I have just benefited from having feedback from fellow students in our scheduled conversations session. This has given me some new thoughts to process over the Christmas holidays which include the conviction that my work is on the right track.
I presented five sculptures all of which refer directly to, or hint at, some utilitarian use. It was fun for the group to try to imagine their potentially useful possibilities. One observation was that there was an element of humour in the work, which I was pleased about because I do not want it to have any issues attached to it other than the exploration of material, craft and an element of possible functionality.
For this reason I think it was important to show the sculptures as a collection. If one had been shown on its own it may have led to speculation that I had other underlying agendas, which I do not. For example, one piece, had it been shown on its own, could have inferred that there were feminist issues within the work. This led to questions about whether, without prior knowledge, it could be determined whether the work had been made by a man or a woman.
There was an observation that I had combined hard and soft material as in concrete or resin combined with sewn cloth. This is a theme that has been reflected in my drawing for some time. It was also noted that the pieces had been well made and that the polish on the concrete (achieved by casting against parcel tape) made an ordinary material into something more special.
The plan now is to continue with this exploration. There will be a necessary trip to the British Museum and another to the Victoria and Albert for research into objects. I will also make a trip to see the Sherrie Levine exhibition because there is a small element of appropriation and re-presentation to my work. I want to see where this leads.
I have recently made more of the sort of drawings that initially interested me when I started sculpture. I also want to talk about my recent assessment and about how question rather than suggestion is more helpful in pushing work forward.
I showed some drawings that I subsequently decided I didn’t like. They seemed to be all about surface. Tony Cragg said that drawing should be about the ‘avoidance of the expert, the articulate, the known and the humourless’. With this in mind I have been studying objects by drawing them. I feel that what I have produced is more genuine because it relates to the study of form which, in turn, propels the imagination of possibilities. The process is one of tentative exploration.
I have also been taking inspiration from an essay by Rungwe Kingdon on sculptors’ drawings and about how drawings can ‘vary enormously from their three-dimensional work’. This was interesting as I had been concerned that my drawing was not related visually to my sculpture. A good example of this is the work of Bryan Kneale whose anatomical drawings ‘look’ very unlike his sculpture. While drawing he is studying form that exists due to function, and this has to be of great interest to a sculptor. Knowledge learnt through studying form can provide the basis for a wide range of interpretation.
During a recent tutorial a number of suggestions were made. Later I realised that if I followed them through the work would not be truly mine. Advice that I gained from my assessment was that everyone would have different questions and answers in response to my work and that I should question their answers. When the work is answering to my questions and my answers then ownership will be indisputable.
I think my work in the near future should try to more demonstrably describe the search process rather than show a superficial surface.
