Hereford College of Arts

I’m looking at how objects reflect a sense of ourselves and project our desires. Today I have been working with images of the figurine. I am exploring the meanings that this object holds for me; visually interpreting it to express ideas about relationships, loss and memory. The process relates to Winnicott’s ideas on the transitional object and I see the figurine as such an object. As a small child the figurine enabled me to comprehend  my relationship with my twin and deal with the loss of my cousin who drowned aged two. I have only realised this through the process of studying the figurine.

I wanted to create a repetition of the object in an attempt to express the sensation of repeatedly recalling the past. So I have been creating a collage of multiple images and tied them together with drawn marks. This process put me in mind of the physical connections of twins and the unconscious, non – articulated emotional bonds we hold as children. I felt a sense of emotional connection with my twin and cousin very strongly whilst making this work. I wonder how I can measure my success or failure in articulating these feelings?

Last week our year group had peer group crits. We each in turn talked about our progress – one month in to the module – Resolution of Pracrice. We answered questions from our tutor and fellow students and in this process considered our work from new perspectives and developed new ideas.

I listened to my peers as they talked about their work and motivations and I feel enriched and moved by their stories and integrity. Afterwards we continued our conversations – it feels great to share!

This is a point in time to savour – to enjoy and also to respect this privileged  position – this is space for us to be heard and supported,  enabled to develop our practice.

I’m at a point with my work that I have got to the crux of an idea and am clear about  my working methods, materials and processes employed to express this idea.

I have embraced the idea of failing, of returning to the work and persevering, and am engaged as much with the process as the thought of the outcome.

My work is about loss or perhaps about the lost – as this contains the notion of things being returned and found.

I feel as if I have had a rush of blood to my brain  induced by looking at – and talking about  – a lot of art in the last seven days.

An art students dream really! Monday – drawing symposium at college with Dr Natasha Mayo,  Amelia Johnstone and Catherine Wynne-Paton

Thursday – The recently opened Sigmar Polke exhibition Alibis at Tate Modern;

and Saturday – Clare Woods show at Oriel Davies A Tree A Rock A Cloud.

Head explosion time! Why ? Because I’m attempting to consider what the artists are saying and why they are making the work they do. Absorbing information and processing it and then developing my opinions takes time. Right now I feel as if this mass of new information is simmering away in my subconscious and (hopefully) at some point soon will start to make connections with my understanding of things.

So I’m going through that insecure stage of thinking about the work I’ve seen and looking at my own and thinking – ‘agh – what am I doing?’

I put myself in mind of what our tutor repeatedly asks of us: GO TO EXHIBITIONS – look at work  and ask yourself what you find interesting and challenging and confusing and good etc and relate it back to your own practice. Then ask – why am I making work in the way I do?

And her other regular comment during seminars – NOW GO BACK TO THE STUDIO AND FAIL! With ideas in mind get to work with your own ideas and be prepared for things not to work, not to be the way you imagined and keep pushing through with the results that disappoint you and figure out why.

Its like accepting yourself all over again ( which every artists is in a constant state of doing to some extent). In my case as a student I’m trying to figure things out and a big part of this process is risk taking, failure and honest refection. So I will be back in the studio next week doing just this!

Dr Natasha Mayo is Head of Ceramics at Cardiff School of Art and Design  

Amelia Johnstone is Head of Illustration also at Cardiff  

Catherine Wynne-Paton graduated from HCA with  BA Fine Art (Hons) in June this year. 

Sigmar Polke Alibis Tate Modern until  8th Feb 2015

Clare Woods  A Tree A Rock A Cloud closes on 5th November.

I got to an interesting point during the summer where my painting was moving on. My tutor had encouraged me to be more confident and I’d begun making stronger and more simplified marks with paint. A pause from painting during open studios for Herefordshire Art Week (h.ART) and currently with the group show in London has given me time to reflect on this work and a hunger to get back to it also!

Open Studio is very helpful – if you are brave enough – you invite visitors to look at and comment on your work in progress. I suppose this is quite a risky strategy as you are creatively vulnerable: at risk from negative feedback or from opinions that may actually confuse your sense of clarity. So with this in mind I always have a good think about revealing work in progress – am I happy for people to look at it and am I ready to deal with feedback from people I don’t know and trust (in terms of their opinions)?

I felt confident about the paintings I showed  – I knew they exhibited the birth of an idea rather than anything established but they are the result of a few months of development and their ideas are going somewhere.

So I’ve been testing them and the feedback has been encouraging – they seem to convey what I was intending.

I have since had two days in the studio with them – and a tutorial with our course leader – and I’m immersing myself in the work again. Thankfully I still feel inspired and I am picking up where I left off.

I’m interested in the figure I am using (studies from a small ceramic figurine of a seated child) as a vehicle for exploring the reality – in hindsight of course – of my childhood experiences – a looking back; a consideration of events with my now adult sensibilities. And in order to express my responses to this I’m weaving painting, drawing and collage together in a spontaneous and direct way.

The figurine that is the focus of my thoughts continues to intrigue me. I have known it since I was a small child and I feel it holds truths and memories that I am attempting to reveal to myself. At the same time my use of materials feels like a game of strategy, a series of steps – as if I’m maneuvering through a visual landscape with new and exciting possibilities.

I tend to reflect and photograph my work as I make it and for me this is a really effective way of analysing  and evaluating the aesthetic moves I make – my use of line and choice of colour; overlapping and redrawing; filling in with solid areas of paint.

I’m engaged with my process and the intellectual dimension of my work and look forward to my next studio day.

I’ve had the best 24 hours. I found Sonia Boués blog ‘The Museum of Object Research’ on the a-n blogs page and quickly got in to conversation with Sonia.

I’m very interested in the area of the meaning of objects and their place in our lives particularly in relation to our pasts.

Sonia asked me to write a guest blog post. I wrote about my approach to the subject and my interest both through my practice and through cultural context.

I’m so pleased to have found a place to discuss and share ideas around objects with other artists who are equally involved with the subject. I really need to talk about the subject – to figure things out and develop my ideas and I think I’ve just found somewhere to do just that – thank you a-n!

Watch this space