Had a good tutorial with Rolf yesterday. It made me think about how important critical distance is, and how difficult that distance is when I am in the making process. This might well be at the heart of my wrestle with artistic research. Rather being ‘resistant’ to research as a form of rejecting the concept, I am finding it necessary to defer the critical distance – and therefore also the research aspects – of my work until I am well clear of its particular creative process. Can I be, do I want to be, both inside and outside of my processes at the same time?
Presenting my work to Rolf’s Research Inquiry students had some unexpected benefits – not least Rolf’s responses to seeing a broader range of pieces than I have presented in the research group. Another was being able to listen to myself (so I managed a bit of critical distance there then!). I planned to mention the names of the colleges I attended, however I explained in some depth Dartington’s unique Art & Social Context course. In the process of doing this it occurred to me that my education is quite different from artists of a similar age who studied more traditional fine art courses. In many ways Art & Social Context was a research based course – not that it was referred to as such, and I wonder if that is why I am somewhat perplexed by this new discipline – it is not ‘new’ to me! Throughout the course we gave account of and made claim for our practice and process, we communicated it within the field of interest and to those working in the wider community, we located it in cross-disciplinary and problem orientated activities. I might see if I can find anyone else who has re-thought what we did in the late eighties in the light of the more recent development of artistic research.
Yesterday I took a further step towards actually making something at Mejan! I used my ‘Heath Robinson’ lathe to cover the rough polystyrene forms in plaster. Working in the sculpture workshop in my old green overalls took me back to being at Dartington. Reflections on my time there seem to be very current!! I do enjoy sculptural processes – the hands-on-ness of it, the step-by-step-ness of it; I drew a shadow, which I then mirrored and traced, from this a template/profile was made, now I have a positive 3D form from which a negative (mould) form will be made so that I can make more positives. There is something about the backwards and forwards between positives and negatives that I find attractive about casting.
