Moving forward with the work:

Other objects to drill

Light coming through holes

Core/geographic/sediment

Pencil film/liquid film/drill film

Rotary drill in workshops

Cross section of drilling

Things I need to research:

Tony Cragg

Pergamon

Professor John Newling – dirt from coins

“A thousand wounds that flesh is heir to” – Shakespeare – Haywood Exhibition (10years ago ish)

Vija Clemins

Other Frontiers

OK… So Monday gets here and I’m getting all annoyed and frustrated by my space… So I tidy it up, get yet another table and decide I want to smash the plaster piece that I put in for the Carve:Crave exhibition. I just end up frustrating myself more so I grab a tutorial with Michael Day.

Things we discussed:

• WHY I wanted to destroy it. Frankly, I hate it. I feel it’s served it’s purpose and I’ve moved on very quickly in my practise and I now feel it’s redundant. Over the last couple of weeks I have grown to hate it seeing it sitting in my studio space frustrating me with that age old question artists have “what shall I do with it?”. I feel it isn’t how I am working either. For me it feels like some kind of “canvas” whereas I’m working with casting and modelling. It’s become a constant itch that I need to scratch… Or in this case, smash.

• Spoke about HOW to destroy it. I was at the point of wanting to smash it with a hammer but we spoke about somehow eroding or disolving it.

• We moved on to talk about the model cans I have been working on and how I’d been working with this idea of fragility. I said I had kept the ‘dust’ that had come from drilling holes in the can because I didn’t feel I could throw it away. The can had taken on human qualities to me and the dust was part of this human. We decided that really what I was interested in was in fact change. Change to something/change of form etc

• A possibility would be to make the cans out of graphite which I could then draw on the walls with, making this idea that the can is being ‘eaten away at’ and yet you can still see what used to be the can.

Things I decided:

• I’m going to drill the plaster piece til it has hundred of holes in it.

Things I need to research:

• Janine Antoine – Lick and Lather

• Andrew Cook – A guide to survival in the workplace

• Gustav Metzger – Auto destructive art

• Heraclitus – greek philosopher “you can’t step in the same stream twice”

• Kurt Schwitters – makes stuff out of rubbish

• Frank B – blood and cuts, viseral

The title of the work became “Untitled, I’m Afraid” as this is what I told the tutor what the title was lol

We had a seminar where we went around each persons work and before we talked about our piece, a ten minute alarm was set and everyone had to discuss the work, say their thoughts and interpret it. At the end of the ten mins we said whether they were close or not and 30 seconds of what it’s about, and then moved on… I actually got more out of this seminar than any other seminar I’ve had!

Anyway, these are the comments I recieved about this piece:

Homeless

How people ‘poke fun at’ homeless people; they’re considered unimportant, redundant

Hidden away like in a doorway

Homelessness and not wanting to see them

A can in the street, and how it’s not noticed

Camoflaged

Litter but made important by being white, like marbel. Very formal

Reminder of art institutions and how the gallery condones objects that would normally be ignored

How would this change if displayed outside

Kind of like a tea light candle holder

Is it empty, hollow or fragile?

Like a model and how the first version is white

Looks natural like coral or sponge – absorbant

Verfication of whether it was a real can or not or hollow or not, was made by touch, weight, picking up – I found this very interesting

It’s like a vessel – would be interesting to see the momentary event of streams of fluid – film it – “spectacular event”

Would look like a cartoon, comical, like blood spurting out

Look at Jackie Poyncelt – Loss of material – seeing all the way through

Unfortunately I had just taken the Carve:Crave exhibition down and so didn’t have my notepad or even a pen! So I can’t remember much about the tutorial… However I do remember the following:

We discussed that my work was very literal and we both agreed it definately needed to be less literal.

We also talked about the plaster mould I had made that had grown mould and about perhaps making something that had slight cracks in and would have something grow out of it through the cracks. Would this be a flower? A weed..? How would I do it? Maybe drill a hole through the middle of the plaster cast and sit it in water so the seed can grow?

So we had an artist talk a couple of weeks ago with Jamie Shovlin. He’s one of my favourite artists (there will be a post on him later) and I remember being inspired by his piece Naomi V.Jelish on my first year of A Level.

So when I was able to get a tutorial with him I was really chuffed! I guess staying in the studio late has its advantages

What we talked about:

• My latex moulds and the idea of making body parts from bottles and mainly it was artist references etc I needed… Here’s what was suggested.

