My studio space, more photos:
These photos are relevant for potential hanging of work.
Notes
I use the Notes app on both my I-pad and I-phone a lot, I find it is easier than pen and paper for general notes as I can copy ad paste straight across into here or wherever. I will insert relevant notes into this blog to help show the thought processes and how they flow.
Make box of glass with sheets have
Light rope
Baby christening gown
Rusty fire grid thing
Fire drum thing with rope light in?
Wire photo form, turn upside down and black and white
Replicate this form in other ways and styles, bringing light into it
Neon light in white
Make look like a negative?
Photo in 3D frame thing?!
Print with acetone
Photocopier scan as does Annabel Dover
Project
Mirror up and down
Skirt or dress of reflective material
Paper tear easily use buttons to fix stitch in place
Silver tongued
Silver lining
Five for silver (my birthday)
Silver threads for grey hair
Mum and dad 25 years
Ag – Group 11, block 5, atomic no. 47
A soft white lustrous transition metal, it possesses the highest electrical and thermal conductivity and reflectivity of any metal
See website for more, moon etc
Voile nets hanging down
Spray silver buddy hair
Car problems
I had to take my car to a specialist garage in Barham, near Claydon. So I take it in first thing and walk into Claydon; there isn’t much there to do to kill time, so I go for a long walk. Eventually its time for one of the local pubs to open up and I can go in out of the cold. Now I know this doesn’t sound good, but before you judge, I ordered a large coffee and found a nice corner seat to relax and read the art book i’d especially taken with me, Dan Flavin. I haven’t got more than a page into it and my brain starts whirring . . . actually that could be why I was getting strange looks and not because I was siting on my own in a pub, drinking coffee and reading a book! Outcomes the notebook and I start scribbling down the thoughts coming thick and fast on the Degree Show.
Sitting on my own, preferably in the sun somewhere scenic or exotic, drinking, reading and writing or typing is actually one of my favourite things in the world to do, but this must be one of the first times I’ve ever done it. This time, I had to cut it short because my car was ready. One of these days I want to go away on my own somewhere and do this all the time, that would be amazing, I think. Well, at least do it whilst away with others, I don’t always want to talk and some people are afraid of or feel uncomfortable with silence. Maybe in Cyprus?!
Yesterday had Group B meeting on Curatorial stuff for our Degree Show, all good, but . . . I talked with David and others, about current ideas for my work. The trouble is, this is the final exhibition and it means a lot to me, obviously and I want it to be right. Its making me anxious, but I’m trying to not focus on it and instead take in the things, play with them in the space etc and see how they look.
Notes
Wow, having just read chapter 6, it has clarified a few things for me. My happy, peaceful memories with mum and dad are mostly of being on the boat, somewhere I always felt relaxed and calm. The only times I felt otherwise were when other family members intruded into that space, which I always found incredibly stressful and caused great anxiety for me. I love being on boats and in caravans too, they symbolise the same for me. A house doesn’t represent the same for me, I couldn’t wait to leave home as a teenager, to create my own safe place. Mostly it was just me and parents on the boat, whereas, the house felt more open to intruders, more vulnerable.
At home, I often move furniture around, changing layout, trying to create that perfect space, perhaps that isn’t possible in a house. Lighting, particularly sunlight is crucial for me, on a boat or in a caravan it is easy to always be sitting in the right place, you just more a few feet and you’re there again. Perhaps I can only really achieve that feeling in a small multipurpose space, a bungalow, a loft space. Ideally every room that I would use would be south facing and the garden too.
Dolls house, front facing north, no sun on front
Photos of the past on the house?
I need to move on to now and the future and what that means
Copy photos or negatives maybe
Pair back, make it simpler, no chains, no christening gown or wedding dress
photos/negatives on fishing thing, see through hanging down, so it is just in front of my eyes, casting shadows, as sun moves round so will the shadows, sometimes on, sometimes off as in life
The shadow stretches across the room, but is beaten back by the light
A mirror reflects the shadow back on itself
When the sun reaches a certain point, it shines threw things set-up to create an effect: a reflection, refraction, shadow etc, mirrors?
