In conversation with Michael Brennand-Wood

Michael Brennand-Wood is internationally regarded as one of the most innovative and inspiring artists working in textiles. A defining characteristic of his work has been a sustained commitment to the conceptual synthesis of contemporary and historical sources, in particular the exploration of three-dimensional line, structure and pattern. He has persistently worked within contested areas of textiles practice, embroidery, pattern, lace and recently floral imagery. Michael has explored and developed his own techniques inventing many new and imaginative ways of integrating textiles with other media. Until 1989 he was a senior lecturer in the Department of Visual Art at Goldsmiths College, University of London and has undertaken residencies in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Belgium. He was appointed Visiting Professor at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2005 and is Research Fellow at the University of Ulster. He is currently completing two new works for the Yorkshire Cancer Centre in Leeds and developing an interdisciplinary arts programme for Colston Hall in Bristol.

Babel 2008 - by Michael Brennand-Wood

Michael Brennand-Wood was interviewed in March 2008 by Keith Walker, Coordinator for the PGCE Secondary Art and Design Course at Manchester Metropolitan University

KW In what ways did your early formative experiences and education develop your interests in art and influence your subsequent development as an artist?

MBW The two materials that I use the most, which are wood and textiles, were in place by the time I was ten years old via my maternal grandparents. My grandmother was an industrial weaver and she taught me to sew and knit, play with cloth and make things. My grandad was an engineer and he taught me to work with wood. A lot of my craftsmanship comes from my grandad and I picked up his respect for tools and materials. So the importance of all of this was that when I left school to do a two year foundation course in Bolton I didn't have any problem with the idea of textiles as a female subject, it was just another medium to use. Also, because I had already worked a lot with wood, I naturally imported that as well. I spent a lot of time in my second year in the weave department. Along with another guy, I used to go in and work with the weave tutor and we used to ask her to teach us things. I remember being taught how to develop a Bauhaus strip tapestry. Many years later I discovered that she had been taught by someone from the Bauhaus, so you end up in Bolton being taught by someone who has a connection with the major educational establishment in Germany. She was really enthusiastic about contemporary textiles and encouraged us to look at what was around, which frankly wasn't a lot at the time.

Babel 2008, side view - by Michael Brennand-Wood KW Your work draws upon a wide range of references and content seems very important to you. You also seem to be excited by the challenge of engaging with materials, processes and constructional methods as your work evolves and progresses. Could you summarise your key concerns as an artist and the distinguishing characteristics of your own creative journey?

MBW From the eighties and into the nineties I travelled quite a lot to places like Australia, Japan and New Zealand and worked as an artist-in-residence. One massive influence wherever I went was actually the size of the studio and its different space orientation. Often the work would change because of this. I tend to filter a lot of information and in a very simple way a lot of what I do is to look for the connections between things that I like. So I'm excited equally by something from Japan or from Aboriginal culture, Islamic calligraphy or a piece of Italian sixteenth century lace or whatever it might be. The really great examples of Aboriginal work are essentially about the mapping of an interior world. A description of sixteenth century lace would be the encirclement of space, which you could also see as a form of mapping reference; essentially you start to put ideas together. My job as an artist is clearly not to appropriate somebody else's culture, but to understand it and be respectful of it and see what the connections are. To me it is a kind of visual archaeology, unpicking what's there and trying to find ways to use it. A fundamental aspect of my work is duality, its collision of opposites. A primary one would be order and chaos. I tend to set things up and then either destroy or tinker with the structure, to change it. I read a lot of John Cage when I was a student and I got very interested in the notion of indeterminacy and chance. I really view chance as a creative opportunity. The fact that I change practice a lot and move around in new areas is about exposing new strata and seams of interest.

KW That's interesting because when I first saw your floral pieces I wasn't surprised.

This Final Twist 2007 - by Michael Brennand-Wood MBW If you'd said to me two years before that I'd be working with flowers I would have died. It was simply because I'd done a Year of the Artist project where I'd looked at floral traditions. Floral textiles to me had so much baggage, it's William Morris and all the rest of it. I actually thought to myself someday I have to take that on. The first ones were a reinvention of a floral textile utilising real flowers as a medium not an image, a literal inversion. Essentially, I was attempting to understand the compositional logic. In recent works the floral imagery has almost disappeared. Ultimately, what the floral images were more than anything else were a form of mapping pins that mapped geometrical complexity. The biggest mistake that anyone ever makes about my work if they try to make it themselves is that it has just been thrown together. Ultimately, they realise how much it relies on structure and that frisson between order and chaos.

KW What are your views on the relationship between art, craft and design?

MBW A definition of me would be an artist with a sustained interest in textiles - history and process. Clearly, when I started I thought I was going to be an artist and study fine art and then I studied textiles which clearly has a craft dimension. I was perceived as a craftsperson and recently I've done a lot of work that has a very strong design dimension. My feeling is that my skills base lends itself to all three areas, which increasingly I find liberating. When modernism happened you got these strange ideas that anything to do with decoration and pattern was superfluous, because it is seen as excessive. There is an argument now ironically that the crafts are interesting to work in and that's fantastic. It opens up the crafts in the wider world of the visual/materials culture, but there is still a lot of inverted snobbery in terms of artistic pedigree in the fact that it's more acceptable or ironic if a fine artist uses craft procedures to be expressive as opposed to the other way round. It's also about the idea that art intrinsically suggests intellectual content whereas craft-based procedures suggest something else and I don't believe that. People of my generation went into craft-based courses, to be expressive. I think that the art world in general has been relatively slow to catch up on that. I never went into textiles to make anything vaguely wearable of useable. There's a whole subtext to my work that is very autobiographical, you can read it on that level if you know what the references are.

