Degree show time again and I am impressed once again by the bredth and individuality on show (often bravely) at Hereford College of Arts. I have also had a peek at the Bath Spa show which was a treat too. The engagement, energy and hope for the future that each graduating student is so fresh and present. Just a year ago I was in their shoes and I wonder how my perception does that odd collapsing thing where I swear it cannot be 12 months since it was me there!
Going on for me now Collaborative Magna Carta project with 7 other artists plus a photographer and calligrapher with Framework Herefordshire (+ new website, www.frameworkherefordshire.org) gaining clarity with my focus.
Feeling like its now time for a new blog. I’ve done the Wood for the Trees year. I’m still wrestling with stuff but actually I have learnt such a lot about the way I work (out of college). What I thought I need, actually I’m fine without and other things I’m finding in ways I didn’t expect. I am finding mentoring in unexpected ways. The focus on my practice is renewed after a year of trying to do too much. The next 6 months (at least) I’m going to have a real (my) art focus and relieve some of my frustration (maybe!) I have been so undecided about stuff this year, up and down.
MAGNA CARTA – we had the practice run for the Magna drawing on Monday artists in working together on the banner cut in half. In my Magna Carta response I focus on the text and literacy in a way. I imagine a world where half the population can read and half cannot. The ‘textuals’ and the ‘visuals’. So, my section of the banner will be structured as a grid. On one side there will be square sections filled with writing by the textuals about their life – for this I haven’t decided whether it’ll be handwriting or typed. The other side will be filled with square photos representing the visuals in their life. Our photographer David Griffiths has sent me some photos to work with of local people doing various activities and I’ll use the cyanotype process to print these in square format. Where the visuals and the textuals squares meet I’m going to have some kind of overspill. The text will flow into the photographs and the cyanotypes will take over the text in certain areas. This all has to be played out in the process.
Afterwards we ironed out some curating puzzles (it’s 10m x 1.5m! and made of paper in its first incarnation, 2nd is going to be a tapestry)
The little museum of Ludlow
http://www.paradox-of-order.com/
I’d written and given a talk about art and maths back in November, but I’ve now condensed it to perform at the little museum of Ludlow and to collect questions raised by it.
Now writing this on the train on the way home from Ludlow. A much busier day than expected. Started off by getting in cleaning supplies and cleaning the display cabinets ready to take objects on loan and found. Our first loans came in from Richard, who talked to poet Jean Atkin about the spit roast turning brass contraption and a small spinner issue to soldiers in the first world war as a way of passing the time. Jean has gone away to write the poem. My pocket talk on chaos and order started with me talking to a volunteer who had been serving teas and coffees in the library in the morning and with my first question collected in the book.
Changing the play settings for my talk to autoplay so that I talk naturally rather than using the slides to lead me. Trying to keep the talk to 2 minutes and then question writing.
I’m interested in chaos and order and I’m collecting questions on a short talk – in going into Physics and learning a fair bit of Maths and a bit of code early in life to becoming an artist interested in chaos and order and relating that to art. Some art has a clear superficial link to maths in that the artist uses visual markers of maths in the finished piece, but I’m more interested by the art which has maths used somewhere in its making or structure that is invisible unless you know about it. So, a mathematical pattern which has fascinated me is the Fibonacci sequence. Starting with the number 1 and adding the last 2 numbers to get the next in the series, you get 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21,34, 55, 89…..
And on…
Would you add a question or questions to my collection in this book?
Teresa Albor recorded me doing my mini talk so that days I’m not there it can be available and the question collecting can continue.
