scope to play

i’d love to be able to capture my feeling and place it into the opening of this post because i’d love to share with a feeling of uplift, hope, optimism and all round head nodding pleasure.

you might have read my previous post – it was quite personal and heavy going – so if you haven’t read it stay with this one there’s way more good stuff coming your way.

i stare out the window at a blue sky with wispy white cloud and the buildings and trees below the sky defined by crisp contrast.

this week has seen me make a couple of images i feel really pleased with and i’m excited to share them …

the first – made yesterday – is a no looking drawing  made in 30 seconds of the person i was looking at.  it was part of an exercise on praise within a training day i attended.

the task of drawing without looking at what you’re drawing is something i’ve come across before – it’s probably something we’ve all done at some point and for differing reasons.

yesterday we made this task quite soon after lunch – i was full, happy and feeling relaxed.  maybe because i’d done this style of drawing before i had some insight into how to spatially place my marks on the post-it note.  the scale of the drawing made this spatialisation easier.

having completed it and being invited to look at what i’d drawn  – i was thrilled to see my drawing of the man sat in front of me.

there comes a time within playing where the play moves onto to having more meaning.  my coding of a means to create a digital drawing has started to move towards being more meaningful this week.  in part driven by preparing for a session i’m delivering later in the summer and  in part by a need to be able to interact with the skin and bone trio.

i reflect that quite often i will play for hours coding and saving images and fall short of taking that play onto something more meaningful.  in practice terms this might be a workflow thing or me simply being in a headspace that negates the play i’m engaged in.  solitary play making it difficult to appreciate what it is i’ve created.

i read workflow and inside i’m screaming !  the play hasn’t lit me up to the point of making my insides sing – this is after all what play can do – its the part of play that takes us to the next stage of learning.

i made this a couple of weeks ago.

it’s one outcome from playing with code to make a square.  what i didn’t fully realise at the time was that despite making this something inside didn’t feel right.  thus i held back sharing the image or any of the variants i made.  i do wonder if i can use facebook more to share my various playings.  hang on though – my facebook artist page is incredibly difficult to feel at one with – thus i tend to ignore it.  maybe i can play more with it …

there has been a shift in my thinking this week and for the better.  i’ve been feeling good when looking at what i’ve made and its a happy return to this feeling.

this image has helped me believe this week.

– – – i’ve started to listen for the singing.

this is nice – a wednesday morning and i sit down to write a blog post.  on radio 4 is a dialogue between male politician and female reporter, electoral fraud was mentioned briefly however my focus is on the renewed interest in my practice.

until monday of this week i’d been going through a period of feeling unhappy about myself and my practice.  it had got to the point of feeling i knew nothing and i had little belief in myself to get myself past this.

so what happened to alter this ?

i went for a walk with the dog, the kitchen was cleaned and i watched a video tutorial by the rainbow unicorn man.  these three things set up the conditions to start to move forward again.

yesterday i rested a painful ankle and started to work on research for a couple of things i’m doing later in the year.

i kept the momentum up.  i’m enrolled on a mooc at the moment – it had a drawing opportunity – draw the picture you hear in the audio description.

the rainbow unicorn man got me believing in using processing again to create something to draw with.  keeping it simply and fun i wrote some code quickly and ran what i had written.  it took a few attempts to debug it but i did get something that works – something to add to and develop.  i screen grabbed one of the compositions i made :

i didn’t work out what was causing the block – it didn’t matter as the block was so all encompassing that i knew i needed to get past it – even though it felt i never would.

its still early days.  being gentle and encouraging of myself is still important.

the positive thing at the moment is the weight of the mental vale has eased, my life feels again to have purpose, the feeling of futility and no point no longer sweeps over me like an orbiting satellite.

time to walk again – one small step after one small step.

like pebbles on a beach i reach for my experiences this week to gather them together to draw them all into one place.  i gather up the photos of buxton, the heat wave and the latest mens circle meeting.

beginning in january 2017 the belper mens circle has evolved over time as participants have come and gone.  this week we met away from belper at a temporary site near little eaton.  i mention this meeting as i was able to park unhappy feelings generated at the meeting 8 weeks earlier.  having regained balance i feel able now to assess if continuing to participate is something i want to do.

another positive activity of note this week has been receiving verbal feedback from a recent job interview.  potentially the first time of such feedback it’s proved to be really useful as we were able to discuss where my presentation and answers could have been stronger.

hearing the feedback a week after the decision was helpful as i was over the disappointment.

what i heard in my feedback was i wasn’t a million miles away from topping the list.  several little things i could have improved and finding  stronger answers from my experience to certain questions would have improved my ranking.

