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MARIA BLAISSE
Being part of evolution as a designer,
Being part of evolution as a designer, how to become
more sensitive, how to interact with the continuous changes in nature, how to
let forms unfold, and be creative and efficient through nature.....
One of Butterfly Works’ sources of inspiration in terms of creativity and design is Maria Blaisse. The work of this Dutch designer-artist centres on material, rather than function. A major theme throughout her more than thirty-year career is the inner tube of a tyre. Rather than, for example, creating a hat or a vase from the rubber of an inner tube, Blaisse was inspired by the shape and texture of the tube itself and started investigating its possibilities – hats and vases among them.
Whilst rubber and the inner tube are a recurring theme in her work, Blaisse is for ever investigating the materials she encounters, playing with them until they become objects, items of clothing, hats – almost as if they had always been that and were simply waiting for an artist to recognise it. She uses both natural and (semi-) artificial materials, though even a piece of seaweed may inspire her, in this case to collaborate with a textile designer to create knitwear.
In the workshops she teaches, Blaisse focuses on what she has called ‘listening to form’, encouraging her students to take apart and play with materials from nature, putting them back together to uncover their potential as it were. To Blaisse, all teaching is a form of collaboration. Similarly, collaborative projects have become one of Blaisse’s methods of investigating the possibilities of various materials; working with dancers, for example, has allowed Blaisse to develop further shapes and movements of materials like felt and rubber.
Though Blaisse does not, on principle, set out to create a certain product, she occasionally does – some of the time – end up creating objects that can be reproduced and used, like glasses that seem to be melting and leaning in on each other, undulating silver bracelets or black felt bags with an appearance remarkably reminiscent of rubber.
Blaisse’s way of working with her students rather than teaching them, combined with a respect for nature and her materials – letting ‘design’ almost organically develop from the material at hand – are all very much part of a mindset that Butterfly Works also ascribes to. Her approach to creativity – bringing out properties, shapes, attributes that are unseen but already there – has inspired the Butterfly Workers both directly and indirectly, in their approach to design.In their educational projects, too, design is not only part of the curriculum, but in many ways the project is intended to bring out unseen quality in the young people that partake in the course.