A lighthouse warns of rocky shores
change every 7 years:
0 – 7
7 – 14
14 – 21
21 – 28
28 – 35
35 – 42
42 – 49
7 mirrors
I’m in the last (7th /) 7 of my seventh mirror
Mid-life and the beginning of the next half of my life
filters on the glass where sun shine through, only when sun gets to a certain height, that it comes through pure and hits the mirrors on the wall, or the the seventh one, that then reflects out onto something else or another mirror, that reflects back onto the house and negates its shadows
If you cut a hole into something clear like perspex, acrylic or glass and shine a light through, does the shape of the hole show in any way?
Hang Perspex/acrylic sheets up for interaction with light?
Beanbags to sit on
Business card – look for the silver lining, reverse holographic
Paint the light reflections onto wall in lighter colour
Frosted glass for water effect? Photograph printed onto an ohp acetate and then projected onto the wall with an ohp – meh.
Acetate stuck to window, sun shines through and onto floor – okay. Ooo bubblewrap.
I brought in a couple of things today, the first being my garden incinerator, with its lovely rust and flame markings on the outside.
I put it in my studio space first, sun already in there at this time of day, and start playing with lights, holographic surfaces and reflective black card to see if what I had been thinking of works in reality.
Hmm, looks pretty and nice to play with, but not for the Show.
The card and these lights aren’t really working for me, again they look pretty, but not for the Show. Next!
I’m starting to get frustrated, because the reality is not the same as the idea (at the same time this isn’t entirely a surprise, common). So just play and do what I do.
I didn’t really look at these photographs until today, when uploading onto the computer for this blog, apart form the lid one. It’s so easy to get lost and wrapped up in something . . . just go back to basics, what am I about? What do I see? Well that’s simple, just look at these, they’re so beautiful.
Notes
Now in seminar space, videoed, couple of photos, 13.00
Standing by Windows writing notes
Few items on windowsill, sun shining
Looking down at shadows on floor
The roof is creaking, there are a couple of reflections on the ceiling
I lay a few reflective things around to capture the sun
I grew up beach combing, you walk along looking at the ground, hoping to find washed up gems of the everyday, discarded or dropped accidentally
We had a bucket with useful lengths of string on the boat
I had a found piece of wood with string through a hole, to pull behind the dinghy
I used to look down at the river surface, especially at low tide, what could we see
Shutters made with the ripple effect
Adam has laid out his canvases to measure up, he’s too hot, so he’s opened the windows
The blinds start clanking in the breeze, reminds me vaguely of halyards clanging in the wind
Dad used to bungi them to try to stop this, as it can be really irritating after a while!
Minster patterned glass or another below I can’t see the name for, distorted clock seen through
Do a search for Emily on Google for large acrylic sheets and find a few, plus mirror acrylic sheets
Emily has bought some latex, you can use to make moulds by building up layers, turn inside out after dusting with talcum powder, coat inside wth Vaseline so doesn’t stick and then poor in resin. You might be able to do with slip I guess. Once dry can be painted.
Okay I try holographic paper on floor and black mirror behind, with blinds closed – didn’t work, it reflects bright light back really well, but not the holographic spectrum effect.
Hologram paper or one of the other effects created in Drawn Together prjct 10 needs a Matt surface and no mirror, can be white
The black mirror card can only really be used for the strong light such as light coil
So if I take a photograph of a shadow, draw around the shape onto acetate or plain paper and scan in or reflection and project it, waxing and waning into a wall
Dog Walking
After getting back from the dog walk this morning, I had to reach for paper and pen to write up the thoughts that had come to me whilst walking in the sun and the mist.
It’s now less than 5 weeks till the Degree Show, 2nd June 2016!
Cyprus College of Art
I have just got back from an amazing week, with amazing people at the Cyprus College of Art, led by Course Leader, David Campbell Baldry. I produced work in response to the space I chose the first day, using both my own materials and found items there. It came effortlessly and gradually grew during the week. But, I then felt conflicted. When I get back, do I put on a show to show-off work produced or do I make an exhibition as a response to the site? I know it sounds simple now, but I’d somehow gotten lost in what I was trying to do. I’d also forgotten some of my most personal and important life experiences that influence my work.
Whilst at the Cyprus College of Art, I’d practiced sitting meditating with success. I’d also done what I did last year, swept the courtyard as part of the list of chores to be done, but I’d done it because I wanted to, not because I had to. I found the sweeping action to be therapeutic and gave me time out to do something without actively thinking, something I have done too much in the past. Plus, this came straight after having watched, Eat Prey Love, an amazing film.
