I spent the last few days working on the studio and gallery rebuilds for the up coming degree shows and as well as providing some much needed money it has really helped me see how much work i have to do next year!!!
Working alongside staff, ex-students and students setting up to exhibit in the degree show has also been useful in trying to predict my future. I wasn’t particularly worried about the future anyway but i think the last few days has shown me that if i really want to i will be able to make a living within the art world.
Enforcing this I have been offered the poss. of running a workshop for students aged 4 to 11 over the summer in a small school in Warwickshire, and as I think I’ve mentioned on here before I start giving tutorials at Bournville Collage on Monday.
Through all this i haven’t had chance to actually make any work, however i have been developing performances i intend to make over the summer and will start work on these next week i hope (as long as i get my home studio workable by then!!!). I also have my portable object for moving over #1 being collected and put in to storage on Monday ready for instillation at Napton Skate park some point next month hopefully.
Lots of exciting things happening at the min but can’t help thinking next years going to have even more things going on!!!
I’m sure I’ve said on here (and if i haven’t it’s been playing on my mind) that I want my works to be more visually refined than they have been. I’m not pleased with my crude use of gaffer tape and quickly cut lettering and have already made the decision since assessment that i will spend some time developing a more precise aesthetic in my work.
Whilst visiting the IKON GALLERYtoday i saw a show which had some really interesting links to my practice. It was RON TERADA’sfirst solo show in Europe and featured posters, signs, text work and a sort of relational environment consisting of beanbags for viewing a video of a turntable playing a record, also in the space was a pile of records to be taken away with the viewer.
There were quite a few things from this exhibition which raised my interest, firstly the relational space itself was really interesting and i felt the methodologies used for public interaction with a highly produced product to be taken away is something i need to consider when making new work. However the work which most caught my attention was his “welcome to Vancouver” sign, having tried working with signage before and then seeing TERADA’s sign i realised i was working with the symbol, image or idea of a sign and need to work more with the realistic form of a sign to be pleased with my use of it as a method of communication. Hence another thing I plan on doing over summer is to examine actual signs paying attention to the ways they are constructed, installed and observed as well as paying attention to the typeface used and other such details.
Assessments done and today I’ve been taking down my work and trying to get it back to my flat, unexpectedly this has risen some interesting points in my practice.
I’ve always been aware that my works are temporary but today helped me to realise that my works are temporary solutions to a situation not completely temporary themselves – there are objects left after they have served their functions and i need to consider this further. Where do i store them? Is it important for me to keep them at all or is the documentation enough for the work to have existed?
One thing i plan to do over summer to test their lasting presence in space is to put works in to sites for extended periods of time and document the effect, for example i will put my first portable object for moving over into Napton skate park where the local skateboarders can use it. I also plan on putting my signs in to various ares which i have not decided upon yet.
I am also about to start a placement at Bournville Collage where i will be tutoring BTEC students on their FMP’s which will be interesting and may also present an opportunity for me to put my work somewhere on campus.
Today was the last working day of the academic year, I’m fully set up for assessement which will be taking place over the next few days and then its time to really get involved with reading for my dissertation, it might be a little early but with the summer being as long as it is i feel i can really get through a good amount of reading.
I really want to find workshops to participate in as well so i can spend summer fairly usefully, I want to run some workshops myself next year so am going to be looking at the leaders “teaching styles”. I’m planning on attending an animation workshop with SUMIT SARKAR in Leamington Spa and although it’s going to be very different to the way i normally work I’m quite excited. I’m also planning on attending a digeroo making and playing workshop here in birmingham at the newly re-opened MAC which I think maybe even more “out there”. If anyone knows of any workshops happening in the midlands please let me know!!!
Back to assessment for a minute though, I was looking over my works again today and had a sudden realisation that i needed a sort of booklet to guide viewers through my works – not nessercerally to explain the work for assessment but as a piece of work in its self, this is something i had been considering for a while but hadn’t had time to make – however i decided to just make it there and then and actually ended up really quite pleased with it. However i then spent a long time wondering if this method of working is substantial enough to qualify as it being a worthwhile piece of work??? I seem to quite often rush making works after sitting on an idea for a while and then wish i had taken more time in production to give the concept everything i feel it deserve – this is something i need to work on in the future i feel although i seemed to work well under the pressure of knowing it had to be finished by 4:00 today.
It is the week before my final assessment of my 2nd year and i have been reviewing what i have actually done this year as well as trying to set up my work for the assessment.
My biggest problem has been space, I made my work in the courtyard and was told shortly after that i couldn’t leave it there due to health and safety (which is really quite frustrating) which i guess is something I’m going to have to come to terms with for the future if i am going to be making works for public sites. However the time my work was outside for allowed me to view it as a whole for the first time which enabled me to see it was too tall and open – i intended it to propose a new method of outdoor temporary living but very quickly realised it provided no privacy and very little comfort.
When i got the work back to my space in its collapasable form i propped the roofing up against the wall and realised how this referenced hard edge paintings which is something i have not been hugley aware of in my work before. This positioning of the work also opened up new sculptural ideas to me as i realised if you went behind it all the comfort and privacy that was lacking outside had become present.
I am looking forward to my feed back so i can start planning fully for my 3rd year although i have a fairly good idea of where my work is going and some of the things i would like to try.
