Continuing Conversations

I’ve been having one of those weeks / most of the month when my brain just feels like cotton wool. Trying to pin down a cohesive thought has been nigh on impossible. So instead of rushing off to the studio this morning to faff about and not achieve a massive amount, I’m sitting under a couple of blankets on our bed (very cosy) sorting though emails of various upcoming things (AV festival kicks off next week) and writing lists.

We’ve got the carpet all rolled up, and I’ve managed to locate a space I can roll it out to see it in a different context over the weekend. Not an easy feat, as it’s about 6m long by 4m wide. I’ve had a chat with a few people about ideas for the carpet piece, but I don’t think I can make any decisions until I’ve been able to view as an object as opposed to the floor of a room.

The trouble with making a cast is primarily the enormous cost, plus if it were being made out of a stiff material (such as concrete of plaster) it would need to be assembled in sections, something which would affect the work visually. I then wondered about treating the carpet in some way, perhaps with wax and graphite power, so if people walk on in during the exhibition, the marks of their feet would be left as traces along with the indents already in there. Trouble with this is that the indents have been made over quite a long time period, where as the foot marks would be created in a period of days – the work could easily end up being about the time of the exhibition, as opposed to the much longer history the carpet has. There’s also the problem of using quite ‘arty’ material such as wax and graphite. I tried to shift away from the materials a bit by burning some of the flea market photos I have, effectively creating my own carbon. But then, it this trying to bring too many things into one piece?

I’ve gotten hold of several pairs of 1920s creamy coloured elbow-length leather gloves from another flea market. I thought these were pretty fascinating because of them being made of a skin to cover a skin; they’re a little stained, some are really crisp, others are very soft. I wasn’t sure what to do with them, so I started unpicking the seams, seeing what happened when I opened them up. I was also thinking about using them as a support for printing photographs onto. But as was pointed out to me (quite rightly, I might add) is that the glove would basically be acting as a canvas for an image – it wouldn’t really be about the skin, but the glove. And why a glove? And is this trying to put too much into one piece again? I realised that even though I haven’t worked with print or drawing for several years, let alone paint, there’s a way of working that is easy to fall back on. It’s something quite habitual, even though I’ve been working with objects, I still see things very much as images. Also, it’s very easy to want to ‘make’ something. Perhaps just moving the carpet out of its current context will be enough. Maybe the glove says enough just by being unpicked.

Finally back in studio to actually make stuff, rather than rushing in to print off a couple of things, grab some books and get back home to continue writing. The MA dissertation is finally finished, and although it’s nearly killed me to get it in, I’m actually pretty proud of myself. I have posted previously about what I was aiming to do with the text, but I thought it might make a little more sense if I quote from the writing directly:

“The critical essay positioned on the left side of the page, draws upon anthropological, geographical and aesthetical sources to place the ideas of trace and absence in a domestic environment into a visual arts context. The accompanying text and images on the right side of the page are a series of reflective writings and photographs related to my personal experience of the issues raised in the main essay. The symbiotic relationship between the two sections contextualises the main essay, whilst creating a piece of work which can be understood as a manifestation of my artistic practice. The sections of each chapter have been ordered to create a sense of overarching narrative, while the language used has been chosen to imbue a sense of these works and ideas in the reader’s mind.”

I’m seeing this writing as a piece of work itself – the design, paper stock, typesetting etc were all carefully considered, and were in fact integral to the understanding of the piece. I’m intending to put a low-res version of it up on my website for download, just as soon as I’ve had chance to make it web-ready.

I’ve also been buzzing with ideas about new work today – I want to incorporate the more conceptual ideas I’ve had as a result of the writing into the sculptures / installations I make. Firstly, this is going to involve thinking of the traces left in our house in terms of layers of semi-factitious narrative. There are various indents in the carpet from both our furniture and the previous occupier’s furniture – whilst I know the narrative, the stories associated with our own furniture, I only have vague memories of the previous furniture. These memories are intangible, fragile things, subject to erosion by time. So, any traces I associate memories to in relation to this pre-existing furniture, while based on fact, gradually loose this ‘factual’ content, become embroiled with imagined ideas, and hence the coined word ‘factitious’.

Buildings don’t exist is a set time periods of ‘then’ and ‘now’ (see http://www.glimmersinlimbo.co.uk/) – there is a fluidity in how they would have existed at different points. So the other area I want to incorporate in this new work is a way of suggesting the gradual build-up and erasure of these traces over a period of time.

What I’m intending to start with is a cast of the carpet in our living room – the carpet is cut to the walls, so the size and shape of the room, plus an idea of the type of building is implicit in the work. The cast will include indents from various items of furniture – ours, theirs, other furniture which isn’t theirs, but is similar to what I remember it being like.

So it looks like I’ll be making something pretty big. Yeay!