University of Kent

I’d spread myself so thinly that holes were breaking through. By the end of last week I felt like I needed to sleep for an entire day. This can only ever occur during the half term break, when the young man departs for a week with his father. Whenever I have an extended period “off duty” I revert to minimal energy expenditure, and I can barely be bothered to eat, such is my joy in rare irresponsibility. My workload was weighing heavily on my mind, but I felt that I needed to enforce idleness upon myself for a day if I was ever going to recuperate and get anything done in the next week. My plan was to see how long I could sustain myself on unlimited tea and 2 giant Aero bars. (About a day and a half, in case you were wondering.) And on Monday, I enjoyed a controlled crumple. It was not entirely idle; I couldn’t bring myself to go that far, and sadly the kettle is downstairs so there was some traveling involved. I did the preparatory drawings for my first circular/oval paintings, but at least I could say I did them in bed.

The drawings are fairly detailed as I want to introduce grisaille underpainting to my working method. I was disappointed with the last two paintings I did, and although there are elements I don’t mind, they are rather soulless to me, and not what I’d intended. It may be partly due to feeling like I had to rush their completion in time for the last end of year show, and I know I’ll end up reworking them eventually. It’ll eat at me until I do. Fortunately I took lots of pictures of the work in progress, and I can see what steps didn’t work. Right now I’m trying to find the focal point from which to mark my ever-decreasing radii; maybe once the boundaries are tightened up I’ll come out of it with some pieces I can fall in love with.

It’s only in the last week that I’ve realised just how geometrical my mind is. When drawing I seem to find angles, polygons and formulae to rationalise the world without really knowing it. Obviously when drawing I’m paying attention; I wonder how much this affects me unconsciously. I didn’t exactly know why I was drawn to tondi and later, elliptical shapes; it was partially a way of referencing historical, perhaps unfashionable, methods of display, but thinking about it, circles are perfect shapes, single sided, self contained and redolent of all sorts of concepts – constriction, security, currency, divinity… Looking at the portraits I had drawn grouped together, they struck me as a diagram with their overlapping circles. I’d done something like that as an experiment with collaging circles cut out of watercolour paintings, but I think I’ll have to do much more of that in future.

This half term will also be given over to… fun. Really, I said fun. I’d agreed to play bass and sing in a friend’s amateur talent show on Saturday, and after rehearsals last Friday and Sunday night, the prep is pretty much over. It’s great to be able to perform with friends, with no stress, no repercussions and no reasons apart from having a go and having a laugh.

I haven’t done much in the way of reading for the dissertation and unit essays, but I feel confident that I’m on track. I’m already over halfway with the first essay due in December, and it won’t take me any more than two or three evenings’ work at a gentle pace to finish and polish it up. Once I feel more settled with the practical work I’ll be able to settle into writing mode over a few evenings.

Seeing Phil emerge out of the clay is very, very encouraging. I want to get the sculpture as resolved as possible before his next sitting next week, to make the most of the time for fine tuning. I need pressured to do as much as I can in the next few days with the sculpting and starting the paintings before real life starts again and I’m back to my full-time job as mummy, but there’s only so much I can realistically expect to do, and I’d better take it easy as I’ve used up my crumple time.

On Monday there were nine. One of our group is leaving the course, as she says it’s making her really unhappy. She wants to be a ski instructor instead. And while some of us find it a bit upsetting, I agree that there’s not that much sense in carrying on with something you don’t want to do, just for the sake of a qualification that may or may not enable you to do something you don’t want to do afterwards. That’s easy for me to say, as I’ve already done the college drop-out thing, and I’m happy with my direction now; but that’s not to say this is right for everyone.

