New Work.

For a while I was really struggling with what to call my final pieces for my degree show, mostly the metal pieces and gardens. The mud paintings I was keeping it simple and naming it what it shows, for example with a daisy, I will call it Daisy. To decide on the names of the metal and gardens, I made a list of what my work is about.

What are they about:

Transform.    Transformation.      Change.     Growth.

Corrosion.   Reaction.         Adapt.    Time.          Weathered.

I decided to go for a more scientific title for my work, as that is how they become what they are. When the steel rusts this is called corrosion, so it seemed only fitting that I title them after that. The copper I have named Reaction, as the copper changes due to the reaction when oxygen and rain water hits the it. Now the next problem is, is that I have two steel pieces and seven copper pieces. I thought naming them Reaction 1 and Reaction 2 was a bit boring. I then had an idea of using Roman numerals. So the titles would be Reaction I and Reaction II. 

Art Titles:

Corrosion I

Corrosion II

Reaction I

Reaction II

Reaction III ….. and so on until the last copper work. The first three I think I will probably keep as one.

I have named the gardens Growth. It is simple but it is what it is. This work is based on the growth that occurs in the boxes. It was never guaranteed that anything would grow, but things did grow and so Growth is a perfect title.

I also had a plan to name my exhibition space. I had a very similar list to the one above for the title, but it was longer as it included every aspect of my work:

Nature.   Natures Traces.     Changes.    Traces of Nature.    

Transform.      Transformed.        Forces.     Environment.

Transformation.       Landscapes.      Mud.      Earth.

Natural Environment.       Soil.

I have decided to go for Traces of Nature. Every part of my work involves traces of nature, the indexical traces left by rain and oxygen on metal, the soil that I use to paint with and the soil I used for my gardens are all traces of nature in my work.

The title and my name will be displayed in a frame.

My work is finally all set up and ready for the degree show. It has been a very stressful time with getting the frames ready, with the mounts and work inside. I have had many problems but I eventually managed to sort them and am very happy with how everything looks.

Problems I had:

• The few problems I have had was a couple of glass of frames breaking and so I needed to work around.
• The steel in frames were very heavy and so was the big frame.
• Floor paint running out.
• Sorting out a plinth big enough for my miniature gardens.
• The mud and rust from the steel, creating dirt on the mounts.

How I solved these:

• When the glass broke I had to change what I put into the exhibition and luckily enough had enough work with frames to place into it.
• The big frame I took the glass out and tried it without it and it was a lot lighter and looked better with out the glass. You are able to appreciate the texture of the mud as well as the image that portrays. I then took out all the glass with my mud paintings to have a consistancy and that worked really well.
• The steel has a lot of nails in place to keep it steady as it is the actual steel that makes it heavy.
• I had very little floor paint to cover my floor as I had to wait til the Friday to paint as I had to paint my large frame. Luckily Lorraine on my course was kind enough to give me some of her paint.
• I spent so long trying to find a plinth or materials large enough to have all four gardens on but this was proving difficult. I had many ideas on what to use; upside down planters, slabs of wood layered up, creating a table of some sort. None of these ideas seem easy. When I went into Uni I found a large plinth that hadn’t been claimed yet and it was perfect, all I had to do was paint it.
• The dirt that comes off the steel and mud paintings was very frustrating but all I  can keep doing is cleaning it (I tried hairspray to try and hold them into place) but I have just had to realise is that they probably will become messy but there is not much I can do.

Now I just look forward to the degree show and relaxing. It has been amazing seeing everyone’s work come together and look very professional.

Here are some photos of my degree show (minus the gardens as they still need more sunlight):

We now have only 3 days to set up our degree show and there is a weird mixture of stress and excitement. The stress has come from worrying about framing all of my work and was not helped when a big frame of mine broke so with just two weeks to go, I had to go hunting for one and luckily found a framing shop in Ipswich who were kind enough to fast track making me a frame and giving me a discount for being a student. So with the frame being finished on Friday that will leave me with only a little time to paint the frame, get it ready to hang and to hang.

Here is a photo of my work in frames and I am very happy with the look of them.

This is some of my work hanging on the wall (will need straightening up and levelling).

Checked on the steel left outside and there has only been a small amount of change but that could be due to the lack of rain we have had. We have finally had some and so I am hoping that there will be a dramatic change soon, but while we wait I have taken photos of the steel with the rain resting on it and the effect left is as interesting as the rust that should appear.

There are signs of rust around the edges.

We have finally been allowed in to get our degree show ready, which is very exciting and scary. The space that I have now seems very large and daunting  without the other students artwork. I look forward to seeing what works together and what doesn’t and how to arrange it. I tried out my gardens on a plinth and they fitted perfectly and was exactly the look I was going for.

The original plan was to place the plinth in the middle of the room, but realising how big the room actually is, I could have a slight seperation between my work that contains indexical traces of nature and my paintings, but this is something that will have to wait until the walls and floor are painted and all my paintings are finally framed.