For testing boundaries, I was beginning to get lost in the multidisciplinary soup I was concocting and opted back to drawing and video to simplify the practice:
Simultaneously Laporellos were constructed in various sizes, these began to be filled.
Each book equates to a measure of time,
24hr, 72hr, 36hr books
72 hour book. Over 13ft long (4meters)
To be filled
24hr book, large size.
These are not fully chronological, there is overlap between projects.
Issues are my own expectations of how long work takes to be created, the timing of work will hopefully help to correct this. The comparison with course-mates (yes I know I'm a grown woman but it still happens), practices are different as are time constraints etc so its all relevant.
In our initial meeting on September 17th, I remember saying I felt like I hadn't been very productive. However, in drawing my work together in preparation for a tutorial I realised I had actually produced a relatively good amount of work, I was being proactive but for the enjoyment, which is perhaps why I had dismissed it.
I took the time to revisit my photo collages. When I had created these pages I had always intended to paint the left page to merge the images together. My mental disposition means I get distracted, easily, really easily, and when I do drift off into my thoughts my visual focus tends to blur, meaning the visage in front of me turns into a hazy merging of lines and shapes. When this happens 'Distraction Point Two' creeps in and I veer away from my thoughts and into the patterns. These pages are an attempt to make sense of the visual clutter, the cyclic process of distraction and focus, the redefining of attention. These feel like an interpretation of the visual clutter of daily life, the distraction techniques used to keep us focused inwards.
On the pages above I returned to the process of layering. The aspect of preservation and building up feels indicative of many cities or even countries, especially where I am now. Preserving tradition and cultural ideals while building up and merging into emerging markets, opening doors for layers of society from other locations to lay foundations and develop something new for themselves and the inviting country/city.
Rough sketchbook notes: I had a couple of sit-downs both alone and with a friend and visited the goals and ideas I have in mind for the course.
These charcoal pieces were done in a frenzy, a physical manifestation of the speeding anxiety that seared through during the summer. These fragmentations that represented daily routine were metaphorically torn apart in the summer creating angst and instability. I question how I could recreate that instability and anxiety in a gallery setting without endangering the viewer.
Excitingly these works were created while leading a drawing workshop at my studio space. Evidence of collaboration of materials between myself and my guests. One member bought with her some children's watercolour crayons, they were slick in texture, almost like a lipstick and oddly satisfying to work with. I avoid colour but there was an inner rebellion against myself that urged me to explore them. I don't hate this work. The colour adds another dimension but for the use of colour to continue I need to explore the reasoning further. The psychology of colour is pertinent as I would not want misinterpretations or forced ones either.
Lastly, I am currently working in to collage. I feel like the work needs to become heavier, mirroring the change in daily routine since returning to work. Also looking at the daily routines of many families that become dense with activities, social engagements, errands etc. This process of collage is addictive and therapeutic, I envision many more of these coming into fruition. The papers are photocopies of early sketchbook pages, I would like to explore developing these into paintings, perhaps using modelling paste to build texture, something to squeezing into as we squeeze so much into each day.
Questions:
Is now the time to make work for the sake of it and allow the research I have already done to sink in? Do I keep on researching? Once you've begun researching do you ever actually stop, making that last question void?
I want to maintain the elements of repetition, that is fundamentally important to me, do I need textile techniques to do that? (embroidery)
Do I want to be labelled?...
constructivism - abstract - nonobjective - reductive art - radical art - postminimalism - formalism
Do labels matter? How can I change a label? Who gives work labels?
Reading the book '100 Artists' Manifestos', questioning whether I wish to be associated or inspired by movements/artists whose morality and ethics I question. Can you still appreciate an artwork even if you are fundamentally against the believes and concepts behind the work?
Opening our practice/research up to different disciplines, inputs, outputs and/or collaborations; considering the possibilities of what can feed into our practice and what can also come out of it and for whom. What products and/or by-products do we generate, who is consuming or could consume them?
