Installing exhibitions guide:
We were linked to this great guide on how to install exhibitions today, I’ve found it really useful and very clear (even for the non-DIY crowd out there!)
Installation Guide: http://process.arts.ac.uk/sites/default/files/A_Practical_Guide_for_Installation_of_Art_Exhibitions.pdf
The preparation for my degree show piece has begun!
Here’s a few snaps from the studio today, sizing up my boards ready to cover with canvas and then just getting a quick look at a hint for the final thing – laying it out and seeing it for the first time has made me realise actually how big it is! (I’d only drawn it out on the wall before!)
I’m taking a trip to London on Wednesday with a friend to go and buy my canvas, it’s all very exciting now it’s starting to come together. I’m hoping to find some interesting exhibitions to go and see as well. On Thursday I’ll be covering the boards and priming them ready to start printing!
On this day in 1970: John Lennon’s Erotic Art is confiscated by Scotland Yard
This very appropriate article is currently in the Time Out blog today, the questions of what makes art erotic and is it acceptable to be shown even in an art gallery was as strong as ever. But have our views changed now? This is one of my main questions of debate with my own work, is it acceptable to use women from pornography if I am showing them through an artistic medium (the women are drawn and then screen printed) and is it ok to show it in an exhibition held in an art gallery (my degree show will be held at the university and open to the public, but should the public be in open to all imagery because of the social construction of a gallery envrionment?).
The article can be found here: http://now-here-this.timeout.com/2012/01/16/on-this-day-in-1970-john-lennons-erotic-art-is-banged-up/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
How creative people find their inspiration.
I read this article on The Guardian website today and it really stuck with me, I relate to this so strongly in the way this artist works and find myself doing the same so it was reassuring and rather comforting to hear a professional say it (especially the parts about daydreaming and being messy!)
Susan Philipsz, artist
• If you have a good idea, stick to it. Especially if realising the project is a long and demanding process, try to keep true to the spirit of the initial idea.
• Daydream. Give yourself plenty of time to do nothing. Train journeys are good.
• Be open to your surroundings. I try to find inspiration in the character of the place I’m exhibiting in. It helps me if I can respond to something that is already there.
• Always have something to write with. I seldom draw these days, but I need a pen in my hand to think.
• I like reading and watching movies, but mostly I find that it’s things I have seen or read a long time ago that come back to me. The things that you found inspiring when you were starting out usually stay with you.
• Keep it simple.
• Be audacious.
• It doesn’t always have to make sense.
• I love silence. I can’t listen to music while I work and I need to be alone.
• I go through messy phases and tidy phases. Being messy during a tidy phase is never good, and vice versa.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2012/jan/02/top-artists-creative-inspiration
January is a month of planning for me. It is the start of our final major project and is a time for me to plan and prepare before starting to put together my degree show piece.
I am spending my time sampling canvas, mixing inks to create a colour palette and sourcing fabric samples and imagery to use in the prints.
I have been reading Maura Reilley’s writings on Ghada Amer, a direct influence on my work. She begins by talking about the ecrite feminine, the idea that the woman must write herself. Female artists are not in the historical art canon and neither in the canon of literature, it is the breakthrough the women must write themselves into history, breaking into the male dominated world. They were presumed that they had nothing they wished to say, but instead they were never allowed the power to speak for themselves. Women therefore must find their voice and make themselves present by writing about women.
This stands as a very prevelant idea for me with my work. I am taking all of the cliche representations of women and how they are associated and represented and juxtaposing them with more modern associations, the less lady-like, unmoral pornographic images. Confronting our ideas of women and femininity and making people see the darker, seedy side to women using their bodies as a means of power through sex.
I am still working on putting my concept into a formal statement but every time I read books for my dissertation my idea develops and progresses, I think my statement would have to change on a daily basis to keep up.
