Meet Jurate, the designer behind J.J. Textile

Meet the designer

We think it’s important you have the opportunity to know where your home accessories come from and who’s behind the designs!

To do so, we have asked Jurate, the designer and founder of J.J. Textile, to tell us a little more about her art life so far and how she got into textiles in the first place.

Early Life

I have always loved drawing and painting for as long as I can remember. When my older brother got into a certain art academy, I said that I would get there too. I remember looking longingly at the fancy paints in their glass jars which he was using. I always knew that I would get to this school if it was the last thing I did. This was where my art journey started.

Art education

So, my art education ultimately began when I was only twelve years old when I got the opportunity to study at the same art academy as my brother. Here, along with our normal lessons, we would have at least four lessons dedicated to art every day! They were really long days, almost as long as my parent’s day jobs, we would get home at around 5pm and then we would have homework on top of that.

I have never believed I was truly gifted when it comes to art but I was willing to work hard to get where I wanted to be and I believe this has set the standard for my life today, I am not afraid to work hard to get to where I want to be. I eventually left the academy with an A-level in art.

Fashion design

In the final year at my art academy, we could specialise and select one subject out of a variety to study for a year. I picked fashion design and so after the year had passed, I decided to pursue this subject further and moved to a higher school of art where I studied fashion design for three years.

Studying fashion design opened the door to participate in fashion shows and other events. I also had the amazing opportunity to work with a local theatre group where I would design costumes for children. It was so rewarding! I remember on occasion being tired out after a long performance but the look of happiness and pride on the children’s faces as they wore their costumes always made it all worthwhile!

Textiles at university

After fashion studies, I moved into higher education to gain a bachelor’s degree in textiles at the Academy of Arts in Vilnius, Lithuania.

At university, we studied many different textile techniques including weaving on looms and frames, felting, block printing, carpet making and many others. Over the first three years we would experiment with these techniques and learn the history surrounding them, as well as many art techniques. Then in our final year, we had to choose what we wanted to focus our final project on, I chose 3D textiles.

I dedicated my final works to the human body. Every one of us was looking for a concept, what we wanted to create into an artistic object. For myself, I chose to look at the human form on a deeper level – body and spirit. I created large 3D art pieces of the vital organs that sustain our life.

Studying in helsinki

For my masters, I had the amazing opportunity of studying at Helsinki’s Art and Design University through the Erasmus Socrates student exchange program. So, I left my family and friends and moved from Lithuania to Finland to further my studies.

I chose to carry on in my studies of the human body as I had found that this was such a rich and diverse resource. In everyone lies a true artistic bank. When you look at the body through a microscope, you realise that we have so much inside us that are like ornaments or paintings, a diversity of surfaces and colours. My final work was a collection of fabrics inspired by the patterns found in the microscopic world of the body.

All sorts of inspirations are around us and inside us and so, while I was looking at my body on a microscopic level, I also wanted to do a little project focusing on my thoughts and feelings, what was going on in my mind.

I decided to create a weaving diary, where I would weave a piece every day and vary the colours, textures and materials to suit my mood. It was very enlightening and, like writing a paper diary, it helped me to track my emotions and express my feelings on a daily basis.

I really enjoyed the variety of experiences at the different art institutions I studied at, each have their own different programmes of teaching. The people I met, the friends I gained, the different artists I had the privilege to be taught by, and the links I made still support my life today. I really hope I can come back to some of these subjects later on in my life when I have time to explore them more fully.

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