' advise on how my work could be made into things as it's something that I struggle to see myself with my work.

Harriet was really friendly and very enthusiastic about my work saying that my portfolio was presented professionally and the work was to a high and professional standard. She liked my rotating radial eye which I was shocked at as I thought maybe some people might think it's a bit weird. I told her this and she said that when she was in uni she created quirky stuff too where she drew something with 3 eyes in it's head and that it's ok to create art that others may see as a bit unusual. This advise has reassured me of my work, as some of her creatures that she makes are very unusual but she has a successful business and a studio in the centre so I know that everyone has different style and there are markets for everything so although my work won't appeal to everyone there will always be a market. She also really liked my wild west designs and said that she could see them on fabric as clothing which was good to hear because that was what I designed them as. She then said that she really loved my design of the radial eye with the moons and the sun in the triangle but said that perhaps for the screen print on the bags she would just include one of the motives on it instead of overcrowding, also that maybe I could fit the sun into the triangle instead of having it sticking out. She also said that she liked my BMW design and it looked good on the canvas bag and suggested that maybe I could do a pattern with the really small stars. She liked my orangey circle photoshop motif and said that it looked good as a pattern and it looked quite vintage and 70s inspired and also suggested putting it onto fabric which is something that I haven't yet considered so was really helpful. Furthermore she suggested that maybe I could draw my moon and star pattern onto black paper and have the drawing white and that I could do my Xmas card design on just plane paper instead of the textured one. The final thing I showed her were my recently made greetings cards and she liked them especially the star ones but said that maybe a card wasn't the best product to put my moon and eye design on which I was aware of as I thought it wasn't a suitable subject matter.

She gave my some really useful and encouraging advise and seemed really impressed with my work which really gave me confidence. She told me not to give up and that it has taken her 8 years to finally seattle with a job in art so it won't come all at once but it is worth working at. The final thing she said was that you could see I had a style and that was a good thing because when she was at uni her style was a bit all over the place and she want sure what she wanted to do and then when she left she started to make things and she found her feet. Also I asked how she learnt to make things at such a high standard and her reply was she taught herself which was really reassuring to hear as there are things I would like to learn but haven't yet so it was good to hear that self teaching can be really beneficial. Overall the visit went really well and I was really pleased to get some positive feedback of someone who was so enthusiastic and willing to help.

Some of her charming work is below.