If you give yourself over completely to the task at hand, regardless of what it is, you can get lost in the activity and focus wholly on the now. It’s incredibly calming and allows your mind to wander freely. This is what was happening with the sweeping. Thank you to David for his part in this process and also to Dr Jane Watt for the artist name Mierle Landerman Ukeles and her Maintenance Art.
A few things that caught my attention:
Work in progress, thank you to Sarah Hayes for the salt flakes, lovely to work with.
Pop-up exhibition and group crit, the last pictures of my space (apologies Amy, I seem to have missed you out).
Now back into the space and plan.
Notes
Elizabeth Gilbert (eat pray love)
TED talks on creativity and genius – “Olé!” or read the transcript – this sums up what it can be like for creative people and kinda answers where did that come from and why?
Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman:
‘EI means being aware that emotions can drive our behavior and impact people (positively and negatively), and learning how to manage those emotions – both our own and others – especially when we are under pressure.’
M83 With Altrow song, Emily
Name David said re art and mental health Hayley Lock Suffolk Artlink
Mierle Laderman Ukeles
Sweeping sand – Emily?
Rubbings on packing paper of studio floor, finger prints, prints of students over the years association
Oriental hangings, rice paper?
(My version made with a variety of pencils, charcoals and pens to experiment, making rubbings of the swirls on the floor, they look like fingerprints.)
Allan kaprow, Stockroom, Naples 1992
Sweeping statements – you can lead a horse to water, but a conclusion must be made
Horse ring on wall with lead rope and hair on floor
Sand brushed around the floor, David story of lady house by desert and whole life sweeping sand (karate kid?), leave sand in swirl valleys in floor:
In the Karate Kid ‘Miyagi takes Daniel to his home to begin his training. Out in front of the house are a dozen classic American cars. Miyagi tells Daniel that they’ll have to make a pact: Miyagi will instruct Daniel and his student will not question his method. When Daniel agrees, Miyagi hands Daniel a sponge and orders him to wash and wax all the cars. Miyagi’s instructions are very specific; Daniel will only use the sponge and waxing cloths by moving his hands and arms in wide circles. He will also breathe deeply, in through his nose & out through his mouth. In the weeks that follow, Miyagi gives Daniel further chores to complete with similar instructions on technique: sanding a walkway that leads around Miyagi’s backyard (landscaped to be a Japanese garden), staining the fence that surrounds his property and painting his house. With each new chore, Daniel’s frustration grows at the seeming lack of any karate training and Miyagi’s minimal praise of his work.’ Daniel later ‘realizes that the chores (which are essentially Daniel’s “fee” for the lessons) were also practice for defensive moves, exercises to build muscle tone, his reflexes and proper breathing technique.
Sweeping brush in corner with some sand in a small pile
Sand down wall using sand paper on horse brush and leave both under?
The relationship between the brush and a horse (Lucy gunning, Horse impressionists). Little girls pretending to ride a horse using a broom, as did I “horsey come back I say-er horsey come back . . . here’s come horsey”
The innocence of a child, the want, the primordial need to own a horse, the sensing of that deep bond between horse and rider, primeval, ingrained in humans. To ride and think as one. The trust, that when no-one else can, at least the beast can be relied upon. Horse therapy.
If wishes were horses I’d ride away, written on broom.
There are gaps under the boards by the floor that could do with filling so as not to ruin the look and also a piece of right-angle metal on the wall that needs to come down.
Making Light of the Darkness
The original title, when I thought I was going to exhibit past ideas in my space. Time and ideas have moved on, Mierle do dah.
I’ve caulked holes, swept a bit, caulked gaps and packed larger spaces with cardboard, ready to finish caulking. I’ve bought the, hopefully, last few bits needed.
Notes
Sweeping statements.
You can lead a horse to water, but a conclusion must be lead.
If wishes were horses . . . I’d ride away.
Grooming horses, sweeping, caulking, sanding, rubbing down (wood and horses), painting etc Meditation on the everyday.
The relationship between humans and horses, especially little girls; horse symbolism; equestrian therapy.
