Conceptual patchwork

Whilst having a clear-out of the bottom of my wardrobe I came across this patchwork I made for a Uni project last year. 

This was during the few confused weeks where I thought I might be more of a textile artist rather than a designer. But with this one project I realised just how very wrong I was. I thought my patchwork was beautiful and was very happy with it, but was marked down for it not being conceptual enough.

'Shallow' was the word bandied about by a lecturer when I argued that I didn't want to make a grand statement about the state of society or for my work to be a metaphor for something else. Is it wrong to want to make things that are simply beautiful? Or rather, I like to make things that are practical, useful and beautiful. I've never considered myself to be a shallow person, not really I just don't want to make something that I consider ugly, under the guise of conceptual art. I have respect for those that do, and perhaps conceptual doesn't always have to equal ugly but at the end of the day I think it's just not for me.

And after all, I completely stand by the idea that there's nothing wrong with creating things that are simply going to make people happy.