Difficult Beginnings

still seem to be wrapped up in the processes rather than the ideas; not sure if that is lack of confidence or just artist block. was really struggling with the fact that my ideas don’t seem arty enough, and had tried to reassure myself that it didn’t really matter, so it was refreshing to hear the artist today say “how everything we do defines us as artists not just our art work”, which I find a very appealing thought. “and whilst it is important to have a connection of some kind with the materials you intend to use it may be a link which goes way back into your past practice and doesn’t have to be explained directly. you don’t have to question why, what, how, when to achieve an outcome, just as you can’t rush the development of ideas. is it just as important to have lots of false starts as it is to write to help firm up your ideas, as it is to produce the final piece, which may only finish in the hours right before you “deliver” the final entity.” this has kind of flipped my current thinking and while I have been striving to continue to push the ideas simply by producing a variety of outcomes based on a given theme, and had become really stuck in just performing , actually I should have taken then opportunity to realise my ideas into real forms, as this process would have helped to unstick me more than just thinking about it, and how where I felt I was just churning out product idea after product idea, they were all valid pieces in the puzzle and should have been given a physical outlet to then further inform my journey through. very fascinated by idea of using smell, light and temperature alongside my initial thought of using music to change the experience of a space. Whether this then relates back to my current thinking of how my pieces have got a very tenuous link around LIFE, in some way furthering an experience by heightening it, or by making the gallery experience life affirming I’m not really sure. but definitely feel more connected with the space we have on offer after the artist explained about using that opportunity to define your work, as you don’t know when another chance like it will come along. I wonder how the others in the group would react to me changing their artwork by manipulating the light or temperature in the space to either challenge or comfort the audience? I would like the apparent way in which I view things differently to others also to have a place in the piece(s) I will produce, but it is a lot easier to feel more confident in them when you consider each idea valid, and part of the process rather than fighting against it as being a design rather than art. should I restrict myself at this point by starting making the piece now, and see what effect this then has, or should I still continue the development process and see where that takes me? anyway, I’m still not willing to rush it, and I think I should take comfort in what the artist said about how you shouldn’t rush ideas and that it is “more challenging to keep things simple” and just try and keep the fluidity going, but equally I need to dedicate some proper time for this development otherwise no method I choose will be going anywhere!

so again i’ve come full circle to the dead trees, and have been working on some imagery in my sketchbook surrounding them. i’ve realised that, what with winter coming, no one will appreciate they are DEAD trees with out the juxtaposition of greenery around. not from a distance anyway. so then really am i looking at the contrast between life and death, or why things that are dead still hold their own beauty despite being surrounded by healthy specimens? which all sounds very heavy, and may have some correlation to the events that have happened in my past where life and death are succinctly demonstrated against each other within a very short space of time. and yet also seems to come in cycles. does that have any relation to the cycles of the year? one of my students commented that i must love winter if i love bare(dead) trees, which is actually completely true but had not occurred to me that it had any correlation. and to then link back to the life lies i was also interested in, the running theme is how you think one thing is true but then find out something else is actually. and to then come back to the noise/music within a gallery environment which also toys with the idea of flipping the experience of something around on its head. so then is the common them running thru all of these that what you perceive to be the truth is normally completely the opposite in a physical sense? e.g. the beautiful tree is actually the dead one, life does not play out how we expect, pictures in a gallery are not necessarily best seen in silence. or is it just something personal to me; that actually i prefer the opposite to everyone else; winter; dead trees; having life throw things at me; music would greatly improve my relation to art in galleries.

i play music in my studio, off an old ipod shuffle with great big headphones; it helps me to focus. but equally if my mind is fuzzy with life stuff then i revel in silence. everyone else is in bed right now, and finally i have the mind space to type.

i quite like the thought of developing that idea; about how i find opposite experiences much more rewarding than the norm, or average, or most common version.

i don’t think it’s about being an individual even, but more that i like spotting or experiencing beauty thru different routes.

i like to be struck by things when least expected.