Using a broom to sweep, using a broom to ride as a pretend horse as a child . . . ‘horsey come back, I say-a horsey come back . . . here comes horsey.’
Sweeping sand, sand used in a menage, horses riding in a menage, grooming horses, checking yourself around horses, meditation around the mundane, grooming. William Blake and sand.
Sand, fill, sand, paint, sweep, wash, paint.
Sand pattern (sandpaper over horse brush), drill, screw, sweep, sand, sweep.
Sweep sand around, patterns (?), sand into floor grooves, broom (with horses wishes written on) head up, leaning against wall, sandpaper by sanding, lead rope through ring on wall, brush on floor, horse hair all around on floor in place where horse could have stood (Buddy).
Lotus flower (mended) on one windowsill, black outline ornament on other windowsill.
I went to the above event this weekend, it was amazing, everything wood related, tools, instruments, craft, art etc etc etc. Spoke with a couple of great guys about their instruments, the first being makers of native American flutes. So much nicer than the traditional flute, which I played at high school and a warmer sound than the recorder. Tried playing and it was a really organic experience, it doesn’t matter about sheet music, just play to enjoy. Would love to but they start at £90, damn it.
The second was a Lutheir called Con Rendell. I was most interested in his Harp, an instrument I have a longing to own, not necessarily to learn to play in the traditional manner, but just to play and see what happens. He also had their this beautiful instrument:
I held it and just plucked away at the strings, I was gone, completely sold, again EXPENSIVE! The silver lining is that he runs workshops to enable people to make their own bespoke instrument, yes please, yes please.
Can you imagine? Attending an art residency, everyone chipping in together, creating food, fun and art. Sitting in the evening around a fire, drinking, chatting, laughing, singing and playing music, this is my Shangri-La, my heaven, my utopia. It doesn’t have to be all the time, but regularly attended or created, a retreat from pressurised living, I could call it ‘Shangri-Lou’. Anyone want to join me?
I’ve finished filing hole and mostly sanded down, just a couple of patches I couldn’t reach and had to leave to catch the bus. By the end of the day my back is very painful from bending over and also I moved a couple of boxes on Monday that I know realise I shouldn’t have, damn it. I’ll work from home for a couple of days to give my back a rest.
Day two of working from home and my back is still as painful and I’m now staring to feel mildly panicky with stuff still to do, things I have to take in etc etc and breath. I’m also trying to make a new business card ready for the DS and working on irons in fire for post show, more of those later.
The Everyday (some of the following is taken from my dissertation The Enigmatic Smile of Everyday Artists, 2015)
Stephen Johnstone, artist and filmmaker based in London and Goldsmith College Art Department Senior Lecturer, says of ‘the everyday’:
If the everyday is the realm of the unnoticed and the overlooked, however, it might be asked just how we can attend to it? How do we drag the everyday into view? And if we manage to do so, is there a form or style appropriate to representing what has been identified as the ‘inherent indeterminacy’ of the everyday? Which in turn begs the question: why should we wish to investigate the everyday in the first place? (2008, pp.13-14).
Greek slave, Aesop (c. 620-564 B.C.) is credited with first use of the phrase ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, as a moral lesson from one of his story telling tales The Fox and the Lion. If this is indeed so, then it goes some way to explain why as a society, we generally ignore or just don’t sense experiences and objects of ‘the everyday’; as first brought to centre stage in 1913 by French painter Marcel Duchamp with his concept of the readymades with Bicycle Wheel.
This new art approach to making and encompassing the investigation into, and celebration of, ‘the everyday’ was further embraced nearly half a century later by Fluxus artists John Cage (1912-1992) and Allan Kaprow (1927-2006).
Following in the footsteps of Duchamp, amongst others, these artists took the concept of ‘the everyday’, broke down boundaries and opened up the art world to a whole new vision for what could be experienced as art. They ripped up, redesigned and reframed the art rulebook. Lines between art and non-art blurred, reflecting the definition of “Flux”, meaning ‘to flow’ (George Maciunas Foundation Inc., 2015).
Nature, objects, sights, sounds, actions and experiences of ‘the everyday’, such as dripping water, shadows, reflections or brushing your teeth, became the subject of an artist’s gaze and ensuing absorption and fascination.
