Louise Haworth

Louise is a currently a third year student on our BA (Hons) Artist Blacksmithing Programme, here she talks about her ideas and design influences…

“My work is heavily influenced by nature: I love the flowing lines that are created without man’s interference. Lately I’ve been particularly inspired by sea creatures, namely giant and colossal squid, octopi, jellyfish and other tentacled beings. I followed this vein after looking at whales to start with, one such being the sperm whale. Sperm whales are often found with scars running all over them in little ring shapes, the giant squid that they eat cause these by fighting back. From there I started to look at giant squid and this led on to the other tentacled animals.

I’ve always been really interested in the sea and the animals that inhabit it, counting whales to be my favourite animal. I believe this comes from the intrigue surrounding them. We have only explored around 5% of the sea and it is still impossible for us to reach the deepest depths. Therefore leaving it as the last great unknown on our planet, with all manner of incredible creatures calling it home. One such creature that remains largely elusive to us and roams these depths is the giant squid, as images of giant squid in their natural habitat is incredibly rare and difficult to come by I have been looking at illustrations (sometimes scientific) of squid.

I feel that a lot of my work in the past has had underlying art nouveau characteristics without me realizing. So for this module I researched art nouveau and found that I loved the lines and the way that the weight of them changed and caused the eye to either speed up or slow down. I felt that as natural forms inspired art nouveau, why couldn’t I apply it so sea creatures and such? From there I found it difficult to bring the two together in my own style at first, but once I had found an idea that I felt worked I ran with it and produced designs that I was happy with and felt had the right balance of art nouveau, without losing too much of the squid shape, but also containing a nod to traditional blacksmithing techniques in the beveled scrolls. ”

Louise Haworth