Visual Merchandising with TOAST - Jill Walker
It started with an email and ended with my most rewarding project to date. The Visual Merchandiser at TOAST, the British clothing and lifestyle brand, had visited the PRISM 2024 Edgelands exhibition and, unbeknownst to me, had ‘admired’ my installation, ‘Lighting My Path’, leading her to view my website and Instagram account before getting in contact directly. Her message read that she would ‘love to explore the possibility of me creating windows across 20 UK stores’ and that my artwork ‘spoke beautifully to the concept of their Autumn Winter collection Supernatural – Finding Patterns and Pathways’. I have to say I didn’t believe what I was reading for a good few days!
We arranged an introductory zoom call and it soon became clear that the clock was already ticking. The TOAST team revealed that should I say ‘yes’ to their offer of this ‘collaboration’, I would have 4 weeks to design, make, document and package everything ready for delivery to 20 different stores. Within this time frame I had a family wedding in Northern Ireland to attend and (it would soon transpire) sadly, a funeral. The task felt enormous but what a fabulous opportunity, I knew I had to say yes.
Anyone who knows my work will know it is slow and introspective. It’s the culmination of many hours, days, weeks and sometimes months of gathering, thinking and making with materials that are inherently small and delicate. This project would require many pieces of work, made or gathered in a short amount of time with a substantial quantity of material. It needed to be robust enough to travel and straight forward enough for someone else to install.
I set about clearing spaces, erecting tables and bringing out every little object and fragment that could be commandeered and called to action. I rediscovered bags of little acorn cups, bundles of dried leaves and grasses, jars of seedpods and boxes of miscellaneous makings that I’d stored up for years. It was a relief to know I had just enough to bring this project together.
Once I had a plan it was a matter of working every hour I had. Festoons of dried flowers, twigs and grass soon began to spill out of the studio and took up residency throughout the house. Surprisingly, the closer I came to the deadline, the more confident I felt. I was sure the pieces would look good and I was excited to see everything installed.
Alongside creating the artworks, the next challenge was the photoshoot, voice recording and interview for the TOAST ‘magazine’ and social media, a stressful affair for a meditative maker! But, if I was ever curious about what my work would look like if tasked with creating 20 mini exhibitions across the UK, with only a month to do it, well, now I knew.
I had managed to integrate my love of nature, museum artifacts, weaving and curating into one cohesive, visual experience. This was something I hadn’t ever imagined, being able to stand back and see myself through my artworks, literally, reflected back in these shop windows.
The people at TOAST gave me almost total freedom and were totally trusting in the fact that I would meet their expectations in terms of quality, quantity and timings, even though I had little or no proven experience of this kind of project. They believed in me probably more than I believed in myself, so I think there might be a lesson to learn there!
I think it’s heartening that we never know who might take the time to come and see our exhibitions. When it seems like a quiet afternoon in the Art Pavilion, it might just be that a gallery owner, visual merchandiser or an editor of a magazine comes wandering through the door (and into our inbox!).