We convened in the cafe to discuss fundraising for the show, and I highlighted the essential elements we’d need to cover, such as printing, advertising/marketing and the private view evening. I’d have made a less shabby job of it if I wasn’t so knackered, but we got something out of it. I took my laptop to show the group the “Promoting Your Degree Show” article on this website, and got this year’s Degrees publication out of the library to pass around so everyone could visualise placing an ad. One important step was the delegation of the major tasks – so now we have one person in charge of design, and another researching printing costs. Everyone is encouraged to submit ideas and suggestions, but delegating responsibilities has worked for well for us so far, and I’ve still got plenty to get through before the next meeting. We’re going to discuss fundraising again, and in particular, how much we actually need, after the term resumes. To get the ball rolling, I took in a few massive bags of fabric remnants amassed during my seamstress/crafter life, which we can to sell to the fashion students. I’ve also arranged to chat with the rep for the year below us about joining together to fund the end of year show; last year the BA group jumped us with a request for £20 each, but I think we could be more clever about it if we get the HNDs on board with our schemes from the start.

My time in the project space has come to an end, and I have mixed feelings about what I’ve done there. I’ve given myself a hefty project, in the form of creating as many portraits as I can over the course of the next few months, and creating an installation with them, using their frames as an integral part of the composition. I remember going on a trip to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston with my college group back in 1999 – only a short walk down the road from MassArt – and all I can remember is the particularly pompous professor who led us, standing before some grandiose gilded confection of wood and plaster and declaring dryly that not only was he a doctor of whatever it was, he was also an expert on frames (of a certain historical period, I’m sure, but I can’t remember). It’s the effect of presentation and context on perception that I want to poke around with. I’ve had enthusiastic feedback, so although I feel that a lot of the work went into creating something that wasn’t going to be used, at least I managed to see what I did and didn’t like.

I’ve finished my first carving and managed to give myself only one decent gash with the chisels, and it wasn’t all that bad really. Yesterday I had a friend come into the studio to sit whilst I modeled a life sized version of him out of clay, and today I’ve brought it home to work on over the half term. This will become the model for the wood sculpture. The practise piece is going to be gessoed and I’ll start painting that this week as well. That and the five panels I’ve prepared… well, I’ll be starting stuff this week.

Oh, and bass practise. Otherwise the show on the 29th is going to be ugly.

Six cuts so far. Not that bad for a week’s wood carving as a complete novice, and they’re no worse than paper cuts. Starting from scratch in a new medium has been terrifying, frankly, and I’ve started to recognise a fair amount of arrogance in myself in assuming that I could jump straight in and get the results I wanted. What results? Why, sheer stunning brilliance of course. I’m such a control freak, but at least I know it. My art may be based in a formal way of working but I have to train myself to learn patience. The methodology is important to me; it’s something about myself I want to understand better.

After several days I still suffered from a high level of trepidation towards cutting into the block, and was left with a mocking square lump which made me think of Kryten from Red Dwarf made into a totem pole. But a week in, my little practise man has started to emerge, and now my head is slowly swelling back to its previous, disproportionate size. What keeps me tethered is the unresolved eventual outcome for the sculpture, and its relation to my painting. It’ll come, she said overconfidently.

On Friday night the Pushing Print festival got under way in Margate, and I trotted over to see my prints on display in the exhibition at the Pie Factory. As I had the young man with me, I couldn’t go all around the town to the other galleries and events, but on 7 year old sufferance I was allowed to see a few more. Next door in the Pie Factory Pop Up Shop was an exhibition entitled BIG ASS Linoprints and Linomations, and not far away, Steve McPherson was exhibiting some screen prints as well as some of his fantastic marine plastic pieces in Blackbird. I got to have a little fangirl chat with him before being dragged off – not a bad way to end the evening really! Yes, I’m biased, but it’s well worth visiting Margate during October while the festival is on, and Turner Contemporary has Rodin’s The Kiss as well as NITWBY on display.

Back to the campus – my work in the project space has taken second place to the carving, which has become an obsession, but after a visit to the studio tomorrow there should be progress worth reporting on. It’s been helpful to see things taking shape though, and has definitely been worth doing. I’m holding off posting pictures until it takes shape more fully, perhaps after next week.

