ThE ReFLeCTiVE NaTuRE oF CoNScIOuSnEsS

This is the point we have all been waiting for….the final show…. a major marker of the completion of our degrees. Yesterday started to throw up some technical problems for me and I realised that with a bit more fore-thought, I could have had a much less stressful experience!

When I embarked on making the sculptural elements / forms for my final show, at that point I had not had a full understanding of how it was all going to come together. My art is often the result of chance happenings; the evolution of my piece was like this and I had not considered the finer points of putting it all together for display. In many ways I like the fact that my art is not too considered and planned, as I find that an exciting element in my experience of making. The reverse is also true (especially in this case) as a bit more planning may have led to a ‘smoother’ curatory experience.

The major glitch yesterday, was that the ‘flying’ sculptures I had created and happily hung in the workshop on thickish wire, were quite difficult to hang on the fishing / invisible line I had purchased. I had seen this as a fairly straightforward affair, but had under-estimated how difficult it was going to be to get them hanging and balanced. Also in piercing them with an extra long home-made needle I had created to thread the line, one had started to become a little damaged. All the problems are repairable, but as stated, a little fore thought would have made life a lot easier. It also made me think that I need to consider the longer term durability of my art works.

Although I am now awaiting my astro-turf to arrive, I also made the decision to paint the front of my space and the public walkway outside of it. It seemed a bit silly not to use available time to complete any tasks possible. I am totally aware that however much we complete now, the next seven or eight days leading up to the formal assessment and Final Show will be busy and frantic!

Further curatorial considerations I am pondering at the moment, are around how many of my structures to put into my space. I am very aware that in the past I have over-done it… I think that it is only once my astro turf floor covering is down, that I will really be able to judge this further.

It’s nearly the end of a three-year process and various thoughts and feelings are buzzing around in my head. I never, ever, saw myself completing (or ever starting!) a degree in Fine Art, but here I am at 57 years of age having almost got to the end. The projects are completed, the essays are done and that initially fear-inducing dissertation is finished and shelved. I cannot believe that I really left my job and career, and enrolled on the course… It has never been like me to take such risks.

The thoughts and feelings I am experiencing leading up to our final show are interesting. There’s a sadness that the course is over, but mixed with more positive feelings of a sense of completion. The final show almost feels unnecessary now. The sense that it was everything the course was about has receded and now it just seems to be a marker of another ending. One of our technicians jokingly said yesterday, that I will soon be onto my way into the big outside world; it made me realise that for so many students this is the start of their adult lives. It’s a massive step for them and stangely I feel quite emotional for them. I think I have been so caught up in my ‘art-making’, that I hadn’t really thought that much about the fact that the young people around me had this massive step to take. I wish them the best, it can be pretty difficult out there at times!

With the turbulence of the final show and the end of the course, I am reminded of the advice given to me by a loving Buddhist teacher I met at the monastary I stayed in in my young twenties…. ‘This is just the way it is at the moment’. This advice would really annoy me at the time, but with a bit of time under my belt I can see the wisdom in this….. Whatevers going on for us all, however we would like it to be…… however we would like it not to be….. ‘This is the way it is at the moment!’

I thought I had pretty much considered the curation possibilities for my final show quite a while ago, but as I have learned throughout the course, ideas and plans continuously morph and change for me. It seems that unless I am working to a very short time frame, longer periods give me too much time to think….. Also, in this case, my original ideas had to change, based on the space I was allocated. This hasn’t necessarily been a negative thing, as other factors have also contributed in changing the way in which I have visualised and comprehended the emerging work, apart from this.

This process, of not knowing what space I would be allocated, brought to the surface considerations for me. I realise that there are at least two ways in which I make work. One is the making of independent works that stand alone and that I can generally fit into any environment. At this very moment in time, I feel that although I like making these types of sculptural works, they sometimes leave me wanting something more…. leaving me with a slight feeling of disappointment (for want of a better term). The second way of making and presenting work, is I guess termed ‘working more site specifically’. I enjoy spaces and the atmospheres conjured by them; and it really helps to have a space in mind to work with. I think, at the moment I see the space around a piece of work, in some ways as an extension of the work itself; not just as a room or area. With that in mind, I feel that I am quite drawn to this way of working. Realistically though, I am aware that site-specific opportunities are quite rare and that the majority of art-work is likely to have to be created independently of this consideration.

