If my analogy with driving a car in my last post bears any strength then I would have to say that I’m now pulled up in a lay-by half way down the slope with a flask of coffee and a sandwich. (The brakes didn’t repair themselves but I managed to swerve into this lay-by and came to a miraculous standstill!)
My hunch to keep on working right up to the bitter end is proving fruitful. In part because I’ve been working closely with others. My practice has shifted from working in a solitary way to working closely with one of the college technicians and with a first year photography student. In each case I have taken that leap of faith involved in sharing your ideas with someone in the hope that not only will they get what you are trying to do, but they will also support you. (In both instances with technical help).
I’m working with the 3D printer and have had just the right level of help from the technician – not too much, just nudges in the right direction. Rich in the 3D workshop is very knowledgeable in a range of processes and happy to help students experiment. He is making sure I get plenty of time in the workshop and has the ability to let his imagination wonder all over the place when we are discussing the potential applications of the technology. It feels supportive and validating and eggs me on in developing new processes. This time is after all a beginning as well as an end. My work with the 3D printer is very experimental and I’m incorporating support structures in the work to allow for the printing processes to be more apparent.
In the photographic studio I have needed lots of technical back up and fellow student Bob has been fantastically helpful. Bob is a first year photography student and is happy to work in a really spontaneous and experimental way. I feel as if I have got some really interesting results and have grown in confidence in expressing ideas and making changes. Asking for help has opened up lots more options and I feel far more confident in the creative choices I make. So thanks Rich and Bob – you are stars!
I’m not the only third year student to still be experimenting – most of us are trying new ideas in some way – so there is a great buzz in the studio right now.
If my analogy with driving a car in my last post bears any strength then I would have to say that I’m now pulled up in a lay-by half way down the slope with a flask of coffee and a sandwich. (The brakes didn’t repair themselves but I managed to swerve into this lay-by and came to a miraculous standstill!)
My hunch to keep on working right up to the bitter end is proving fruitful. In part because I’ve been working closely with others. My practice has shifted from working in a solitary way to working closely with one of the college technicians and with a first year photography student. In each case I have taken that leap of faith involved in sharing your ideas with someone in the hope that not only will they get what you are trying to do, but they will also support you. (In both instances with technical help).
I’m working with the 3D printer and have had just the right level of help from the technician – not too much, just nudges in the right direction. Rich in the 3D workshop is very knowledgeable in a range of processes and happy to help students experiment. He is making sure I get plenty of time in the workshop and has the ability to let his imagination wonder all over the place when we are discussion the potential applications of the technology. It feels supportive and validating and eggs me on in developing new processes. This time is after all a beginning as well as an end. My work with the 3D printer is very experimental and I’m incorporating support structures in the work to allow for the printing processes to be more apparent.
In the photographic studio I have needed lots of technical back up and fellow student Bob has been fantastically helpful. Bob is a first year photography student and is happy to work in a really spontaneous and experimental way. I feel as if I have got some really interesting results and have grown in confidence in expressing ideas and making changes. Asking for help has opened up lots more options and I feel far more confident in the creative choices I make. So thanks Rich and Bob – you are stars!
I’m not the only third year student to still be experimenting – most of us are trying new ideas in some way – so there is a great buzz in the studio right now.
My car has no brakes – metaphorically speaking of course. A month left to make work and I have embarked on three new strands of work, exploring new materials and processes. Yeah it feesl a bit crazy at this late stage to be making new explorations but take away the time frame and it feels like the most natural step to make. I’m moving my work on, unearthing new possibilities.
But I have to say that this morning as I pondered the work I’ve been making this week I did wonder if I was doing the right thing getting entangled in new ideas – hence the reference to having no brakes! Anxiety and paranoia are creeping in.. then …. I sat down and begun to read the a-n news and blogs pages and I feel inspired, re-assured and settled with my self again. There are so many dedicated artists making work that is true to themselves and exciting that I can’t help but feel re-affirmed . Checking in at a-n is a little like taking a paracetamol for a pain – that nagging feeling of unease has disappeared! All is well, just keep moving along.
I’m reading back through a book a studied for my dissertation Evocative Objects Things We Think With edited by Sherry Turkle (MIT Press 2007). The book is a series of short essays by guest writers who talk about objects that have personal value. These guests are all academics and include scientists, designers and educators. They talk about their respective objects in great detail, some from the perspective of their chosen academic field. All the essays create contexts and are reflective. Turkle’s essay concludes the book by summarising the experiences the guest authors have connected with their chosen objects. She talks about objects working as enablers in our emotional lives, for example they might exist in the liminal spaces of our emotional experiences ; they might act as transitional objects or signify desire and longing.
I wonder if the work I am doing about my own evocative object – the figurine – goes any way to express the bigger ideas that Turkle talks about. In working with such a personal subject am I able to step back from it to see its meanings in a broader sense? Sometimes I think I have created a trap for myself, too caught in the personal to connect with other contexts. Perhaps this is just how it feels to be looking in depth at something – the intensity, near obsessive involvement with a subject. I guess like any in depth study there are stages – identifying an area of interest; delving in and exploring; stepping away and looking at the work in a wider context.
If I think about this reflective summing up stage now I see my object as a touch stone. Situated at a place in my psyche that allows for ‘safe’ recollection of significant childhood experiences and that acknowledges my use of the object as transitional. When I think about the figurine as it existed in my childhood ( not as I see it in the present) it stands alone. I am able to approach it and circumnavigate it as I would a large sculpture. It is during this circumnavigation that I not only read the figurine – its form and detail – but loads of associations made as a young child also come to mind. They are tiny details of places, situations, sensations. The object as viewed by my five year old self is alive with references.
The figurine allows for recall then, and as I have studied it I have begun to use it as a tool for examining formative experiences in a safe and structured way. It is enabling self-analysis I guess. If as a five year old the figurine allowed me to traffic “between the outside world and the inner self” then today it enables me to examine elements of my identity formed back then. It helps me make sense of who I am in adult life and importantly what lies behind some of my life choices and motivations.
But these ideas aren’t expressed in the work, they simply exist within the process of making. This process is self-analytical. I know through the greater context of the meaning and value of objects that what I’m exploring is universally experienced: the placing of highly personal meaning on to objects as a process of emotional development. Will any of this be apparent in my work? I think my current work is an ongoing process of self recognition and response. Its subtle and ambiguous and it has to unravel at its own pace. This is ‘a work in progress’.
