In this post i want to show some images of my work that has and is developing as my research is deepened. I have found many things about animal testing that i did not know before and this has already had an impact on my work. For example some beagles are forced to have pills put down their throats so they injest it quickly. This causes them to dribble more than normal, then foam at the mouth and some beagles just collaspe as their body is too weak to cope. Some are given out of date sedatives and then have their teeth pulled out. The drug is out of date so severly that the dog feels the pain. Also sme beagles have their brains tested on so they end up with massive scares down their whole skull and well as terrible skin conditions through having repetitive tests done of their skin. Apart from all this i have also found that they are put into a harness and have tubespushed into their throat directly into their stomach. This allows for chemicals to be put staright into their stomach, the test stopswhen the dogs are dead. The ones that survive the test are usually disposed of anyway. Sorry this is a bit intense but people need to know the brutality and i need to keep reminding myself of why i am proud to have a beagle. Also i could not think of anything more powerful to connect my work together.
Over the last couple of weeks my work has developed and allowed me to see how it is fine art. I think of my practice as a tree; the roots of my work is craft skills and materials. The Trunk of my art tree is the growth of realisation of the differences between craft and fine art and the branches and my many created pieces, ideas and concepts. I feel my work is moving away from the single term ‘craft’ because of the imperfect nature of each piece i have made so far. My work although skill based, is not my idea of a perfect craft as it is not linear, neat or functional. My practise so far is definetly reflecting from my dissertation. I have noticed this due to how i questioned myself.
Can craft simply be fine art? I feel not always. I feel its more about the craft and the craft skills becoming more than tradition foretells but about becoming an integral part of visual and intellectial confict within fine art.
So it has been just a few days and i have done some online reading with regards to the testing that happens on beagles throughout the UK and abit throught the USA. I want to concentrate on the UK as it is home. I found however that while researching that this mutaney against beagles is alot closer to home that what i have previously anticpated.To be quite accurate i found an ariticle through my online university catalogued library that stated about a massive fine that had been given upon a firm that where trying to ship beagle puppies from Harwich. (they bred the puppies specifically for testing purposes abroad). There was 100 of them and unfortunately due the carelessness of these vile human beings, 79 of these innocent beagles died!!!!!
I didn’t anticipate how deep this could go and i thought i could handle the information i find but it turns out that it is quite upsetting and makes me feel some anger inside. How could we be so cruel to mans best friend who has stuck with us for centuries. How can we be so cruel to animals in general. We need them in some many ways emotionally and for companionship………….
I think i have lost my train of thought there. I am most passionate about this subject and it has given me ideas of how to perform and record for a or many videos to show my representaion and passion for how this is wrong to hurt and betray the trust of such a loving hound.
On a different note i have created a few different pieces of textile based works that are purely experimental so i can see what i can do with the materials i have at hand. I am planning however to do some more focused pieces such as a beagle sculpture that will be not of the norm. I will load pictures soon of some pieces completed and in progress.
So i have been in a bit of a limbo and the past few week. I have been trying to get my head around what i am actually doing. The London art fair has given me loads of interesting ideas for the layout of an installation which will include video, sculpture and few other media. I have just been struggliong with pinning down a context and this has been going on for months.
I was watching a program last night about children who have to be put in foster homes until they are adopted by their ‘forever family’. This programme really touched me, deep in my soul and it got me thinking. I felt so passionate when watching it and had many verbally expressed views about aspects of tit while watching it, that it made me think and rememeber a passion that for some reason had floated to depths of my mind and been forgotten.
Animal testing!!! Grrr! I hate it. I have signed patitions about it, to help stop the evil against animals, inparticular Beagles. I dont know why i didnt think of this before as it is something that has affected my views on the world and how we treat eachother and the animas around us. And so my project is going to be based around the testing that is performed on beagles because of their trustworthy and forgiving nature.
Now to do some further research!
Just a quick post as i have been harding some crochet squares with pva glue and managed to finally create a solid cube of which i have visualized in my mind for ages. I would say it was a success but i am not sure whether to take it further as yet. We will have to see.
