The blogger interview was well worth taking part in. It is interesting to be pushed to approach your art practice from a different perspective. My aim this week is to bury myself in work. Why do I always feel like this when kids holidays loom? Went to the woods on friday, my last day of freedom before the holidays. Now I am in my final year I am finding it difficult to relax and experiment so much. Need to resolve this mental boundary.
College has started in earnest again, so I’m back to my usual tired mode from too much travelling and sleeping on a friend’s floor. I have been doing quite a bit of research in the library though, and come up with some interesting books. Always a dilemma as to the balance of reading v work, sometimes the ideas can seem so seductive. I’m interested in the research/practice debate beginning in Carolyn Shepherd’s profile interview. I must remember not to overlook the value of learning through making. I like it when the making processes echo the concepts explored in the reading and academic research. My previous work was purely intuitive, and it was hard to develop this way. I think to make thoughtful art the conceptual base needs strengthening too. Maybe debates in the blog will help me to be more reflective. I need to continue drawing as research, a thread that was started as a college seminar and which I need to remember to practice. Richard Taylor’s blog is great for looking at drawing as research.
the image is my first pinhole image from a can camera left in the woods. More on this later….
College has started in earnest again, so I’m back to my ususal tired mode from too much travelling and sleeping on a friend’s floor. I have been doing quite a bit of research in the library though, and come up with some interesting books. Always a dilema as to the balance of reading v work, sometimes the ideas can seem so interesting. I’m interested in the research/practice debate beginning in Carolyn Sheppherd’s profile interview.
I love this quote by Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth
“People say what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive…”
These words struck me. With my artwork I am exploring this experience of being fully attentive to the everyday experience of What Is. This reflects my interest in meditation and Taoism. I have begun the practice of making Chinese ink drawings in the woods of boundaries, paths, the marginal and in between. I think this could be a rich area for me to cultivate. I’d like to make 52 drawings!
I am making the drawings on site then re making them in the studio adding colour. This is an experiment in memory and mark. By re-making the drawings am I adding to them in any way? What is added and what is lost?
Can’t believe I haven’t blogged for so long! Just returned from a camping, seminar weekend near Zennor Cornwall, organised by Bos Arts at NT Treveal Farm. Great fun and food for thought. My interim college show work reponded to the site too.
My “Making the Bed” work sprang from conversations with Jon Brookes (country side manager at NT Treveal Farm). He spoke to me about the reintroduction of grazing to the coastal cliffs, which allows light to the soil, bringing biodiversity and wildflowers to the clifftops. However the issue has polarised local residents who share the landscape.
Making work on site was an interesting take on a college show, bringing its own particular practical and emotional stresses. The main one being I was relying on other people to help make the piece happen, and it all had to happen at the last minute. A farmer friend near home was called upon to come up with friends near Zennor who could provide the small bales that can be lifted by hand, and the National Trust provided help with the trailer etc.
It all worked out beautifully on the day and the weekend was glorious which meant I could site the work in the milking yard where I wanted it. If it had been a bad forecast it would have been in a barn, or the bales would have been ruined and the calves would have gone hungry! The joys of a rural practice!
Artist explorer based in North Cornwall.