we certainly can’t live life without emotional highs and lows, so why not embrace them instead? naturally some of it comes back to the human psyche, in that it takes all sorts to make the world go round, and if we all liked the same things or found solace in the same experiences then we wouldn’t advance as a race, but i don’t think that is what I’m looking at here.

what we experience as a course of events or things we see and hear will eventually define us as people, much more than money or career could do.

that’s beside the point.

i’m stumped as to where this is going. at any point i can turn my design head on and come up with a physical entity to represent my ideas, but in regards to this i am way more enthralled by the idea of pushing the idea itself further than i would normally have the opportunity to, which is why i’m not discounting anything i have thought of completely, although i do appreciate you have to deconstruct then reconstruct to develop your ideas, but at this stage i can’t see where these ideas will merge and end up.

there are correlations between the current ideas, but whether that will form the basis for the final outcome i don;t know.

i’m not currently convinced that i would be able to have a physical entity at the final point that would aptly demonstrate my ideas, or even whether i should push for that, but instead just go for the work in progress and revel in that instead?

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but as i sat in my studio last night, creating stock to fulfill orders, which is lovely to be making but as it is a repeat of a product requires little creative input, it struck me how whilst we are at school we are told that if we work hard and get good grades we will have a job we love.

(apart from my own making) i am still waiting for this to happen. and then i started to think about all the other little lies life has told us, and it rather snowballed……

“you will be richer in your 30’s than you were in your 20’s”

“you will get pregnant as soon as you are ready to have children”

“you will have a place in society”

“you’ll never get caught”

“noone would sleep with your wife”

“people will find you interesting”

“problems with alcohol and drugs will not affect you”

“you won’t be those parents that shout at your child in public”

“you are too good at your job to ever be made redundant”

“you will never loose your home”

“you are great in bed”

“you won’t be the couple whose marriage falls apart”

“if you follow a strict diet you will loose weight”

“as an adult you will be in full control of your emotions”

“you will marry for love not money”

“you will never be the victim of domestic abuse”

“you’ll never let your friends down (or vice versa)”

“you will be loved”

“you will learn from your mistakes”

“there are too many safeguards in place after the last recession to let us have another bad one again”

“you will out grow being shy”

“by the time you are 35 you will have found the one you’ll spend the rest of your life with”

“you will remember”

initial thoughts as to how this would be done were to utilisie the work i do now to create a series of silver clay brooches with these impressed into the pieces, maybe with doors like a locket with an emblem on front to hide our dirty little secrets; what badge would you wear? how many would you need? would you wear your badge with honour or shame? kinship of badges = “the doubters society”

as i read it through this mornng on the train i was also reminded of baz luhrmans tune sunscreen, and in turn felt there could be a still of a living tree flashing up with each spoken phrase, finishing with a dead tree when it says “you will remember” whilst played over a drum and basss track.

then as i watched a cargo train go past i was struck by how we put our thoughts away in to little boxes; compartmentalise them away from public view, how there could be a shipping container loaded train going around the top of the gallery space to further represent how these thoughts go round and round in our heads.

all very cathartic……..

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sadly it has been rather too long since i was last here, my ideas have been moving along, then got stuck, then i got too busy. poor excuse i know.

after the last post i suddenly realised that all i was actually achieving was to organise people, and that whilst its a NICE idea it didn’t actually involve any artwork for me, and seeing as how my life at home and work seems to revolve around organising people i rapidly went off the idea.

we had another day on the ATS scheme on the 8th Sept, but i didn’t get as much out of it as the other days, and had misunderstood what we would have been doing and so whilst i had created work to show, we then didn’t, so i just hit a hiatus.

after a discussion with a friend i decided to go back through what i had come up with so far and i am still keen on the idea of noise within a gallery setting, and i am curious to see how people would react to a classical piece of artwork whilst listening to drum and bass, and whether that would effect their affection for a piece especially if the music was something they disliked.

but apart from that still going round in my head i couldn’t seem to push it any further.

i have had a particularly rubbish week at college, and had hoped that i would enjoy my teaching more this year than last, but it just seems to be repeating itself in general crapiness.

so i had nothing to add for our group crit today, all i knew was how stuck i was, and desperately wanted some kind of push as to which direction to go.

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