Yesterday during a cafe break the group brought up the subject of the end of year show. It seems they’ve equated student rep with show co-ordinator; and although I’d point out that this wasn’t a given, I suppose I might as well. Someone has to! I took another poll for the degree show on/off site question, and it’s becoming clear to me that we’re going to end up showing at Henwood. Enthusiasm for the extra effort required to go off site is waning, and I want to try to get them excited about making the most of what we’ve got. We decided to have a formal show meeting after the art history lecture next Monday, and I want to introduce them to some of my ideas for fundraising and marketing – staging events, crowdfunding websites, listing the show on this site, and others.

As for next week, expect a visit from one of my male models, an update on the show meeting, and even more fearless hammering in the woodwork room.

www.pushingprint.co.uk

www.linocutboy.blogspot.com/2011/10/big-ass-linocu…

www.blackbird-england.com

www.stevemcpherson.co.uk

After last week’s indecision there’s been a shocking amount of clarity in my approach this week. Now I feel that I know what I’m doing and why, and both the tutors are on side as well, which is encouraging.

It’s been an interesting week; on Thursday evening I went to the preview of Red List, an exhibition at the Sidney Cooper Gallery in Canterbury. I’m planning to write a review – should have written it by now actually – but in brief I didn’t expect the issues presented in the blurb to be as engaging as they actually were. More on that later…

On Friday morning a friend and I took two of my screen prints to the Pie Factory gallery in Margate, where the Pushing Print exhibition will be taking place from the 8th October. I was an hour early (must read emails more carefully) but it meant I could have a little chat with the curator, Dawn Cole. She’s recently won the V&A Purchase Prize at the International Print Biennale, which is pretty darned cool, and I didn’t realise that she had studied at Henwood as well, which is, again, pretty darned cool. The private view is a few days away, and I must say that I’m rather chuffed to be a part of Pushing Print.

Of course, a trip to Margate had to encompass a visit to Turner Contemporary, and although I was predisposed to enjoy it just because of the glorious weather, Nothing In The World But Youth proved to be extremely engaging. There simply wasn’t enough time between school runs to do it justice though, so I will have to go back, hopefully on Friday before the Pushing Print private view. Again, I should be writing a review, so more on that later…

Saturday surprised me – when I left in the morning I didn’t expect to return home with a large part of a lime tree in the boot of my car, but that’s exactly what I did. I’m fortunate enough to know an affable builder who specialises in period house renovation, and happened to have a tree which had been felled in the hurricane of ’85, hand-sawn into planks, stacked and air dried in his barn loft for decades. I’d only popped by to nag about getting some wood for carving, and ended up in the loft with my builder and two of his daughters shifting most of a Morris 8 (in bits) and plenty of Victorian hinges to reach the sliced tree beneath. The entire experience of retrieving the plank, seeing it cut into three and taking it to the workshop to be sliced and planed was a sweaty, grimy treat. If I enjoy carving in wood, as I’m sure I will, there should be a ready supply of offcuts from the workshop for smaller pieces – hooray!

Having the wood ready for the start of the week was a major asset. Psychologically it gave a definite boost in confidence as to my direction, and on Sunday evening I could confirm with one of my former models that he would be my subject once again. So on Monday, the materials, model and method (mostly) was in place, and on Tuesday, I could start to immerse myself in the making at last.

Lest I carry on for too long, I shall conclude with a teaser about the project space, a room built into our studio which was left over from one of the last degree show exhibitors’ installations, complete with genuine middle class beige carpet and wallpaper. The powers that be had decided to retain it, and have now decided that those of us who would like to make use of it may book it for two weeks each, to be followed by the year below. Only about four of us wanted to, but as the others preferred to wait and build up work/ideas, I took the first slot, and should start my colonization of the space next Monday.