Hereford College of Arts

Writing and Stones

– how will my response be?

I have scratched into the softer siltstone grey and rust coloured (2 distinct colours) stones. (Trouble getting photo on here). On putting these in water, most of my marks disappear.

I have been stacking the stones, grouping them by rock type. Many of these I have written on in various ways. This brings to mind, cairns, especially to me a Peace Cairn in Ireland http://www.iol.ie/~mcmullin/cairn.htm

I am most interested in the grey and rust coloured stones. These are clay-like and I am trying to find out what exactly they are.

One of the things I have been considering is how to write with stones without making the marks myself. How can I find writing in the stones?

These grey/rust stones each provide a fragment of writing. What might happen if I joined the marks formed in the borders between the two colours. Would this be writing?

Wobudong – an exhibition of writing without meaning (http://w0budong.wordpress.com/)

I am working on this project – gestural writing on pebbles. I wrote in watercolour on a stone in Newlyn, Cornwall, where the tide would come in and wash it off. I’ve now been to my local river and collected stones and discovered that the layer of rock here (Abergavenny) is Lower Devonian Rocks & Alluvium (same types as where I was in Cornwall in August (see British Geological survey :https://www.bgs.ac.uk/data/mapViewers/home.html?src=topNav)).

I have a pinterest board here: http://www.pinterest.com/catherinewp/pebbles/ with images I am using to consider what I am doing in relation to some of what has come before.

I found, looking in Bertrand Russell’s ‘Wisdom of the West’ (p22) that “The Latin word ‘calculation’ means ‘a handling of pebbles’.”

I’ve written on the stones using a paintbrush and water and I was trying to see how many stones I could write on before the writing disappeared.

The presence and then absence of the writing interests me, just as the notion of the sea washing the watercolour off the stone in Newlyn.

Everyone in the 3rd year final year currently have a piece of work on display in the Folly Lane Campus Foyer.

I’ve just re-written my artist statement to go alongside my work retrieve:

My work centres on listening. Over the past year this process has focussed on the gesture of writing in paint, evolving into exploring listening through 3D forms and ploughing knowledge from this back into my painting. My current practice has stemmed from a review of my 2013 work and returning to a piece, retrieve, to use as a starting point for new work where I am limiting the palette (based on retrieve) and seeing how far I can push these self-set limitations.

I’ll post an image of the work here, apologies for the poor quality.

Thinking about my work in a wider context, I like the way Hayward Director, Ralph Rugoff, talks about artworks that “reflect the times in which we live.” :

I think that most great artists are not just making art about other art and art history—they’re making art about their own experience of contemporary life in their historical moment. They are responding to feelings that they have and which most of us tend to ignore, and they’re looking at things around them in their environments that, again, most of us tend to ignore.

(whole interview here) http://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_featur…
)

A large part of what I have been trying to do is to respond to the world and my experience of it. Learning to notice things that I can easily ignore. Finding ways to respond and learning how to push what I am doing so hard that I fail, go past a critical point in the process and discover what was almost there.

Evaluation of module – exerpts from my self assesment (!♥!)
(cont. again)

Looking at Vija Celmins due to her pebbles piece, then as I’m interested in how she has found her subject matter. I looked at Milroy as she worked in sets and this linked in with the multiples of cups I have been making.
The artist that I have been most keenly researching is Cy Twombly – I have read articles online, visited the V&A printed some out, and seen some of his work at the Tate’s in London recently.

Evidence of the application of analysis, evaluation and clarity of critical judgement. (I find the most tough)

Analysis has been enhanced by discussing work with others, giving time to reflect and then continuing to work with a clearer understanding of the context of my work (and that of others). This is an area of constant struggle, the evaluating is coming, mostly through updating my blog on a-n. I am also going back through old entries adding relevant information and editing to highlight what matters to me. I have been considering what qualities I admire in others work and then striving for one of those in my own work. E.g. the most recent has been the subtlety in Twombly’s work.

(continuation of evaluation, as post was too large)

HOW SUCCESSFUL THE WORK HAS BEEN AND WHY

Although I couldn’t have imagined my work would develop as it has, I do feel that my work has become more successful than on any other point of the course. I think this is because I have sustained working regularly not only from the start of term, but throughout summer and Christmas holidays. An hour or two painting has proved more fruitful than 8 hours once a week.

WHERE IT HAS BEEN UNSUCCESSFUL AND WHY

In not recognising when I am ‘stuck’. More varied use of paint would develop work on.

WHAT I NEED TO DO TO DEVELOP MY IDEAS AND WORK & HOW I AM GOING TO DO THIS

Further research into how other painters use the mediumContinue painting, keeping up the momentum, especially in times of high pressure.Make an effort to talk about other artists work more in my blog so that contextualising my work becomes second nature.

Over this module my work has been varied, yet focussed. My critical judgement is improving with more reflection, the evidence of this being in the way I am producing work and how I am discussing it in my learning journal. Looking back over my blog I can see much I’d like to go through and edit as hindsight helps clarity.

There have been many ‘mistakes’ in my working, such as getting carried away with making cups and not even noticing there might be a better way to ‘immerse’ myself in the piece. Overall I feel I have been successful in ‘going with the flow’ of making work and second guessing myself less (thinking too much about what the finished pieces might look like). I have been worried that my work lacks any coherent direction, but I am beginning to think this doesn’t really matter. I am listening still, in my mind, and what I am producing is varied. I’m finding restricting what I use in terms of equipment and palette helpful, as it gives me something to push to its limits.

The qualities I find exciting in my recent work is the developing subtlety, the expressiveness of the paint.

What I’m not so keen on is when consecutive pieces become too similar, almost formulaic. Part of this cannot be helped, while limiting the colours I use as the pieces will naturally have at least their colour range in common, but I can be aware of times I am using similar gestures too frequently (not entirely sure if I mean it exactly like this as, for example, the gesture of writing comes into my work frequently and it is not necessarily a drawback)

To move my work on:

Since painting again I have used a variety of techniques to make work, but the most helpful thing I have been aiming for is to paint every day. This is the most significant