Looking is making
After my last Re:view meeting it has really made me step back and re-consider what I’m doing with my project. The past few weeks I have been questioning myself and this has really put the breaks on my creativity. For this reason I have not written a recent post, as I wanted to step away and come back when I was ready. Fortunately my natural creative curiosity has come back, phew! I think reflecting on the positives that came from the meeting and a break away has re-invigorated my outlook. I also got a lovely encouraging email from Lowri Evans to keep going with what I’m doing that I really needed to hear from a fellow artist. I have been researching images of cotton spinning wheels used in the home and the cotton growing process. I had found out that the earliest ones where made in India and China. Predominantly women would spin cotton from very simple methods with their hands or by using more elaborate mechanisms. Similar to the process of growing cotton it looks like a magical process.
In the modern world there is something very intriguing about watching people make things by hand. It’s hard to believe that cotton comes from a flower. When I looked at this image of a cotton field it looks as if it is not real, made up of sticks and cosmetic cotton balls. This has got me thinking about how we consume imagery on the Internet and what presumptions we make of what we are looking at. I wonder if the Internet or the world ended, would we be able to grow cotton in Manchester. I think I have been a bit hard on myself with regards to planning, what’s wrong with trying to look ahead? I must also remember that I do a lot of looking on the Internet and making connections between things, is this not a process of making? I need to apply for a performance opportunity to give myself a deadline to work to. It has been suggested to me by Catherine and Lowri to apply for Hazard this year. Hazard is a bi-annual intervention/performance event that takes place in the city centre of Manchester (http://www.wordofwarning.org/current/2014-hazard/). I have taken part in this before in 2012, although I have not shown a work in progress before. However I do feel this could be a really good opportunity to test out my work in a public space framed by the context of an established event.
