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ANGEL YANG
About Me and Artist Statement
I am a graduating senior (December 2024) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison studying Fashion and Textiles Design with a certificate in Business Fundamentals interested in sustainability, social work, innovation, diversity, and inclusion. My working definition of design is to create with care and well-defined intention while pursuing innovation and experimentation. I believe art and design demands strong intrapersonal intelligence and to design or create requires one to make a political (that is, motivated by the artists' beliefs and views or showing allegiances to ways of thinking) statement about oneself and the world. Throughout my works, I often relate to my projects personally and use it as a way to process my intrapersonal and interpersonal lives. To fully realize these revelations I experiment and innovate like a scientist or inventor, continually improving my technical and make skills. I typically prefer creating mood boards, fashion illustrations, CAD flats, mockups, or weaving samples before creating the textile or garment. What I love most about design is curating the ability to take high concept ideas and interpret them into small, detail-oriented technical problems that will hopefully take space or exist in the real world. A couple of years ago, I would never have thought of design to be as in-depth as I do now.
I began my design journey at a young age when my mother and sisters introduced me to simple cross-stitching embroidery, hand beading, hand sewing, knitting, and crocheting. Then I learned how to machine sew and dabble in sewing small accessories and apparel garments. In my youth, I was obsessed with fast fashion and shallow aesthetics. I would not formally begin learning about fashion or textile design until I began my college career at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2019 and began the Fashion and Textile Design program at the School of Human Ecology. For the 2019-2020 school year, I learned fundamental design theories, basic garment construction, and other technical textile making skills. I took a two-year gap and returned in the fall of 2022 to continue my education. Between 2022 to 2024 my design philosophy and skills exponentially grew. Through my courses I was able to identify my design “DNA” (or preferred design aesthetics and approaches) and understand design as a deeper intellectual field. I discovered that I tend to prefer more technical approaches, often beginning with flat patterning instead of draping on a dress form. I am extremely detail-oriented and prefer planning before beginning the make process. I also prefer experimenting beforehand and opening channels for innovation to enhance my designs and their intended functions. Other design elements that I prefer to incorporate are the sustainability of the construction, ways to reduce waste, reuse of old or thrifted materials, and sustainable dye materials. I also consider gender, size, and disability inclusivity and believe in incorporating a real diversity of bodies and identities that reflects the true population. This is when I truly began solidifying my core design philosophy as a way to care and mold our built environment into an inclusive and sustainable future.
My education at SoHE has been very formative, but another important event also shaped my perspective of fashion and textile design. Towards the end of 2023, I experienced a creative burnout for the first time that affected my mental health. I struggled with my intense project-heavy courses that required long hours into the night. I began despising my projects and no longer took an interest in practicing my making skills or experimenting with different techniques. It required some time away from my classes to reevaluate everything. Beginning of 2024 I rediscovered my love of creating and designing by exploring my Hmong heritage, culture, community, and childhood—where I first began my design journey. I wanted to reconnect with my past by reconstructing garments based on my personal experience as a Hmong woman, textile research, and my childhood memories. This catalyst became a way to reconnect myself to my practices and heal past wounds. The collection was showcased in Made in SoHE and can be found under Exhibits and Shows on my portfolio or you can click here to view it now. Researching textile artists and designers like Maggie Orth, Kathryn Walter, Laura Devendorf, Karen Hampton, Lucy Jones, and others also took me out of my creative rut and introduced me to the interdisciplinary field of fashion and textile design. It opened up an entirely new way for me to incorporate my design studies and other fields of study, giving me a new future of possibilities.
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