Hereford College of Arts

As I have now graduated I am starting a new blog entitled ‘Wood for the Trees’ to discuss my next steps in the time after college.

See it here:

https://www.a-n.co.uk/blogs/wood-for-the-trees

Very busy in the run up to the show. PV in 2 days time, friday the 13th.It’s taken me a lot longer to set up than expected (a week) – with lots of re-arranging and changes. I feel now that I am showing the 3 pieces of work that communicate my enquiry in the clearest way.

I now have a website! Built it myself using moonfruit (paid a bit to eliminate the moonfruit logo and to be able to link to files on my computer) – www.wynnepaton.co.uk – Woo-hoo!

I’ve been at college so much for the past 2 weeks, some mornings staff have seen me unpacking my stones from newspaper etc and it very much looks like I’ve not left since the night before!!!

Our postcards arrived yesterday (the college arranges for us to have these for the show) and I cannot wait to see everyone’s.

We are now down to the nitty gritty of sorting out stewarding rota, drinks, and feeding the tutors chocolate to keep them going while they are sorting out dozens of assorted problems coming at them from every direction.

I’ll be tweeting some photos from after the PV – my twitter name is @erinart.

Beginning to make arrangements for ‘Paper fields’ exhibition at R. K. Burts paper suppliers in Union st behind the Tate Modern – it’s a group exhibition of 6 graduating students and 2 final year students from college in October. And preparations for the Young Open exhibition in September are well under way with a call for entries now out.

It feels very strange after 3 years to have the prospect of no longer being a student. Sad. I have been really nervous of this ending and I still am.I will really miss the way it is at HCA. It is an ending but also a tranisition into a different phase of my progression as an artist.

I’ve challenged myself more and risked spending time on making 100 postcards with the same phrase (small things) broken up on each. Using all of the remaining time making these and doing tonnes of artist research (the more I research into artists I intrugued by, the more I want to read/watch/listen about them, and I cannot wait to go visiting exhibitions again as soon as I have a day!)

The piece unneutral I have continued and come to the end of at college by writing, cutting, sticking, drying, tearing (off loose bits) and repeating.

In my last post I wrote a little about the small things postcards and I was wondering then about doing it on a bigger scale with more artists. This is what I decided to take a risk with. I’ve made 100 postcard with the phrase ‘we can do no great things, only small things with great love’ painted on in Burnt Sienna, torn up and stuck on in varying ways.

This piece of work is what I am most excited about and the artists who have returned my postcards with their own responses on have kindly allowed me to include their work in my display.

We have been hanging the exhibition yesterday and today and I’ve more to arrange tomorrow – more postcards to go up and the stone writing to lay out.

Yesterday I went to the Open Forum session led by Matt Roberts Arts at the Bath Artists’ Studios where I had a one-to-one portfolio session with Matt Roberts where I had the chance to discuss with him ways to promote my practice. This has come at a great time for me to come out of the college world prepared with knowledge of how I can make it work for me.

In the evening I listened to a panel discussion between Matt Roberts, Cara Lockley (of Hand in Glove, Bristol http://handinglove.org.uk/ and Jennie Syson of Syson Gallery Nottingham http://handinglove.org.uk/ ). This was a fascinating romp through so much of the art world that I’m unaware of. Really exciting projects Jennie and Cara are involved in. Particularly interesting to me was that Jennie’s first London exhibition experience was at R K Burts Gallery with Works on Paper – as Fine Art HCA students are doing in October (I’ve just got the proposal in a week ago). Also the ethos of ‘Hand in Glove’ that Cara is a director of is along very similar lines of the Framework Group in Hereford, both aiming to support emerging artists in our areas.

I know what I need to do now – and that is focus on my practice. I have had so much going on – all good stuff, but it has meant time away from making. I’m working half at home and half in the studio at the moment, with slightly my larger scale piece at college, but both cutting up writing and layering.

My piece at home needs cutting and sticking repeatedly to break it down, but involves drying time between each. The piece at college needs tonnes of sheets of writing to keep up the layers. With these pieces there is no obvious end point.

I’ve been doing further research into Fiona Banner (http://www.fionabanner.com/). Katrina M. Brown said of Banner’s work “but what we’re really looking at is the gap between function and failure – a word spelled incorrectly collapses the relationship to meaning and foregrounds its authors’ feelings.” The bold text is key to my own work now too. Banner is usually working with text (rather than writing, in my case) and she focusses on text sources that are often only a small part of the overall stimulus, i.e. film, where just showing the script is only part of the source.

The small things phrase I’ve torn up and glued onto postcards have become part of a postcard exchange, in a collaborative project with other artists I know (many being graduates from Hereford College of Arts). I am excited by the prospect and results of this exchange, and wonder whether I could do this with even more artists.

In my own work I am seeing how far I can destroy writing, while still having an indication that the result came from writing. I often utilise processes which takes the control out of my own hands. Ripping, random sticking, etc.

I find the conversation that goes on around pieces of work, artists and studios really exciting. I could start a visual conversation with more postcards (or some other form?), maybe with the same broken up ‘small things’ phrase. To increase the postcards reach I could make a mass of the postcards and provide addressed envelopes for their return.