In Professor Stiles’ opinion, current Head of Art, Art History and Visual Studies at Duke University, North Carolina, Fluxus artists sought to reveal an insight of “the extraordinary that remains latent in the undisclosed ordinary” (George Maciunas Foundation Inc., 2015). They used differing ways in the exploration and bringing together of art and life as one, both for their pleasure and that of their followers.
John Cage was one of the most amazing artists, a human sponge, listening, watching, taking in information and translating it in his own way through his art, performance, prints, music etc. He saw beauty in ‘the everyday’, having learnt from amazing people such as composer Lejaren Hiller (1924 – 94), Ray Kass the founder of Mountain Lake Workshop, American artist Mark Tobey (1890 – 1976), teacher of Zen Buddhism Dr Daisetz T Suzuki at Columbia University, Indian art curator Ananda K Coomaraswamy (1877 – 1947).
When I came across John Cage, just before he was talked about in Level 4, it was areal turning point for me, especially his rules:
which I wholeheartedly took on board. It opened me up to a whole new world, that was already there within me waiting to be let out, to be felt and expressed. It was there from childhood, laying on the back seat in the family car trying to gage where we were by the passing roof tops, streetlights etc. Seeing faces in wall paper patterns and clouds, lying in my bunk on our boat listening to the sound of water lapping against the hull. The sound of ‘silence’.
George Maciunas Foundation Inc. (2015) About. Available at: http://georgemaciunas.com/about/ (Accessed: 3 December 2015).
Johnstone, S. (ed.) (2008) The Everyday. Edited by Stephen Johnstone. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery.
Allan Kaprow (also is taken from my dissertation The Enigmatic Smile of Everyday Artists, 2015)
In 1957 the American artist and theoretician Allan Kaprow, at the time painting in an abstract-expressionist style, attended John Cage’s course on composition, at the New School for Social Research in New York. Cage discussed his ideas of Zen and Duchamp, and about the audience actively participating in his 1952 ‘event’ 4’33’’.
Kaprow had already been looking at the experiences of life as what art should be expressing. To get away from the mundane of the past and develop into an exciting movement of the future. Through this, sensing:
a new capacity for art to reach out beyond its conventional limitations [. . .] it was his interest in experimental music that brought him to John Cage’s class in 1957 (Kaprow and Hrsg, 2003, p.xiv).
The ideas learnt from Cage’s classes had a profound effect on Kaprow. He had previously created ‘environments’, installation pieces involving large sculptural collages. Then in 1957, at a picnic for members of the New York Hansa Gallery on the New Jersey farm of artist George Segal, he created an event, combining performance with sound and installation art. This was the catalyst for him to arrange his own and the first happening. (Fineberg, 2000, p.188).
Kaprow’s new developed concepts echoed Cage’s life as art aesthetics ‘message’ and were further emphasised by his use of experiences as the medium for his practice. These soon became yet another catalyst for Fluxus performances describing simple acts, mostly borrowed from everyday life (Cricket et al, 2012, p.12). Furthermore, Jeff Kelley, Editor of Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life stated of Kaprow:
For him, the contents of everday life-eating strawberries, sweating, shaking hands when meeting someone new-are more than merely the subject matter of art. They are the meaning of life (Kaprow. and Hrsg, 2003, p.xii).
In 1961, Kaprow created an installation for the opening of Hauser and Wirth’s New York show of Environment – Situation – Spaces. To the audience viewing Yard, they literally saw a yard filled-up by, potentially, hundreds of old car tyres, all piled up on top of each other. The piles are random, as if they have just been thrown in there over time, perhaps by a garage owner, out of sight out of mind. There’s nothing extraordinary looking about the tyres, perfectly normal moulded rubber, each formed into a ring shape, once made for car wheels, now discarded and probably very dirty. They don’t seem to form any patterns with potential meanings, hidden or otherwise. Visitors clambered over the tyres, without unity in any particular stance or shaping. To the observer, it was just a yard full of tyres, which probably initially left visitors with more questions than answers as to the whys and wherefores.
