I love researching, really love it. I love finding out about things and making connections between that new information and the things that I already know. I enjoy stepping back and looking at the big picture. That in itself should be a good thing.
The difficulty comes when I have make sense of all this stuff, compartmentalize it, or even discard it. With this in mind, I decided to switch my focus from collecting information to creating work in my studio, in order that I wouldn’t overwhelm myself. Starting to make art without a fully formed plan was quite scary at first, but before long I was engrossed in folding paper and card to create sculptural mock ups.
Primivitism
As I’m focusing on artist books as ritual objects, I decided to look into the Primitivism movement to see how groups such as CoBrA and Die Brücke had challenged discourses around ideas of ritual within ‘the primitive’ by creating work using those influences. A key text the artists were inspired by was The Golden Bough by James Frazer. Although disputed as a sociological study, the book could still be used to give additional insight into artistic processes of the time.
The Brotherton library
After a productive day in the studio, and because I’m still getting used to the campus, I decided to attend the library induction. The Brotherton library is an amazing feat of architecture, crammed from top to bottom with a fountain of information on any subject you’d care to know about. It reminds me a bit of something from a Terry Prachett book, especially the lower levels, and the layout defies rationality. Even so, the walls seem to exude knowledge, almost as if you could become smarter by osmosis. Despite being aware of not getting too caught up in reading, I couldn’t help having a quick browse of the shelves. It was timely to find a book called Artists with PhDs by James Elkins, and I resolved to look further into the pedagogy of my new situation.
Preparing for supervision
As part of the academic process I also have to have regular supervision meetings, which serve to keep me on track and offer additional information and resources, as well as allowing me to report on my progress each month. As this is a new experience, I was a bit unsure about what was expected of me. Luckily my supervisor was on hand and suggested I fill up the table top vitrine outside his office with some of my work. Having just settled into my studio, I had yet to finish any new work. Admittedly I could have displayed objects from before starting the course, but I decided to take it as a challenge.
Unsure as to what I was going to create, I headed back to my studio. I’d made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t leave anything on the walls for too long so that the space wouldn’t stagnate, so as soon as I got back I began by dismantling the mind map I’d created the previous week. Again, inspiration found me working, and it wasn’t long before I was constructing an elaborate collage of images and ideas related to my research. After finishing, I installed it in the vitrine, ready for supervision the following week.
