The University of Bolton.

I have been tinkering with an idea for the title for our collective collaboration with Bolton Museum and Art gallery…

“Incahoot ” all one word…

I also had a go in photoshop playing with some ideas I have for the publicity material, I quiet liked the randomness of the images in front of the Bolton civic centre which houses the museum.

Now I’ll have to see what the rest of the group think to my suggestions!

We had an interesting and informative workshop this week hosted by Rebecca on the techniques of etching. having no experience of the process I was really interested to learn how to do it!

I soon realised once Rebecca started talking us through the process, there is a lot of time and patience involved, however I can imagine it being a quiet relaxing and almost meditative process once you got into it. Considering we only had 3 hours I would say we did well to understand the basics, although it was a shame we couldn’t get further, there I have to learn to be more patient I suppose!

So… We brought our hard waxed plates home to work on, kindly, Val gave me her plate as she didn’t intend to take it further. I wanted to do an image of my head to use in this semesters work, just to try the process and hopefully get something I can use in my assessment. As I had two plates I decided to go “off piste” so to speak and use the second one for purely decorative effect and to have a little experiment! I found an image which was in my photo’s of a detail of my garden railings and used this to make a sketch into the wax… I decided to use a more painterly effect by applying some turps to the wax and letting the wax melt a little freely, anyway it will be interesting to see how they both turn out. The next question is when am I going to get time to develop them to the next stage? Its the Easter break next week, so it will have to be after that…

It has to be reflected on, it’s something which has been bothering me rather a lot lately and yes, it’s all because I have been neglecting to blog.

It was extremely difficult to write, concentrate and reflect on what my intentions were this semester all down to the distraction of moving house. I seem to have under estimated the time, energy and sheer frustration it can and has caused!

I know it shouldn’t be an excuse, but I am able to recognise it has had a negative impact on this semesters in put from me.

So… time to make up for the short fall, I think it’ll be a difficult task to fill in all the blanks so I’ll start on my more recent developments.

This semester work is largely based on identity… I felt as a continuation from my work last semester I should use and run with the theme, I touched on the fragility and vulnerability of the human condition through a lot of experimentation with materials last term. This term I wanted to start with a strong idea, do less experimentation with materials and explore the representation of identity or in this case the complex, multiple and fractured identity many of us have to juggle with in our everyday lives. My starting point was a full head cast, this time I’m not using my own face or head, I wanted this to be a subjective offering and not so much an intrinsic experience, I felt it maybe mis-interpreted as a biographical piece if it was another cast of me!! or even worse I might get the reputation of being self obsessed. So, I borrowed a cast from the special effects department, a man, who I’ll christen “Dave”… I have no idea who this cast is of, which is a bit of a paradox as my work is about identity.

Taking inspiration from Eduardo Poalozzi’s heads, segmented and fractured to form abstract shapes but still retain the form of a human head…

I intend to cut the head into sections and manipulate them to create a fragmented representation of the human head…

These images are of the first head I did today, nothing is fixed at this point as I’m still trying out different arrangements.

Assessments are all completed and the results are in!

With a 64% achieved in Theory and a 60% in practice I can safely say I’m a happy bunny …

I think I need to back track here slightly as I’ve been somewhat distracted with a house move I haven’t posted any comments on the final presentation of my practical work. I shall start by inserting some shots I took at University last week…

As you can see I decided to use lighting in the piece, I felt it added to the overall effect accentuating the fabrics fragility and highlighting the tension between the transparent and the opaque. Considering I hadn’t given too much emphasis on the lighting and the impact it would have I now think it has become an important part of the work.

Now that last semesters work has been assessed and finished with, the time to move on to this semesters plan…

Initially unsure of whether to continue with aspects of my last work and develop the theme further I have decided to move away and start afresh, I want to continue exploration in a different direction and through the use of a material I haven’t had experience with I want to see if I can again create something which has intrinsic meaning and carries my artistic vision through to the viewer.

With the use of and an emphasis on the chosen material… wood. A material I think which has been out of favour in fine art circles for some time, I am drawn towards carving in wood not only because I think it will be a valuable experience working in wood but also the medium has an intrinsic organic, warm quality to it which will harmonise with the figurative work I want to create with it.Continuing on a figurative theme I am planning to carve a sensuous woman, taking advantage of the natural burrs and shape of my chosen wood to create I hope something aesthetically pleasing.

The wood I am using is Lime, this is provided by University, Tony in the workshop has a supply of large trunks of which I selected one today! No sooner had I told Tony I had my eye on a particular piece he had it brought through to the workshop and Mel chainsawed the base and removed areas of the shape I didn’t need. So, I have my work cut out next week… But I am really excited to be starting a carving again and looking forward to discovering how the wood will feel to carve compared to stone.

Post Christmas …

Once again I seem to be playing catch up!

Although I have managed to spend a pretty relaxing Christmas I have been occupied with my art project…both the theoretical and the practice. Which is a good thing considering both things have to be completed imminently

Firstly the Essay which needs to be handed in on the 10th of January…this gives me, 5 days to finish off, but it is in the final stages of edit and checking. While I’ve been sporadically visiting the essay I’ve been busy getting my practical project to a stage where I can feel comfortable with the prospect of finishing it. Having had a little time to distance myself from it over Christmas, I’ve re-visited it with fresh eyes, and although he early figures were interesting I felt they lacked something…ahhh the ever elusive “something” are we all completely obsessed with trying to discover and capture this “something”? I think we probably are! But, in my situation I have to find “something” I am happy to portray to others , to justify it I have to comprehend “it” myself first. As always the thought process takes second place to the physical making of my art.. so I go ahead and do what is instinctive to me, catching up at a later date to see where this has led me. It’s something I am getting used to now, I used to feel and sometimes still do, that it was the wrong way around doing things, but I now feel better about my working methods, I can accept the method I use…to change it doesn’t work for me. I must have the freedom, the lack of control to feel truly creative.

So, following all that, I have been progressing with the figures….I decided to (after some experimentation with plaster) to use plaster on the cloth, by thinly applying plaster and once set, rubbing and washing under water I get a sort of cracked/crazed affect which as well as giving the cloth a good texture offers some weight and body to the piece. I was unhappy with the way the face sat on the cloth, it didn’t seem to be part of the piece, the separation was too obvious, so by applying the plaster finish I can incorporate the face into the body of the work. An over all more pleasing effect.

I sourced some hooks I’m happy to use…I am still wondering whether to use lighting for the final presentation…I have tried some back lighting in the garage at home where I’m hanging the work temporarily, the effect of using lighting does change the emphasis of the work…making it more translucent, I think I like the way it highlights and adds emphasis to the transparency against the more opaque areas of the material. I have to think on how this affects the overall feel of the work.