Last couple of days I've have been busy engaged in paid work for Renault Trucks. Unfortunately I can't share any pictures of this work. It was very intensive work making a real time visual of the collective work of 260 people.
It's now four O'clock in the morning, I've a cold and am feeling pretty shagged out! But man flu will have to wait as I have two more Graphic Recording gigs next week. So a new press is becoming a possibility.
I've been asked to join the Le Cheile a Welsh Irish project exploring themes of land, language and place.
I printed off my first sugar lift print, it's also my biggest print to date.The process allows for sweeping gestural mark making which is great.
The Importance of Public Art
I was going through the photographs looking for some inspiration and found these of Zack.
Zack has many label, one of which is autism. He appears to find it very difficult to engage with what the majority call reality. These pictures are from a slide show I made of a magical day we spent in the park. It was the first time we saw him really engage and apparently enjoy exploring something in the environment.
His engagement was tangible.
Unfortunately the sculptures have now been vandalised.
For the last fifteen years I have been using my image making and listening skills to record and facilitate meetings.
I learned the power of drawing as a group communication tool when working on a joint planning exercise with some people with learning disabilities.
When I used images as well as written language to record the deliberations of the meeting there was a noticeable increase in engagement, participation and productivity.
The process worked well and I was asked to use it to record further meetings. In this process images can expose things that words can be used to hide. A combination of words and images recorded on the big picture enables participants to make connections and have insights that remain hidden to conventional conference and meeting processes.
Working in real time and in a public space mean that the artist is exposed, there is no room for ego, the images and words recorded have to be those of the participants. The veracity can be checked. The drawing is only useful if it is honest and in public ownership. Paraphrasing and interpreting participants words, images or metaphors can lead to the work being rejected. In this work the joy of making is aligned to serving the group
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In the beginning was the plate.I have been using a saline sulphate mix as an etchant. The first plate was produced using hard ground softened and rag wiped with methylated spirit, etched, wiped and so for about four cycles.
The pattern on the bottom came from burning parcel tape on the plate. before etching.
The planet is an aluminium litho plate which was etched very deeply. Both plates were inked up intaglio.
The final image was brought together in PhotoShop with the addition of a sunset sky photograph.