so despite not being sucessful, my feedback has given me optimism.  note to self – find opportunities to apply to that offer feedback after selection process.

i accompanied my partner to buxton this week for the preview event for the buxton spa prize.  now in its fifth year the spa prize wouldn’t normally be on my radar, however with the prospect of an evening out supporting my partner and looking at some lovely work – it seemed a really good thing to do.

in the introduction to the evening we were alerted to someone referred to as high street ken.  this was ken howard obe ra.  he was a bit of a revelation – his manner and public speaking having a calming engaging quality.

his address left me wondering about my own work.  i’m sketching something out at the moment and listening to ken i have to say i did leave wondering about what i’m doing at the moment.

i made some notes from ken’s words.  i wrote :

• revelation
• celebration
• communication

he suggested a painting needed to be or did all of these.

ken also spoke about owning art.  in a full room he linked car ownership with buying art.  he suggested that attitude towards spending upwards of £20,000 on a car is more open than spending a few hundred pounds on a painting.  he made the room think about spending £3000 – £4000 on running and maintaining said car.

hearing ken speak left me considering my current project involving video and audio and recombining these.  he left me considering what am i trying to say?

hello from my sofa on a beautiful day in june – 2018 – not just any day because today is the second day of figment new york.  figment is a participatory arts festival that happens in cities across the world.  at figment derby in 2017 i wondered can i work internationally while sitting on my sofa ?

i hatched a plan to submit my analog drawing machine to figments in america to see if i can work internationally through co-production with local volunteers.

this morning while taking in the hubbub of the children in our house, neighbours one side butchering fence panels and the other side throwing pieces of metal around i’ve taken refuge on my sofa to reflect on my experience so far of working internationally this weekend.  (i admit to having to take to wearing headphones with the you tube video below to give me some headspace to write).

this morning i’ve searched through twitter and instagram for images from day 1 of figment new york.  there are some online and i can admit i was disappointed at not seeing any of the analog drawing machine.

all i have to go on at the moment is that through the figment artist portal i know my work has been accepted and is production ready.

in approaching this international experiment i knew not what i needed to feel like i had worked this weekend in new york.

after the first day of figment i have a clearer idea.

an idea of who was up for taking part in the experiment with me – locally in new york.  having this image of the people making the work .

— — —- STOP —- — —

i’ve realised in putting up that image that in my proposal i said i didn’t mind if the work was only at figment for a few hours.  my optimism in this experiment has been restored because there is still time for an image to appear online. and thats the thing – one image is actually all it needs to spread this storey.

— — —- and continue —- — —

so i have learnt that to work internationally in the way i want to i need to outline in the proposal what i need to fulfil my needs of working internationally.

when attempting to work internationally i see the biggest problem to overcome is the connection with people in the international location.  a thought occurs to me – maybe i need to turn this international working on its head.  maybe i need to produce work for artists and makers from around the world in derbyshire.  i can provide them with the evidence i need to believe i have worked in new york.

maybe working internationally does actually require me to get off the sofa after all.

i like getting to friday and taking some time to reflect back over my week.  this one has been varied and i’m pleased to write today about a feeling of clearing i have.

i feel i’ve cleared some troubling energy and today have head space and optimism to look towards the yet to come.

the mind map today is much simpler than i’ve made before –  a deliberate ploy to remind myself that i do need to have things in simple form around me.  the layering on of complexity comes from the foundation of simplicity.  today i focus on the foundations.

so what of this week ?

i’ve worked at kedleston hall – delivering a learning activity for nearly 50 children – a part of their habitats and survival themed visit to the hall.  it was lovely working in the team led by the learning officer and some of the talented volunteers that work at the hall.

i really enjoyed myself – a tiring day and well worth it to see the smiles and hear the comments of children and staff as they prepared to leave for their journey home.

part of my simplicity mapping today was the re-iteration of my interest in process and those that involve working digitally and with wood.  the carving i’ve done this week starts to talk to me about both practicality and metaphor.  i have in the past rejected metaphor and concede that rejection is circular – so there’s opportunity to see if the rejection still applies.  i’m also happy to report a sense of play with the material and tools.

my week began volunteering at derby museum and art gallery.   a british council / craft council visit of far eastern practioners and curators were visiting the world culture gallery and i was there to record more greetings for the greeting telephone.  i reflect today about how my view of the world is different to how it was on monday.

so slightly looking towards the next few weeks – i’m adjusting to not currently having as much work lined up for the summer as in the previous two years – this was bothering me.  now i accept that this is the way of things and through positive reflection see that i have time now to focus in on my practice and move forward those interests and ideas i have eluded to in previous posts.

i continue to balance my interest of being outdoors with my interest in using technology and what that might mean.