Final Year Degree Blog_ [Living with life]

Yesterday I did the third or forth layer of coloured paint onto my sculpture, it now has eyebrows. However, I’m not sure I like the matt toning, created by the acrylic. I think I may purchase a gloss, or even a clear nail varnish; to put over the lips, nails, the disfigured wrinkling skin by / around the fingers, and around where the damaged skin on where the left eye is supposed to appear, to give a better appearance of seepage, damage and realism.

So, while wrestling with some ideas.

I found one the best ways to show what depression feels like, the show the physical attributes.

Hollowness.

Pain.

Suffering.

The feeling that you could drown in your sorrows, and no one could hear you scream.

The pain of your eyes after crying so much, you just want to pull them out and start again.

Starvation but no hunger.

Eyes that stare into nowhere, hollow through an empty soul.

That’s why I decided to do a sculpture. The hand that you have round your head turning to the scratches at the back of your neck, the eyes one pulled one plane, starvation, the drowning, screaming, the hollowness and the pain all in one.

I did a few designs, based on research.

Then decide how to make it and what with. And then set out on creating the piece of depressions pain.

Through Facebook, I use the live stream, on my phone, to show the progression of the work.

I found this easier, than using my camera. For I found the my camera does not have enough battery life, to record process of the work, for dying every five minutes after filming.

I thought, if I live streamed it, I could download it, edit it, and then shrink it. From hours of work, to a minute or so of the important bit sped up, with some sounds or music doubling over the top, and removing all the unnecessary time.

But after I done so, I realise that Facebook doesn’t allow you to download live streams. Can get an app for this, but I’m not sure how to get My Laptop yet. And It’s completely obliterated my phone, before I could remove all the staff to have the space that was needed to download the films.

I do not want to quote any artist names, or websites at this point. For I have never done a blog before, and I fear if I do not quote them correctly, there will be consequences.

Bearing this in mind, I understand that they will need to be put in. But I wish to do this at a later date, where I can feel more comfortable, and confident with doing so.

After the realisation, that the 3-D hands would not work with what I had. I started looking into different ways to express what I wish to show within the hands. That being the vulnerability to others, and the influence they could have on me.

“My heart is in your hands” – Would have been the name of the collective pieces, due to the symbolic connections to the vulnerabilities I wish to place inside the hands, like chains to represent my burdens, or a human heart replica to represent my love and kindness toward others.

While looking into alcoholism for my dissertation, within the research for Jackson Pollock. I came across a bartender, which showed alcoholic jellies being placed into circular moulds, and then being eaten. I could not help, but think about the interactive process, between people, and that in which they are vulnerable to (in this case, the choice to consume alcohol).

This led me to the idea, of using the audience themselves (the visitors of galleries) as part of my process. As well as an idea, to replace the 3-D hands.

After this decision, I decided to research, and see if any other artists had done similar work which I could reflect on.

Eventually, I came across an artist, who left a pile of sweets. As the gallery time went by, the pile of sweets slowly diminished, as people helped themselves.

While doing this research, I found a way (theoretically), to make small edible human hearts, out of jelly. If all goes well, throughout the exhibition time, passing visitors can take, and eat individual pieces of human heart jellies (which I will created from a customised mould), to represent pieces of me, eventually leaving nothing there (as they are taken). As well as imagery showing what there was at the beginning, along with the explanation inviting them to take a piece, even when there may be none left to take.