The title of Environment – Situation – Spaces epitomised perfectly Kaprow’s seminal work. It was created in the environment of a backyard space situated behind the then Martha Jackson Gallery. It was designed to be interacted with by the audience, the main concept of a ‘Happening’. Allowing a high element of play and encapsulating Kaprow’s ethos, echoing the American artist philosopher John Dewey’s thoughts from 1949 on, ‘“art not separate from experience […]”’ (Kaprow and Hrsg., 2003, p.xi). Thus, blurring the boundaries between an audience and the artwork, into “lifelike art” (Kaprow and Hrsg, 2003, p.201-18). The viewer becoming part of the art, as in this case where visitors to the gallery clambered over the tyres, interacting with the installation.
Not satisfied with just producing work for the viewer to merely observe, Kaprow felt it to be the responsibility of:
the artist’s disciplined effort to observe, engage, and interpret the processes of living, which are themselves as meaningful as most art, and certainly more grounded in common experience (Kaprow. and Hrsg, 2003, p.xii).
It is also the responsibility to then deliver that interpretation for an audience to engage with, to become part of and to have part ownership with the creator.
A further confirmation of the absorption and translation of natural life by an artist was reflected by Jackson Pollock, when he said of himself “I am nature” (Fineberg, 2000, p.93).
In reference to the essays in his book Essays on The Blurring of Art and Life first published in 1993, particularly the “Un-Artist” essays, Allan Kaprow wrote:
non-art-lint gathering on the floor, the vapour trail of a missile- is whatever has not yet been accepted as art but has caught an artist’s attention with that possibility in mind (Kaprow and Hrsg, 2003, p.xxi).
As artists it is not just about the instance of these individual ‘events’, it is what we bring to them as people and not just through our creativity. How we interpret and give meanings, which can differ for the one same event, to fit our theme, our story or our mood. These ‘events’ epitomise the learning through play actions of children, trying to attain the unattainable. Through their innocence, children are open to anything and everything, observing the unobserved. In a way it is akin to night vision; without the specialist ‘goggles’ one cannot be expected to see. Except perhaps through the emersion of ourselves in the ‘darkness’, can we then see the light created by the artist.
Fineberg, J. (2000) Art since 1940: strategies of being. 2nd edn. London: Laurence King Publishing.
Kaprow, A. and Hrsg, J. K. (2003) Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life (Lannan). Edited by Jeff Kelley. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gabriel Orozco (b.1962) (also is taken from my dissertation The Enigmatic Smile of Everyday Artists, 2015)
A Mexican born artist, he later moved to Europe and continued his studying in Madrid. This was a huge culture shock, having left the progressive environment of his home country upbringing, as he was then treated as a second class citizen, as a Mexican immigrant. This creating feelings of vulnerability, which had a huge impact on the development of his work; starting to encompass the exposure of this vulnerability (Morgan, 2011, pp. 9-10).
Orozco’s work records the temporal and poetic subtleties hidden within the rugged practicalities of the streets. A place where, although we happily traverse for purpose, we rarely linger for fear of the unknown, the known and the worst scenario, of time lost without monetary gain of path.
In a term coined by Lawrence Alloway (1926-1990) English art critic and curator, when writing about Robert Smithson, Orozco is a ‘post-studio’ artist. Rejecting the previous norm of maintaining a base for the creation of the artistic works and instead opting for a more temporary ephemeral approach, reflecting his style of creations. A way of living mirrored by other immigrant artists, “remaining firmly unattached to one specific locale” made visible by his documentations and photographs (Orozco et al, 2009, pp.11-12).
In reference to the work of John Cage, Orozco said:
There could be some kind of resemblance between what I’m doing and John Cage’s recordings, but Cage’s work has so much to do with chance, whereas I’m really focusing on concentration and intention (Johnstone, 2008, pp.134-135).
When we walk, we walk with a purpose: to the car; to the bus; to work; from transport to the destination; to walk a pet; to the shops; and sometimes for exercise. As we are walking we are thinking: the chores to do; shopping to buy; food to cook; tick lists for work; an argument or frustration. Absorbed, often arriving with little or no memory of the journey. Orozco’s work is the embodiment of “the journey is the reward” (A quote thought to have originated from Chinese philosopher Confucius (551-479 BC)) (MCSquared et al, 2015).
Gabriel’s work creation is very simple “I have breakfast and then start walking down some street until something catches my attention. That’s when the movie begins” (Johnstone, 2008, pp.134-135). There is no agenda, he is exploring and enjoying the journey, waiting for that ‘eureka’ moment to occur.