What I need to research:

• Purity and danger – Mary Douglas

• Looking at the anatomical models that piece together like a puzzle (like the ones you get in science labs in schools)

• Robert Overby – works with latex moulds

• Eva Hesse

• Mona Hatoum

I really need to do some catching up on this blog though as I moved on a long way in two weeks and my ideas have developed and changed! I also need to get my backside in gear and get some artist posts done!! SO… if you visit here and I haven’t done this, feel free to nag

Cloth-like

Fragility

Seashell

Silk-like

Light

Safe space

Rose

OK… So the private view was on Friday so I had all the photos from the exhibition to show (I showed both Liz and Steve these).

The most important bit about this exhibition for me was that I was doing it outside of uni away from the safety of the education system.

Anyway, we talked about the plaster piece, Liz and Steve both were quite critical of this, but then I wasn’t happy with it myself so I expected that. I had to work with what I had at that time and with so little time before the exhibition and with all the problems of moulding and casting, I did what I could. In my eyes it is something to work with and move forward with as I’m not overly happy with it.

They both thought the blue and the “turbulence” was unnecessary and that these things took away from the piece. They also didn’t like the blue spots on the arms and thought it looked like a mistake.

The other thing mentioned was that the initial reaction was “it looks like a bread oven with bread rising”. From what I gathered Liz thought this was a negative thing, and Steve a positive ‘accident’. Liz thought I needed to take into consideration the context I was putting something into to avoid misinterpretation. Whereas Steve was saying that the association with bread and yeast to rising of scars and graduating addiction was appropriate.

As for the blade packet, foil and paper on the plinths in the middle, Liz thought the plinths took away from the pieces themselves and that it would look better possibly on glass plinths. She also spoke about how you wouldn’t be able to tell the scale of the piece if the texture of the plinth wasn’t there and that there was some room to work and move forward with in that.

They both thought the drawings were interesting and I got the impression they were most interested in these. I spoke about the performance and the filming of it which again, they thought had a lot of room to move forward with.

So… bearing in mind this was the “pre-discussion” before my tutorial, here’s -

The things we talked about in the tutorial:

Location – Am I going to look into site-specific work? Will I look for specific sites that fit what I want or fit the work to the site? Personally, I don’t think I’m too interested particularly in either at the moment, but it’s an option to be kept open.

Film – I spoke about how I wanted a film of just the drawing being created. We agreed that the image of the blade was the most powerful and I think I would use that image as it’s also the most significant. We talked about the quality of the cut of a sword or rapier and how that used to be tested (by splitting a hair with it) or how you could tell if a knife blade is sharp by slicing through a piece of paper edgeways. I said how I find sharpening a pencil with a blade very therapeutic so there’s a possibility to expand on that act of getting ready to create by destroying (cutting away of the pencil).

Affection with the blade – looking at being in love with the blade.

The point – making it look sharp – what techniques to use?

Sacrificial – I like this word being used in relation to the blade… Just feel it’s important to put that in at the moment.

The blade packets – Making large versions of them with the idea in mind of how this stuff can take over your life and how the blade becomes prominent in your life.

Things I decided/ideas I come away with:

I’m going to make large versions of the packets the blades and possibly of the blade.

Do a film of sharpening a pencil with a blade until it disappears and a second one of starting with sharpening a pencil and creating the drawing of the blade.

Things I need to do/research:

Find out where industrial paper/card can be bought.

So – this is running a little late, but I was stressed so I’ll let me off

So we discussed my Repetition, Replicas and Multiples project which is about the bottles and looking at alcoholism (not up yet, but it will be by the end of the week).

Things talked about:

Scale – looking at making objects get bigger and bigger or disappear into the distance in relation to addiction and overcoming that addiction.

Anatomical modelling and looking at the organs that are affected by alcohol

Casting things smaller and smaller (like they used to make tiny detailed brooches). They would carve it on a huge scale and then keep casting which takes 10% of the size off each time (still don’t entirely understand this so need to find out more).

What interests my about addiction is the secrecy of it so we discussed casting hiding places themselves and how to do that.

Casting groups of bottles.

Things I decided/ideas I come away with:

I want to combine the idea of anatomical modelling with the casting of groups of bottles. I want to make the bottles look like body parts

From these castings I will make drawings to look like body parts and eventually would like to make a drawing of the human anatomy using bottle shapes. I don’t know yet as to whether I will use detailed drawings or basic outline shapes for the diagram.

Using the casting technique to make tiny miniature bottles.

Casting places where you could hide alcohol (possibility of a large scale version where Perspex is on one side (which would be “the wall”) so you can see the shape of the alcohol bottles/cans etc at the back of cupboards etc.

Things I need to do/research:

Ron Mueck (in relation to scale)

Mike Nelson – Uncanny exhibition

How diagrams of the anatomy have changed.

Find out more about this “10%” casting technique

Monster rests after a spree of destruction