Examples of where I have been able to play and create in specific spaces, have been in ‘Level 1’ (as part of the 10 Project / see pic 1. below), and in ‘Level 5’ (as part of the Letheringham residency and show / see pic 2. below).
Pic 1. (10 Project)

Pic 2. (Letheringham residency and show)

Now that I have been allocated space, I really want to be able to get into it, so that I can get a real feel for it. It’s strange, but the ‘space’ in question is completely visible, I can walk past it and look fully into it (although at present it has other students work in it), but I feel the great need to have it empty and to be able to sit in it……. It’s a strange feeling. It’s as if I need to befriend it and have a conversation with it. I know that until I am able to do so, that I have no real confidence that anything will work! This may be a purely ridiculous and idiosyncratic reaction to this situation, but it’s very interesting to reflect upon. It’s also interesting to reflect on the feeling of ownership of a ‘space’. At present it is someone else’s space and from relating to the feelings I have had concerning the area that I have been using to make work over the last few months, I can see a tendency towards having ‘territorial’ type feelings. It is an area of consideration that isn’t necessarily that pressing to ponder on at the moment, but I can see it as an area that could inspire work in the future.

It seems that one of the re-emerging themes from the degree-course has been, to not ‘overcomplicate’ our work. It’s not that I haven’t heard this, or that I don’t fundamentally agree with the idea; but it appears that my final piece has taken on a bit of a life of its own. Without wanting to plant the idea that it’s too complicated to tutors, I can see that it may be interpreted that way. I guess that really clean, crisp and simple ideas don’t always do it for me (although at times they do), and as I am really making art for my own pleasure, I feel I have to be true to myself. I feel that my art-making has an ‘outsider art’ quality about it and ‘outsider art’ tends to stray from the normal conventions.

As I have probably mentioned in previous blogs, I am particularly inspired on by Louise Bourgeois’ (1911-2010) work. Some of her work is simple, crisp and clean, but other works are more complicated, especially her series of ‘Cells’ works. There is still a simplicity within her more complicated works, but they appear a long way from what I would consider as ‘minimalistic’. Bourgeois isn’t necessarily known as an outsider-artist, but her work is very emotional and self-referencing; I see this as very different from minimalist work that seems to be more interested in experimenting with space, light and environment for their own sake. It’s not that I am not drawn to this expression of sculpture and installation also, but I guess I seem to particularly drawn to work that deals with the pain and confusion of the human condition (because I am inherently unhappy, confused and in pain!

Louise Bourgeois, Cell (The Last Climb), 2008

At one point, my final work was planned to be a very simple zen-garden, a much more minimalist project inspired by my interest in Buddhism and Zen, but it seems that it got naturally steered from that course towards a different direction. This change in direction really made me think about the intentions behind the work that we make. My contemplation around this left me with the realisation that work is made with so many different intentions. Some artists are perhaps like scientists, experimenting with various conditions for the pleasure and knowledge of it, whilst others are making work because if they don’t, the black dog of depression is waiting to gobble them up. I make work because I have the opportunity to do so on the course and I can work (and play) with various impulses, although on honest reflection, there seems to be a lot of pain in my making. My creations can also change by the second, from one direction to another. I can see how my art mirrors my personality and how little real prolonged intention I managed to sustain from moment to moment. Contemplating my work in this way has been like a type of therapy and I think has led me to a better understanding of myself.

I also became interested in Edward Kienholz’s (1927-1994) work because I felt I could relate to it. It’s a bit messy, with quite a lot going on. It also appears quite disturbed, melancholic and very atmospheric. Kienholz could perhaps be called an outsider-artist, side-stepping the ‘norm’. Kienholz’s works are generally not clean and simple, and contain many elements within them. I find this particularly exciting…… I get a buzz when the various facets of a work overwhelm me… maybe all of these preferences tell us something about ourselves, as much as about the artist.

Edward Kienholz, The Wait, 1964-1965

The interpretation of the viewer or spectator seems almost as complex as the work itself. There is a psychological creation in the viewer alongside of the creation / work itself…… in some ways (many ways), that’s really exciting. The whole process is completely ridiculous; a person makes something that they may not even fully consciously understand themselves. Spectators / viewers will / may internalise this experience and form a subjective understanding of it; but neither the maker, nor viewer may fully understand what is there in front of them, perhaps because the human mind continuously changes…. But that something is still there in form……. That’s amazing…… (I have to go now…. The nurses are coming….)

My evolving piece (an installation) for my final show, seems to have taken on a life of its own and there are many elements to it that have really made me think. It seems to have come together fairly naturally and I am quite glad about this, as it would have been a very ambitious project if it had have been more planned. If I had of seen the whole thing as a complete concept initially, I think I would have become quite anxious as to whether I could achieve it!

Narrative is such an interesting area. Do we control our stories, or do our stories start to define who we are? Why are humans so attached to the story-telling process? Are we anything apart from a web of tangled stories?