In the above image, Extension of Reflection 1992, the scene appears a very simple and common one. A quiet street, although taken in New York, it could be anywhere. Recent rain collected in puddles, slowly evaporating and relocating through vehicle passage through them. Prior to the photograph being taken the artist rides a bike through the puddles, creating circular trails (the circle is a common motif within the work of Gabriel Orozco, reflecting the circle of life and the connections within it (Morgan, 2011, p. 62))on the asphalt surface organically connecting the puddles. The puddles surfaces capture reflections of trees and chain link fencing, extending out, round and back again to each other as nature and ‘nurture’, through the repetition of the circular trails. Jessica Morgan (at the time of writing the book GO, was The Daskalopoulos Curator, International Art at the Tate Modern (Tate Modern, 2010)) echoes this by stating of Orozco: “the body of images that consists of snapshots arresting for perpetuity what he sees in nature and the sensible world around him” (Morgan, 2011, p.57).
In 1999, Orozco created a very different body of work, collaborating with four assistants, in the creation of his drawing series Havre Caumartin (image above). The series of frottage (Frottage was a technique pioneered by the Surrealists, originating from the French word Frotter ‘to rub’. Using graphite or pencil, to create a textured surface through rubbing. Max Ernst first produced drawings using this ‘automatic’ method in 1925. He was inspired by the grain of planks in an ancient wooden floor, accentuated by scrubbing. He saw strange images within the patterns, which he captured onto sheets of paper laid on top and rubbed over with a soft pencil (Tate, 2015)) drawings was named after the Paris metro station. The trace through rubbings are of wall tiles, used in public spaces in the 1950s and 1960s. Large pieces of Japanese paper were used, purchased from the Musée du Louvre, being very thin, but resistant. Qualities making it perfect for the use in creating reliefs in Egyptian tombs.
Since their installation, thousands upon thousands of commuters and travellers must have passed the wall tiles without a second glance. Orozco said of them: “I had been fascinated by these wall tiles since I was a kid” (Morgan, 2011, p.88). The memory of them must have been bouncing around inside him, waiting to leap out into creatively when the right form of expression struck him, bringing the two together. Orozco stated: “they look like big honeycombs, like constructions by bees, or something very organic” (Morgan, 2011, p.88).
Through these sculptural drawings, Orozco has captured the physical movement and urgency of the crowds, reflecting the insightful comparison of beehive honeycombs. The physicality and performance like nature of a group of people creating the large pieces, mirrors the differing body movements, personalities and pressures applied by them. The busy ‘workers’ rushing past, brushing against them, knocking them and influencing the pressure applied, both physically and mentally (Morgan, J., 2011, p. 90).
Johnstone, S. (ed.) (2008) The Everyday. Edited by Stephen Johnstone. London: Whitechapel Art Gallery.
MCSquared and anzeigen, M. P. vollständig (2015) False friends, good and bad translation. Available at: http://false-friends.crellin.de/2012/06/der-weg-ist-das-ziel-auf-englisch.html (Accessed: 8 December 2015).
Morgan, J. (2011) Tate modern artists: Gabriel Orozco. London: Tate Gallery Pubn.
Orozco, G., Fer, B. and Temkin, A. (2009) Gabriel Orozco. United States: The Museum of Modern Art.
Tate (2015) Frottage. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/frottage (Accessed: 13 December 2015).
Tate Modern (2010) Tate appoints Jessica Morgan as the Daskalopoulos curator, international art. Available at: http://www.tate.org.uk/about/press-office/press-releases/tate-appoints-jessica-morgan-daskalopoulos-curator-international (Accessed: 8 December 2015).
I became enamoured with the work of Cornelia Parker (b. 1956) even before I started at UCS. I can see a very strong link from Orozco’s work to some of her’s, such as Spilt Milk (Jeruselum), 2012-13.
Mierle Laderman Ukeles (b. 1939)
Mierle was born in Denver, Colorado and after the birth of her first child in 1969, she wrote a Manifesto for Maintenance Art, so named after her works originally exhibited at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts gallery in New York 1998. She wrote the manifesto in response to her feelings that there were oppositions between “art and life, nature and culture, and public and private” (Arnolfini Gallery, 2013).