As an artist how can you extend your practice physically; perhaps by building on existing and/or incorporating new skills, adding breadth and/or depth to media manipulations, and/or exploring the time a space of art making? In another aspect, the research undertaken as an artist can be more refined, deeper, digging into territories that excite and enliven a practice. Considering how the work is consumed by the audience; are they viewer, consumer, participant, victim or judge? Do they have a choice, is that a factor? Will they have an input, an output or a takeaway?
If these queries are responded to the practice may develop depth and breadth that can be witnessed/experienced by both the artist and the audience. Challenges push towards improvement and clarity.
Personal:
Going forward areas for extension are:
Refine my research - focus, stop trying to cover so much that the message is diluted by conflicting and confusing messages.
Explore my palette - the limitations of colour choice may be holding the work back, let colour feed in as necessary and be a considered part of the work. Stop resisting it.
Audience and installation - entanglement is a theme that I have also resisted through fear of complications and lack of skills - PLAY with this.
How are we curious materially and yet focussed?
I don’t know how to answer this question clearly. I think this is because I am too curious materially and lack focus. My focus is my research practice which I have been developing for the best part of 3 years but gets swept up into tangents. These tangents allow for other questions and concepts to emerge but these make the physical work muddly and therefore tend to get logged and then stored as I attempt to restrict my concepts in an effort to maintain a focused practice. My thoughts work so fast due to my mental make-up that I have a tendency to run away with ideas and miss out large chunks of physical development as I have mentally processed the possible outcomes and decided on a path without physical exploration. The challenge has been to ensure that the development and exploration happens and is detailed and justified, a task that feels complex and slow. My material practice has suffered due to this as I don’t stay with something for very long (other than the tracings). I long to develop a piece over time but worry that the lack of quantity will be judged.
Purposeful play
This feels so relevant, it's now a part of my life due to my assigned roles of both Mother and Teacher, an aspect that has been somewhat absent in my practice due to being out of the teaching profession for a few years. Most of the cohort are teachers, of this I am aware. But I question how much we now look to play to move our students through their work, or is it a series of repetitive tasks to tick off assessment criteria and fill out the necessary paperwork. Do we work with our students, model best practice or ‘practice what we preach’ as the saying goes? I’m feeling invigorated to be teaching again, to have those moments in the classroom and the workshop where the simple task of joining in brings a new idea or dimension to my work. By removing the weight of research and context and simply making, how can I transform my practice, what doors with metaphorically open, what opportunities will show themselves?
What ideas and concepts are preoccupying you within your practice?
I’m still very much enthralled with the repetition of ‘daily life’ and the events of chaos that stir up the mundane. Feeding into this is the aspect of assigned gender roles and a thirst for philosophical knowledge (I just can’t stop listening to philosophy podcasts and reading!). Since the beginning of March, I have been working with a research group looking into the role of the Manifesto in art and this research has bought up some questions regarding the concepts behind art, the allocation of work to movements and the thinking behind the movements.
Currently, I feel an urge to move away from my sparse fragmented images into dense heavy pieces. Upon reflection, I can see this is a reaction to the now dense calendar I have, the weight of responsibilities, and commitments that now need to be negotiated. Are there areas from the research that you did last year that you feel need more interrogation?
Since completing the contextual study I have a desire to explore the aspect of taking up space, navigating around a space and the physicality and illusion of form in space; linking to the manner in which we navigate around chaos both large and small, physical and mental.
What do you want to find out more about that could inform your practice?
Performance - I’m full of fear regarding performative art but am now considering how to make the audience the performers such as Gustav Metzer’s Crawl Space which I recently experienced in Abu Dhabi. The thought of performing is both thrilling and terrifying but perhaps I can navigate around that obstacle by enlisting the consumers of the artwork as the unwitting performers of it as well.
Week 2 Feb 25th Begin research reading and gathering, use Textile reader (Hemmings, 2012) and Everyday Reader (Highmore, 2002); texts related to touch, histories, colonialism, colour, routine, textile usage. Explore artists already working around my exploration (also links to contextual study). Continue production experiments, break process down and source materials.