KWYou have always shown a strong commitment to education and I know you have undertaken a number of residencies in schools and other educational settings. What motivates you in such situations and what do you hope to share when working with young people? What do you hope they will gain from the workshops that you deliver?

MBW One of the things I am trying to do is to make textiles an area of expression open to all people. It is great to work with young people and to get them excited about the idea of being expressive through drawing, cutting, piecing and constructing in textiles. It is very humbling if a child goes away really excited about something that they've done. What I would classically say is if children work with me they will probably go to the library and bring back books on something I've talked about. They're talking about what they've done, they're writing about it so they are communicating, that's literacy. They're cutting things up; they're measuring materials, using geometry and mathematics. I see art very much as pleasurable oil between the other areas of the curriculum. The idea of expression being nothing more than institutionalised indulgence is really irritating. It's not, it's about releasing a lot of potential in other areas.

Random Precision 2006 - Michael Brennand-Wood From my experience, teachers who put themselves in unfamiliar creative territory with young people are actually really interesting people to work with. The difficulty in an educational situation when operating as an artist in residence can be that people want to over timetable everything, because they are actually scared of space where nobody knows what the outcome will be. My argument would be that if you are working with children and it's working really well, they actually consume what you have set for them much quicker and then you end up in unfamiliar territory. Some teachers are terrified of that because they perceive it as losing control. I'm a great believer in thinking through making. You articulate ideas during the process of doing, it's not about rendering, it's about forming the idea through trial and error. Then you can reflect, rationalise and critique the experience. Children sometimes don't actually know at a given point, what they are making, but they are very interested in process. When I go into a school as an artist-in-residence I can either act as a director in a slightly mad play and try and make sense of whatever I'm asked to do or we can just get involved in process and enjoy doing things which will emanate content. The result isn't always the main thing, if you make something that is impermanent, it doesn't matter if it falls to pieces eventually. The work might be transient, but the experience will go on forever.

KW Have you developed any views concerning how art, craft and design education can continue to evolve as a vital area of experience for young people?

Crystallized Movements 2006 - by Michael Brennand-Wood MBW I am critical of many things, but I do think that the artistic educational experience that I witness in schools for the most part is very much better than it used to be. People are looking at more diverse subject matter, they are looking at more interdisciplinary exchanges of ideas and materials and there does seem to be less of the 'white, male, dead bit'. When I was at school nobody ever talked about the evaluation of art. What we talked about was how to do it better. Nobody ever showed me a painting and asked me what I thought about it. What have been missing for a long time are people responding verbally, emotionally and intellectually to visual things, without fear. You want people to say what they think without feeling that they are talking nonsense and making a fool of themselves.I think that creative people very quickly mutate into something more troublesome when they get frustrated. In a way the art room is the great lab or studio space because it is usually one of the freest rooms in the school. You can chat with staff because creatively you are on a similar level. Particularly with adolescents, the art room is a fantastic space to inhabit, it allows you to begin to flex your wings as an embryonic adult.When I was at school as a thirteen year old, I remember working alongside eighteen year olds. It gives you as a younger person a yardstick, a mentor to measure ideas and concerns against.

KW How important is it that art teachers should try to continue to develop their own personal work alongside their teaching commitments?

MBW There is nothing worse than being taught by someone who never makes anything any more. It's like being assessed by someone from Ofsted who hasn't taught for 25 years. Pragmatically yes the world has changed, there's more pressure and it's perhaps harder to structure in creative time for you, on a regular basis. Little and often is better than just trying to work in the holidays, if you can keep a body of personal ideas on the go, that's really satisfying. Short courses are also good ways to meet people and try out new techniques approaches, for me good teachers are always inevitably people who do extra courses, continuous education. I can spot a good teacher almost a mile off, in terms of their openness to new ideas. They are really interested in new methodologies, open and above all enthusiasts. They also network with their peers testing out ideas and approaches. Critically, if that worked for you, it could work for me also. In a workshop situation, where I have a group of teachers together, they will exchange ideas and experiences. What constantly amazes me is just how much people get done in a few hours.

KW What advice would you give to someone who is considering becoming an art teacher?

Flower Head 2005 Detail - by Michael Brennand-Wood MBW Keep yourself open, keep yourself motivated and keep yourself aware. Don't be prescriptive and look at what is going on. Don't be afraid of what you don't understand. When you start teaching the chances are that what you like your pupils will like also. But ten years later, they may well like really different things and that can be sometimes a bit of a shock. Teaching others to do what you like is great for the ego, but you have to respect that their value systems are different. Celebrate cultural diversity, it's about embracing difference rather than trying to stamp it out. It's about questioning the norm. There is something in every one of us that is distinctive, personal and if you can tap into that feed and substantiate those ideas I think you would probably be empowering the individual to be in control of what they can potentially achieve. The single thing that I probably admire most in the world in anybody is integrity. A lot of people now work within unforgiving systems, institutions and situations where they are doing their damnedest to retain an integrity, strength of ideas and to maintain a belief in the power of art to transform people. Ultimately, I do believe that the best people find a way to navigate a course, through the difficulties; art if nothing else needs to question any establishment or doctrine.