Textile Art and Design: Brooks Interview

Brooks Interview

1. What do you like about textile design?

I like that it can be used in different applications, and how versatile a pattern can be.

2. When was the last time you created a pattern?

I made one with you two weeks ago, but before that early this year. I don’t have a lot of time to because I’m teaching all the time.

3. What is your favorite medium to create a pattern with? Least favorite?
I like the preliminaries such as tracings with paper and pencil. My least favorite medium is definitely acrylic.

4. When did you realize you wanted to become a teacher? And why?

I was a textile designer and in the fashion industry for 1 year, and left to see how I would do in the interior design industry, worked in that field for a bit but I got a bad reference from my previous boss because I left so I just felt like I wasn’t doing well and not doing what I had liked. I decided that teaching fit the life I had wanted, with art being in my life everyday.

5. What led you to textile/surface design?

Went to Rhode Island School of Design for a painting major, that I knew wouldn’t be very realistic for employment, then I went over to an illustration major and I realized I didn’t have my own unique technique like other illustrators, so I decided I didn’t belong there. Finally, a friend suggested that I go into a textile/surface design major. I decided to go into that field because I believed that every time I created a pattern, I was reinventing my style as an artist and I liked that.

6. What was your favorite class at FIT?

I loved color theory. It was one class that I could use the knowledge from that could be used everywhere. It impacted how I viewed color.

7. What is your biggest accomplishment?

I had shows that I was in, and I won awards. But, I think that my biggest accomplishment is helping my students get into college.

8. Was there a lot of work for textile/surface design?

Yes, a lot of painting, a lot of research to create good unique ideas. What I would do was leave class go have dinner, work out and then from 6:30 to midnight I would be painting.

9. What was the best pattern you ever created?

I used wax and luma dyes to make this oriental patchwork with dandelion seeds and maple leaves. I was gold, black and chartreuse. I made it for a women’s clothing print on like a silky jacket. My sister framed it and hung it in her house, and it is still there.

Here is Brook's best pattern. I love it aswell. She did a fabulous job.

10. Do you like weaving?

I had a specialization in weaving in the second two years at FIT. I chose weaving over printing. I have to looms in my house. It has more math than printing but I just loved the yarn choices and placement choices.

11. What was your favorite liberal arts class?

I liked fabric science, and art history (textile/fabric art history), and Shakespeare. I had already had a lot of credits carried over from RISD to FIT, so a majority of my liberal arts classes were out of the way. I liked the design art history classes though.

12. RISD vs. FIT?

At RISD I was able to try different things I would have never been able to try at FIT if I went the first year. At RISD there was not specific major for the first year, so there I got to experiment with what I liked and what I was good at. Such as, a 3D class I didn’t even think I would be good at. I also found a love for stone sculpture that I wouldn’t have found if I went to FIT my freshman year of college. I also took a jewelry design class at FIT because at RISD I had liked it.

13. How much money do you think you have spent on art supplies all together?

Easily $10,000. I buy a lot of supplies that I don’t need. A lot for my students because if they didn’t have them they wouldn’t be able to do a lot of things they do now. My fashion students are always looking for something new to do a rendering with, so I buy supplies for them to use. Such as watercolor crayons, concentrated water color dyes and different kinds of paper.

14. Colored pencils vs. crayons?

I like colored pencils a lot better. Especially watercolor pencils.

15. Who was your favorite teacher in college?

There was no one specific, but I feel like the teachers you learn the most from can be ones that you don’t specifically like.

16. What was your least favorite class?

I really didn’t like this class with teachers that are really traditional. This one class I had to create patterns of roses and no matter how perfect I thought my roses were, my teacher was never satisfied. I just didn’t like that.

17. What was the craziest pattern you ever created?
It was for a tissue box, I took water color pencil and drew flowers and then for the background I did different brown tones and did rubbings of a paisley stamp.

Here are some samples of Brook's work: