10pm

Last night I macerated the paper ready for this morning.

Again I forgot the liquid light but was saved by Mr Hazel who presented me with a litre bottle to use as needed.

I decided to press the macerated paper in the hot press to make oval shapes, which to some extent mirrored the shapes in the mouth photo-grams from yesterday. Also I was reminded by the use of oval in photography. Some text is still visible which I hope refers to the beginnings of the materials. It’s important to me to be truthful to the materials I use and to tell their story through the processes I action.

When pressed, I coated the boluses in liquid light. I applied it quite thickly, which may cause me problems, but on the other hand the gelatin in the liquid light prevents the paper from disintegration for the process of developing the prints. I decided to coat both sides. This will either save the day or be a huge problem. I will find out tomorrow.

It’s been a week since I last wrote anything here and I feel like although this blog has been good to me things are changing and it may be time change tactics.

I’m into Phase two of my MA and I’m planning to focus on making. At the same time I feel that it will be useful to write about making whilst I am making.

Maybe this is a blip in a period of change where I move from one thing to another and i wonder if the commitment to writing daily is too much for me right now. Or maybe I continue to write every evening but this time I reflect on making.

I make everyday so I will write about making everyday. Even if that making is a cup of tea that will be the focus of this blog from this point.

Thank you blog yet again you have gotten me back on track and with that in mind I will tell you about making mouth pictures:

In the wet dark room I began by laying out the trays and mixing the chemicals. I’d not come prepared to be honest. I wanted to have pre-made paper and have a film to develop but that just hadn’t happened. Instead I experimented with the shop bought photographic paper I had brought.

Alone in the dark I folded a sheet of paper, put it in my mouth and gripped it with my teeth. I walked into the back room where there is natural light and twirled around to expose the paper. Keeping it in my mouth until safely back in the dark I then waited for the developer to show me what i had made. A bright white circular shape remained in the pitch black frame. I repeated the action this time pushing the paper further into my mouth and gripping more forcefully with my teeth. Twirling in the natural light again and waiting for the result. I continued to make several of these and then left them to rince for an hour.

Whilst waiting I decided to use the camera I had made to make images of chewing paper. I went to the library and found a quiet space in the corner. Behind me where children’s fairy-tales, The Brothers Grimm and Enid Blighton. I sat on the floor and detached a key from it’s ring to use to wind on the film. In my bag I had a hard copy of my Phase Two handbook issued by the university. I removed the staples and Put the first page in my mouth. I lifted the tape which was covering the pinhole and took a 20 second exposure. I closed the shutter and pushed the paper into my mouth and began to chew. I took another exposure.

Some students wandered around browsing the shelves, unfazed by my activity which I continued until I had masticated the whole of my Phase Two Handbook. I collected up the paper boluses and my other belongings and left for Winton on my bike to have the film processed. It would take an hour so I had some lunch and waited.

The photographs from the morning had finished rinsing so I took a look at them in natural light. They are so dark and so bright. There appearance makes it difficult to know haw they came into existence. The simplicity of it excites me. They are quite beautiful, and I have been thinking how to present them. I showed them to Dave Hazel who is a photography tutor. He says they look like vagina’s with teeth. he says I should watch the film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780622/

I remembered that I had the piece that I have temporarily named ‘Don’t turn on the light’ in my bag. I wish this piece was dark like the mouth photo-grams. I decided to develop it again to see if there was any light sensitive chemicals left on it. whilst wet and fragile I attempted to peel it apart to reveal other layers. It worked and I am much happier with it. I will have to wait until tomorrow to find out how everything looks when it is dry.

Still no progress. Today i dragged myself to uni for a talk about framing. Presentation is something I never bother spending too much time on and then regret it when I see the trouble others go to to present their work.

Still at the moment I have no work to frame. Interestingly the tutor leading the discussion on framing makes his frame first and then creates the work for it.

I’m wondering how I will present the work at Greenbelt. The framing of the work is a signifier for how the viewer will read the work. The space I’ve been given is on the large size but I’m not tempted to make large scale work. In fact I might try to make the smallest work I can.

So going on my discussion with the students at Wey Valley School the object I have produced does not communicate anything of the concept but is still a valid object as it would not have been produced had I not embarked on the process in the first place.

After discussing this with my supervisor it was agreed that I will focus more on making for this phase. She suggests I take a break from this current body of work and experiment a little. Is this a nice way of saying what I’m doing is a bit boring?

I feel that I should complete this course of action and make the self producing object I intended on making. The process was only halted by an error in light colours and should work in practice as well as in theory. I need to make this object a reality, but do I take the time to experiment now or get on with the process as decided?

For Greenbelt I have proposed to create a piece in the same way so I am bound to the process somewhat so that I can prove to myself it can be done. Can I also experiment alongside this process? I expect so. I’m reminded of the work of N Dash who rubs and destroys paper and photographs the remnants of the process. I think maybe I need to allow the materials to speak also and try not to restrict them, keep it as simple as I can. Maybe I will not from sheets with a mould and deckle but print onto the chewed paper as it exists. In this way the process is laid plain to the viewer.

The other main point of discussion was emotion in my work. I’d been to see Tracey Emin’s show at Hayward and was overwhelmed with emotion. My supervisors suggested Emin was shamanistic, and if so then what was I? William Pope L also mentions shamanism in his work. Without thinking I confessed to being afraid of allowing emotion into my work. Why am I afraid? Why should my work be emotional? Is it not already full of the tragedy of loss and the need to attain some sense of acceptance and understanding? Perhaps I have hidden the loss and emptiness in process upon process so that the emotion in object created in the end is so diluted by actions that it emanates nothing but the fact that is exists.

Why am I making a self reflexive work? Why am I making paper? Being controlled by a mind that from time to time falls out of love with the idea of existing, repetitive action is the only way I can make my way back into the functioning world. Making paper rather than buying paper takes time and in this time it takes me to make, I am able to regain some sense of purpose. In creating a medium I am creating a purpose so that in the end the paper as a medium is irrelevant compared to the act of rejoining functioning society through the act of making.

Documenting this action therefore is documenting a process dislocation to attachment and belonging. It seems fitting that the documentation of the process be captured onto the material that has brought me from one state to another. Anything else produced on the paper except maybe a written description of the process would be disconnected from the paper as an object and devalue it in terms of what it has enabled me to achieve.

If you want an honest opinion about your artwork ask a teenager.

Yesterday I asked myself whether the idea for something can be more interesting/important than the final object created so today I asked the students of Wey Valley School. I was there with students from AUCB for a project called Aim Higher where University students talk to secondary students about what they do at university. I decided to make use of this audience to find out what they thought about my current situation.

After introducing myself and the nature of my research in terms of art education I produced the results of my making. A piece I called ‘Don’t turn the light on’. The piece is 31 sheets of handmade paper which have been dipped in developer as a pile after being treated with liquid light and exposed to yellow light and dried. But the students where not aware of this yet. After showing them this object and it’s title I asked for their responses. Most were unimpressed, some were intrigued.

I went on to explain how this object came into existence. My idea was to combine paper making and photography; to make a photograph of making paper and then print the photograph on to the paper I had made so that the object was self reflexive. The idea made sense to them and I explain how I went about achieving it. Everything had gone to plan until I left the yellow light on in the dark room an exposed my light sensitive paper. The result being that this object now on display.

My question to them was whether the story of how the object came into existance changed there perception of it. All agreed that this object was now more valuable because of the time put into the process. One student suggested I should just throw it in the bin and start again, others protested and felt that this was an important achievement. They suggested that I display the work and the story as an audio file. One student felt that the sketchbook I had created was the real artwork as it documented the process.

My second question was should I now begin again with the process and create the thing I was attempting to create. Some felt that what I had achieved was worthy and could not have been created had it not been for the idea behind it and the processes it went through and so there was no need to remake. If fact we agreed that it was almost impossible to recreate something exactly and that it was possible that if/when I followed the procedure again indefinitely I would create a unique object each time. We agreed that the object on display now does not communicate the concept behind the making, at least not without being told the story behind it and so although this was and interesting outcome it was still important to move forward with the benefit of experience and attempt to create the object conceived at the beginning of the process.