So I have done some of the reading, and considered how to move my work forward. The asynchronous seminar felt like an unnecessary evil this week and was just a huge weight on top of all the other work. On top of 'daily life' as it were, it's been difficult to find a balance. Both of my other reading groups have come to an end, although Art Month, or March Madness as its affectionately known here, begins this week with exhibition openings and a plethora of talks, discussions and various other art events are taking place.
Actual physical work has taken a back seat this week as I tried to claw back some organisation ...oh and try to find a job! Arrgh!
Up scaling work from the hand-bound book overlays using a domestic printer and adobe acrobat to tile print the images. The smallest images in the photgraph below are A4, the middle image is ink on paper, a fragment drawn freehand, from the page that was then scaled up in the printing process.Using a scrap length of muslin, the cloth I favour due to its transparency, I taped to the largest image and utilised various colour markers to trace out the different fractured patterns. This is prep of density embroidery testing.
notes and observations from presentations and discussion
Thoughts sparked by other peoples presentations:
RT - accordion book - cutting pages - context of local artists - those she is interacting with - wish I had thought of that, but also know that I didn't because it's not how I work.
TB - maps - volume - height - mountains - this course feels like climbing a mountain - The wanderer Society by Keri Smith <3 - boundaries of scientific and human knowledge - walking, is that the work? or its relationship to the work? process as work itself EC - clothing - the space your in - walking in space
My presentation:
Les Bicknell notes and progress
Mapping my everyday path - the urge to Frottage! A compulsion - to violate the paper before I write.
The only space big enough to work horizontally
Whole body movement - mind-mapping is a physical process for me, music and movement are needed to create rhythm to facilitate order - I discovered this on foundation when we had to play ‘musical painting’ and dance around paper strapped to the floor - it is a practice I don’t use often due to space restrictions but it feels magical!
Notes and layout notes to be processed - bare feet on the floor and tea are necessary!
The path dissected and reordered again - transplanted to studio to be worked on
Messy and uncomfortable - disjointed
The reason I don’t like mind-maps
Transplanted into a digital programme MindX - can save as pdf
White text on black background makes it simpler and clean/organised layout creates harmony
I feel more fulfilled by renegotiating the information in to this context - all processes are needed at this point
Section of map - four key interests of practice - discovered through this process and the continual re-working
Interlinking is happening
Artists and art history ‘timeline’ - my timeline not an actual one, how they relate in my thinking as per Elkin -
My personality requires permission to veer from rules and what I deem as expectations so these texts and activities are invaluable to me
Theoretical and critical - starting to bring in research and reading - possible avenues to explore and also reading list - need to add the interlinks
More on the headings under Critical and theoretical
Additional branch - materiality - interesting as I am encountering a standstill in practice - almost a ‘to do’ list for stuck moments
The comparison of a white background and black - I will be getting a version printed to pin to my studio wall and develop by hand further - a continuously growing and developing document.
Comments:
R: with actual territory - part of the place & movement
Learning a lot about the way you approach the task - travelling through the mindmap is like travelling through the work - a sense of where your ideas come from & what influences you alongside how it influences you and your interpretations of it.
From Chatbox:
E: a real sense of trying to get order to your thoughts in your task
K: I love the tiles, that looked beautiful.
E: you would also love the'cartographies of time - a history of the timeline' by rosenberg and grafton
K: My pleasure, it definitely shows how how your mind operates.
P: Your final slides made me think of electrical circuits.
R: I was hoping that I could see your mind map on the frottage...but maybe it will be too confusing.
EC: it seemed you started out and moved in and then in your chart you moved from in to out
K: It is interesting that you and Jessie used your own territory in some way.
J: walking seems to be a theme today!
R: I'm going to add it to my map!
T: The process as ordeal is understandable. Well done for fitting so much in! I know I'll keep adding bits to my map as I figure more out.
Task 5 - Exploratory Project
Small group meetings throughout task.
undirected, vague, can be unnerving
Les Bicknell - Richard Serra - list of verbs - doing - discover - what you want to do.
