Just a quick evaluation before I leave to the studio. It is being hard to keep up with energy levels and to mantain the rythm of making work, researching, keep things up… My space is very cluttered at the moment I feel that I haven’t got space to experiment or even to think. The walls are covered with other’s artists works but I feel I need to go through that too and get new images from other artists. I will be spending the day today trowing materials that I feel I won’t use and trying to organise myself. Hopefully clearing the space and having new inspiration to look at on the wall will make me start again motivated and inspired.
I ordered the photos from Tesco photo at last yesterday, photos of my studio practice that I use on my sketchbook for observation and development. As soon as they get here I need to update my sketchbook, hopefully this won’t take me long. It is funny but without my sketchbook where I record process and thoughts I feel a bit lost and I’m happy that I did the effort to stay up late last night and order the pics.
I have also finished and submitted my application for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries, it was also tough to find the time and to select the right work. I just need to cross my fingers for good news now. This is the second competition that I have applied to so far this year. A year ago I would terrified to apply to anything, I’m quite happy to have changed my attitude towards this and to be confident to do it.
Today I will also spend some time in the library looking at Frieze, Art Forum, etc.. and scanning new work for my studio wall, really need a change at the moment but don’t want to cut my hair!!!!
The other thing is that degree show is fast approaching, god days just fly so quick… I thought I was in control of what I wanted to do but the stress and the worrying of mantaining my pace and creating something I’m pleased with, is really making a difference in my attitude.
I urgently need to fix that so I can progress onto making new work, hopefully my new studio space, new research, new perspective, new questions and answers will help me.
Deep breath and here I go…
This is how my documentation is looking at the moment. I have made this book using the website Blurb for my assesment couple of weeks ago. 82 pages of work from 2008 to 2012, with images of sculptures and drawings and videos of performances.
I’m really happy with the result, I feel I have done well with the layout, size of book, quality of paper, colours and covers. This is the book that the collector at the Birth Rites Collection will like to keep to exhibit in the collection.
I have had great feedback from tutors and friends as they all agree that the quality and the look of the book is impressive and very professional.
One of my tutor would like me to bring and show the book to the MA Fine Art students next week. I’m very excited about him wanting to show it as an example of documentation to a postgraduate course! It makes me feel proud of myself.
Again I feel like becoming part of the work, this is something that I have been doing a lot this year. The feeling of finding narrative and performing with me there. I feel like perhaps I should use the work and use it as props for performances? I think that could be quite funny. Some people has said that I am a bit of a comedian, maybe I should use that in my work too. ummmm food for thought.
Okay, so more playing around with the iron board legs and my beloved fucsia tights. Here, I experiment with only these two materials trying to work with composition, and testing the possibilities of the materials.
This looked pretty much (to me) like a sunbed? looking down. I think I’m giving this interpretation because I was pretty tired that morning. I perhaps wanted to represent the impossibility of relaxing and wanted to mock this in here. Relaxing upside down, vertically, hence me, kind of posing there. Also I think this experiment is a step further playing with the idea of opening, whether are legs or a mouth opening like the objects I did previously.
I like the way is suspended, the lines, and how the tights embrace the legs and they do pretty much all the work.
The tax man has taken pretty much all our money leaving me with not much money to spend on materials. This has been tough as I have always being able to buy anything I have needed for the last 4 years. Now I have to be really resourceful and make work with any found materials or the ones I already have and leave money for important bits.
Anyway enough of crying…
These photographs are a series of experiments with an iron board. I wanted to deconstruct it and get all the bit and pieces separately to see what other work I could from it. These photographs have also served me too for a series of drawings on graphite paper (I will post this soon) exploring line and perspective. Drawing from observation it is becoming important again in my practice. It gives me the chance to observe closely and to focus on the object’s details to another level, it also calms me down.
Iron boards are curious and quite conflictive objects to me. They represent domesticity, but what do I try to say with them? I’m not entirely sure about it and I think I would like to have some feedback from classmates to see what they think. Am I just playing here with material looking for new work possibilities or is it there an underlining purpose…?
The enquire continues…
