What s art for? When I went to see the work at Out of Sight exhibition on Friday I remembered what art s for. For me it is a reminder that we are each individuals with the right to see the world the way we do. When I witness art made by others i am reminded that the voice of the individual within society s what stops us from becoming robots.
I had to go back this morning and make my wasp my own. I cannot bend glass, I don’t know how to make pretty things, I am not able to paint but what I make is what I have made and if I don’t make it my voice will be lost.
I went in thinking I knew what I was going to produce, but when presented with the reality of the materials and the time it was clear that I would have to rethink.
In the back of my mind all of the time is my supervisor’s words about not being concerned about whether what I create is art. But it’s like not thinking of blue – to not think about whether it’s art or not, it’s just a little confusing.
I was so glad to be taking part in the neon workshops on Monday. Working with something I had no experience with and therefore whatever I made was an experiment and whether it was art or not was irrelevant for now.
I had planned to make ‘document me’ n Ernest Truely’s handwritting but it was not to be. Instead I designed a wasp an master neon maker Julia Bickerstaff creafted it into neon sign.
So there I didn’t even make the work. I looked at a picture of a wasp on-line and drew a picture and watched whilst t was realised into lt glass.
How do I not make my work look like art? This is my quest as laid down by my supervisor today.
It has been noted that I appear to be over-occupied with the idea of making what I produce look like art. Is this because I spent a small fortune on framing for the last piece of work I made? I remember bringing them home and saying aloud ‘these look like art’. Is it wrong to make art look like art. Is it perceived as over egging the pudding?
Yes the frames are totally over the top. The decision wasn’t made lightly. I thought I had done the right thing been true but this is also seen as a fault. I ‘must not attempt to present an absolute’ or to disclose a truth, yet at the very beginning of my research I reflected on Bruce Naumans neon sign “The True Artist Helps the World by Revealing Mystic Truths”
“The most difficult thing about the whole piece for me was the statement. It was a kind of test – like when you say something out loud to see if you believe it. Once written down, I could see that the statement […] was on the one hand a totally silly idea and yet, on the other hand, I believed it. It’s true and not true at the same time. It depends on how you interpret it and how seriously you take yourself. For me it’s still a very strong thought.” Bruce Nauman http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/nauman/card1.html
When I read it I took it as a statement of an epiphany by an artist who’s work we refer to frequently because of the huge influence it had on the art world. I have to admit I don’t know so much about Nauman if I am honest. Sometimes it feels like I don’t know much about art.
Strangely enough I am enrolled on a neon workshop on Monday. Maybe should make my own slogan?
In an attempt to avoid thinking about what I will do for Global Container on 29th Sept I played around with Cyanotypes today. I made about twenty images and there’s one or two that quite interesting, but I really won’t know for sure what they look like until they are dry
Last year when I went to Tallinn I made 100 sheets of paper a day until I had made 1000. Maybe this year I make 100 images a day? I could use the paper I made last year to create the images – although they have not been sized so that could be a problem. Also today I have found that with handmade paper you need to act quickly or the chemicals darken. This is the same with newsprint.
I’m so unfocused at the moment. I’m meeting with Lisa tomorrow so hopefully it will organise my head.
When I’m at a loss for hope, inspiration or general confidence in the idea of being an artist I go and delve into the minds of those academics who have gone through the selection process to have their musings published in a contemporary art journal. Today I was not disappointed. In the summer edition of Afterall, published by Central St Martins College of Art and Design I came across Francis McKee’s essay on Minerva Cuevas.
Human undertanding and the relationship with animals is explored as a way of viewing the work of Cuevas. I’ve read it twice today and I can’t say how overjoyed I was to find references for commodity and consuming, museums and ideas of presentation, social unrest, camera obscura and the work of Ayn Rand; all of which have been floating around my head for the past year or so.
I’m so excited by this discovery I don’t have the discipline to make sense of it in a blog post. All of the strands of reference that contribute to the beginnings of my understanding are floating like single stands of a web floating in the breeze, expectant of a venue to create. I feel that this essay is a strand that has attached itself and now I can begin to weave my web. From here I can spiral outwards.