She spoke of how she performed a lot of housework chores and her art, up until then, separately. She then began to “do these everyday things, and flush them up to consciousness, exhibit them, as Art” (Arnolfini Gallery, 2013). In 1977, Ukeles began as artist in residence at the New York City Department of Sanitation and produced radical public art as public culture, in a system serving the entire population.
Following on from this was her first publication in 2012 ‘Seven Work Ballets‘, collaborative performances involving workers, trucks, barges, and hundreds of tons of recyclables and steel. Taking place between 1983 and 2012 in New York, Pittsburgh, Givors, Rotterdam, and Tokamachi, they revealed the cooperation and coordination required to perform tasks on such a monumental scale. Tasks which predominately go on unseen and thought of, until they cease satisfy the required standards of society.
Buddhist monks have a practice in many Zen temples of soji. It is a period of around 20 minutes, where the whole community takes part in cleaning and tidying the temple, usually after chanting and meditation. It isn’t with the intention of completing the task, purely an extension of meditation to absorb yourself within the repetitious chore, such as sweeping and doesn’t matter if it is not completed at the end of the twenty minutes. You just stop and move on to the next thing. It is a spiritual practice to lead you from meditating into the next stage of the day without a sudden halt to the practise, bringing it to your whole self and behaviour and to see how you are with it. It is about the process and through it you can learn to be completely in the moment.
Artists and their work discovered during research:
Charlie Ford The Physicality of Drawing.
Mark Rothko (1903-1970)
Lee Ufan (b.1936 )
Kenji Yoshida (b. 1924)
Vito Acconci (b. 1940)
Marina Abramovic (b. 1946)
Forest, Field & Sky: Art out of Nature
Dr James Fox takes a journey through six different landscapes across Britain, meeting artists whose work explores our relationship to the natural world. From Andy Goldsworthy’s beautiful stone sculptures, David Nash’s Ash Dome, Richard Long’s Avon Mud, Julie Brook‘s fire stacks, Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty to James Turrell‘s extraordinary sky spaces, this is a film about art made out of nature itself. Featuring spectacular images of landscape and art, James travels from the furthest reaches of the Scottish coast and the farmlands of Cumbria to woods of north Wales. In each location he marvels at how artists’ interactions with the landscape have created a very different kind of modern art – and make us look again at the world around us.
This was a brilliant programme, so inspiring, amazing work, particularly that of David Nash, such a spiritual work and Richard Long. All of the artists were making work in response to natural environments. I’ve looked at his Richard’s work before, but not watched him work, which was incredible to see when I looked up videos of him, a real inspiration to see him lost in the creation.
A grain of sand collected from the Sahara Desert was chiselled to 0.00005mm, using special techniques in nanotechnology. This new minute grain of sand was then taken back to the Sahara and buried deep within its vast desert sands.
Produced with the lighting company OSRAM in series of ‘lifetimes’, each set contains a sufficient quantity of light bulbs to provide a person with a lifetime supply of moonlight, based on the current average life-span for a human being alive in 2008. (Each bulb burns for 2000 hours, a lifetime contains 289 bulbs).
The End?
Today is 30 May 2016 and at 9.00am tomorrow morning the studios will be closed for our tutors to start assessing our Degree Projects. Its been a long and interesting journey, which has passed quickly as I thought it would. I just hope I’ve done enough. I’ve cleared, cleaned, swept, filled, rubbed-down, swept, washed, rubbed and installed my installation. A response to the space and my journey. Here is a video I have made about the journey since getting back from Cyprus.
When trying to name my Degree Show I went through several pieces of paper, before realising I needed to write, which I did and then found the name:
Becoming: my doorway to Narnia
It has been probably the best thing in my life I have ever done. There have been many tears and tantrums along the way, but it has all been worth it. I started out knowing very little about art or where the journey would take me and now I feel relatively confident critiquing other work and exhibitions.
I will glad to have finished these assessments, but very sad to leave UCS and the tutors and fellow students, it has been amazing. But, I plan to apply to study MA Fine Art here at, what will by then be, the University of Suffolk, to continue my practice. Fingers crossed.
I still have to print out the final piece of this blog, the first piece printed and stuck in my sketchbook, didn’t go well, with it showing the website address against photos, dammit.
Onward and upwards, well at least forwards!