Stewart Geddes - several pieces at once - moving - reflective
Scanlon & Grivell - how can we intervene? who with? how can we play? what form will it take? what form now? and now?....
mirror - what reflects back on yourself - Hassan Sharif notes - I made this comment
Keep it alive - not resolved work - quality of engagement. quality of exploration
personal risks - suspension of usual judgement - choose something that will challenge.
making work - carrying on your practice
Whats the question? whats the risk? whats the challenge?
If your struggle is to make something that may be the greatest risk
go back to mapping & feedback & comments - what keeps coming up? what are you 'itching' to do?
words - thoughts - research - digesting research - eating it up? - consuming - time, knowledge, etc.
PROCESS
what can I find? What can I explore?
foam - embroidery around, stitching to fabric - glass tubes embroidered - fragility & transparency - fine fractures - life, time, consumptions - rice - candy - food stuffs that are glass like and delicate.
'research proposal' - outline - see questions - personal responses.
notes and observations from presentations and discussion
Thoughts sparked by other peoples presentations:
- a 'thought dump' - More questions than answers - 'Post Photography' after the photo, what you do with them - immigrant - emigrate - migrant - the right of voice - it is relevant but can you comment?
- Physicality - notes from presentation to feed in to context map - frustration due to lack of challenging critique - lovely that its supportive commentary, just backing up ideas - no challenge, no push back - how to move forward with a pat on the back?!
- Questions - De Certeau
foundation for the contextual study -
Purpose - VALIDATION - proving our work is relevant by providing context - context - companions - new perspective - context - your work in context - research & development, critical analysis - what are other people doing in the similar field (concept/material etc), why do you stand out and also fit in?
RT - an artist statement plus validation
KO - the way we work our mindmaps is similar to the way we work our practice - So valid - how I work- created the responses to questions - broke it up - reconfigured it - broke that up - reconfigured - then translated in to digital output
Workshop - bring ideas - get on with it
active bibliography - exhibition catalogues, journals, bookmarks
12 march - tutorials - draft title - enquiry, key points, quotes, images - 2 A4 side of 'research' or starting material
The books are constructed of left over photocopies. The larger one uses Japanese papers as well, sandwiched between the printer paper. Their construction is detailed in a previous post.
I have since worked in to the books by repeating my process of tracing over and through, allowing the patterns to cover both sides of the pages. The first book detailed below is 9.7 x 11.4 cm, 15 fragmented pages and is constructed of fragments of colour photocopies of sketchbook pages.
I used a black ink pen to trace the patterns on to the blank sides of the paper. I traced all that I could see through the pages, using a light box and building the density. Text is also visible from repurposed paper. I find the messy overlap and overwhelm of the pages intriguing, it has elements of construction sites, road networks, commutes or flightpaths to it.Like the invisible threads that follow us through our daily timelines, criss-crossing as we pass each other by.
The next book is 13.2 x 13.2 cm, 14 pages and constructed of monotone photocopies that had been cut previously in to rough squares for a project that lost momentum. Some are missing corners and vary in shape as they were cut for the aesthetic value of the fragmentation of the pattern.
Some of the images had also been used to trace from, so the back side is covered in pencil graphite. I liked the contrast of the rough pencil filling spaces and building the lines thicker so I continued this is variation to complete all the pages. Only the pattern on the other side is transferred in this book form. Seeing the pages open in the photographs highlights some surprising compositions, the seem to provide movement while alluding to missing parts, like the parts of a story left to the imagination.
The large piece (23 x 30.5 cm, 17 pages including covers), is a blend of printouts and Japanese papers. The images are both digital versions of the patterns and digitally enhanced enlargements of drawn patterns.
This book is a combination of the previous two. The viewable patterns are traced on each page, using different materials/colour inks (black, grey ink, graphite, varying thicknesses) creating a density on a single page that is then enhanced by the underlying pages. There is a beauty in the unexpected symmetry that appears as the pages are turned.
I feel frustrated that I am trying to move away from constraint but seem to be moving further in to it.
Using a scrap length of muslin, the cloth I favour due to its transparency, I taped to the largest image and utilised various colour markers to trace out the different fractured patterns. This is prep of density embroidery testing.
