Val came up to the studio yesterday and we spent some time reacquainting ourselves with the project after the summer break. I have used the last couple of months to work up ideas based on visuals from the case study and the two focus groups. I have been keeping a digital sketchbook, allowing me to document visual work and research sources in one place. Having long abandoned a physical sketchbook the digital book is really useful place to collate work: as a document it acts as a record and activities and offers a reassuring sense of progression. With many of my ideas being developed initially through hand drawing which is then scanned and manipulated digitally, it also negates costly printing. Sharing the digital sketchbook with Val and Gill Hedley, the project curator, allowed me to get some initial feedback, essential to prevent the danger of developing work in isolation.
In our discussions Val and I kept darting around a whole range of topics and ideas. To do lists developed, conversations meandered and then the question came: what do we want to find out? And this is where I find myself, sitting with that question; the consideration of which will help to drive the direction of the work, keeping it on track and focused. I now have quite an extensive to do list and it’s a matter of carving out some clear space to address it and with it the pile of research materials I have been collecting since the project started.
