A tailor-made programme of printmaking workshops and activities is being created around each of our Award Winners in 2024.
Here you can read Isabel’s profile with her initial thoughts on being a Winner of the Rosy Ind Award and about her experiences and progress as she takes part in the bursary programme.
A summary of the Bursary programme for both our Winners can be found here. This will be updated throughout the year.
Letterpress with Mark Pavey
Working with Mark Pavey in his letterpress workshop
Isabel’s profile:
I am excited to be able to expand my practice and grow as a multi-disciplinary artist.
Isabel Porch
Isabel is a recent graduate of UWTSD Swansea in Surface Pattern Design and Textiles.
She was first introduced to printmaking while doing her GCSEs when she created multiple colour layered lino prints, but it was during the last eighteen months of university that she rediscovered her love for the art form.
Woodblock printing appealed to her as a sustainable printing option for fabric and wallpaper as it does not waste water and she was able to use scrap pieces of MDF wood. She created her first full-length of woodblock printed wallpaper on a live brief with Mini Moderns. Realizing this was a process and practise she wanted to keep working with, she based her final major project on woodblock printed wallpapers. This collection was also hand carved and hand pressed onto wallpaper. The work was exhibited at New Designers with great success.
Her practice is mostly around her background: her Welsh heritage and personal experiences of the world and place. She is drawn to the micro histories of objects and tokens, and the stories, character and emotions attached to them.
Isabel enjoys the physicality of printmaking, such as the meditative practice of carving wood, and she is looking forward to learning more about working with different materials and inks with guidance from experienced printmakers.
She feels the Rosy Ind award will offer her the opportunity to “experiment and play”, and to continue to look at printing processes which will enable her to bring heritage crafts into contemporary design and to explore those which might translate into the motifs she has been making.
Isabel will balance taking part in this award with her current role as a teaching assistant.