I had a lightbulb moment this week.
Have spent many an hour and many pages of my sketchbook trying to figure out a way to transport my book explosions into the gallery for the degree show.
They are so delicate that they have to be made in situ, there didn't seem to be any way to make them and get them to the gallery without major tangling of the strings. I actually like the strings once tangled but it is not the effect I want for these particular works.
I have looked into wrapping them around cardboard rolls, layering them in tissue, laying them flat within felt panels and yet still they tangle, the cut out notes all writhing together as if they are rebelling against me separating them from the book in the first place. It is so frustrating.
I thought about a long glass structure to house each one, museum like but that would mean they would be too 'still'. I love their movement, the way they dance when a slight breeze or a viewers breath passes by them. I like that they are open to people touching them too, they are probably too delicate for that but I'd like to give the impression that they can be touched.
Anyway, I digress – the lighbulb moment.
I figured that if I made a frame of sorts and attached the book one end and the wire to the other I can manouvre the whole thing in one piece and then remove the frame insitu at the gallery.
Some cardboard, a dowling rod and a glue gun later I had a made a maquette that actually works..well at that size anyway.
I now feel soo much more positive, the relief at being able to assemble 10 books prior to the exhibition as opposed to having to put up with 4 or maybe 6 if I worked flat out for the week of installation.
On a completely different note I am off on a college trip to Paris on Monday for 5 days, yay :)
This week has been all about the books – I haven't found any actual music books to work with yet so I decided to look through my bookshelves at home. I found that I was the owner of about a dozen very small books ranging from feng shui tips to motherhood poems. All were gifts but very bizarrely I don't remember receiving most of these or who bought me them, which is pretty awful.
Someone had thought about me when buying each book, choosing each particular one to match a phase in my life and yet i don't remember who. I don't even remember ever being very into feng shui.
I feel these books have sat neglected and unloved for too long and so I am now using them as maquettes and now I like them so much more. They have taken on new meaning and a new kind of beauty of their own.
If making art out of my own found objects can give me pleasure then maybe I am taking the right route with my work. Using other found and unloved books that can take on new life through art to give other people pleasure or even just to make them think – wonder at the history of the book, who once owned it, how often was it read, was the music of some special meaning to someone once? Why did it end up lost.
I'm glad that my slightly odd mini books are found again.
I've been so busy in work that I haven't had much time to concentrate on college work (BAD GIRL).
Thing is; as I work for an arts organiation I figure that everthing I do is great experience for life after college & I write it all up for my Journal so I can't feel too guilty.
I love my job, it's chaotic at times but so interesting. The Biennial are planning great things for the Leeds/Liverpool canal and it's very exciting right now. I hope to be shadowing David Bade for the month of February while he works with us at the Biennial.
College Work wise I'm busy resarching for my essay and have had to write up my official learning plan and I had a play with the songbooks from last term, draping them to form new shapes and shadows. There is still a lot of room for manouvre in these I think.
Back at college, The Christmas & New Year break were fabulous, I had time to fully recover from the flu and enjoy my family again and it was all over too soon.
What to do now?
I've done a lot of thinking these last few weeks – my original plan was to 'explode' a piano, the work last term was acting as maquette for this final piece but now I feel differently.
I think the exploding radiogram fulfilled what I wished for, the idea is now spent – what else can I learn from another suspended animation. It worked, I was pleased with it but how do I now go forward from this?
I spent today dismantling, quite theraputic to take apart a piece of work that had taken so much from me, blood,sweat and tears (literally). It was good to know that it was a one off, never to be seen again, my own personal memories and photographs the proof that I had achieved what I wanted but oohh such a good feeling to now be rid of it, a fresh space to work in. Exciting to be able to fill it with new ideas.
And so – the ideas – hmmm – if I think them, they will come.
