threads.........

Last night at college we started the preparation process for where we place our work in the end of year show and assessment. I haven't been feeling so sure of my direction and took the opportunity to have a chat with my tutor. This proved really helpful. I can certainly say I feel supported in my process right now!

She pointed out that I needed to consider the tonal qualities of my work - for example the white stitches against the grey ink background - if the stitches fit in tonally I may feel differently. Also I need to consider the attachments I use in the straight thread piece - I knew that - I have a range to try!

So onward with some more work today.
I have placed grey stitches in front of the drawn stitches and immediately it works much better! I had dismissed it but it has come to life again for me.

The work takes on new meaning  - drawing on many levels - the 2d of the wall, the 3d of the stitches and the shadow. I am going to try it with my knitted stitches and see if I can put some wire form in the corner too.

Additionally, I made another straight thread piece. I am still working out what these pieces mean to me. Its something about coming out from a corner, occupying a corner, repetition, calm.....this time I took the threads to a point on the ceiling. I certainly like the result and the process of creating - building and forming in the corner

I had to cover the background in paper as I am working in the same corner! Not a brilliant photo. My feeling is the scale is too big for the potential spaces available to me at college but I'm interested in taking the threads out into the space.

College presents new challenges. A lot of the upper corners are occupied by pipes and girders - there are very few clear, straight corners. I am ambivalent between accepting the challenge of one of these spaces or staying with the clear corners. We are allowed to select three locations and put them in order of preference. We need to put together a proposal explaining how we will use each space and why it is important to the presentation of our work. Then the proposals will be considered in line with all the others and the best space for the work allocated. So now I need to be thinking of what I will show where. My tutor encouraged me to show both forms - the chaos and the calm.....

In the meantime I got some interesting photos from all this work which I will use for the show brochure....

decision made

The envelope exhibition went well - for such a small space we had over 40 people through in the 2 hours we were open with some great feedback. For something organised in a week we were all very pleased with the end result - and shows we can do it anytime anywhere!

I have been working with a number of ideas unsure of which to see through to the assessment. Of all the ideas I have been looking at I love the concept of placing some random object in the corner of the room in order to draw attention to it thanks to the envelope exhibition however all my research has been about drawing in space and using threads and wire - to start with something so different wouldn't give me time to justify or resolve it. Whilst I liked the drawing on the wall it doesn't fulfil my brief so I have decided to focus creating a thread form in situ.

As I have said the work of Tomas Saraceno resonates with me and I would like to create something on similar lines. This week I was lucky to get some feedback from someone who graduated my course last year - he said that the thread could deleneate the space or invade the space - that gave me the idea to go large! Do more! Invade that space!

This is my first attempt - much more to do but now I have made the decision I can focus. This is thread from wall to the other across the corner. There are 40 pins in each wall - of course it needs to be much denser, much bigger and maybe not in that form but its a start!

This is quiet a diversion from the chaotic pieces I have been doing but it feels right - the simplicity of the straight lines is calming to me and the impact of the threads asks me to look deeper within. Some drawing from it too would be good.....keep going!

and still more

One of the things I noticed about my past (successful) works was that they were constructed in situ. Something I have had in mind and not yet done was to create a thread piece in the corner as opposed to making something and taking it to the corner.

I love the work of Tomas Saraceno

http://www.bonnierskonsthall.se/en/Exhibitions/Exhibitions/Tomas-Saraceno/About-the-artist/

He uses black elastic to create universes, spiders webs etc - I love the scale of his work and the complexity. I wanted to reproduce this.

My attempt

I feel limited in my house - maybe time to move out of this space...but I like how it looks. It captures how trapped one can be in a corner and yet one can only move out from a corner not further in. To stand before it you can be drawn inwards or follow the lines outward.

Could this be the way forward?

Going to play with 2d images of thread for a bit now....

more work

As part of my preparation for the 'exhibition' next week I have placed an envelope in the corenr of room. Inside the envelope are my threads. Not sure whether to draw or sew onto the outside of the envelope...

As a concept I very much like the idea of placing a 'readymade' object in the corner - and preferably one that is very unrelated to corners - without some thought. That will require much deeper thinking by me to be clever there! But I like how it would not be expected in that place, how curiosity is heightened by only just being able to see what is inside. 

I placed it in two ways - one across the corner - which actually encouraged the observer to go into the corner too to see how it is held there and the other was flat against the wall



I think it has cleaner line.

I am still very much taken with the unusualness of an envelope in the corner of the room!

More investigation to do.

working

There are about 8 weeks left until I have to have my work ready for assessment. I don't feel particularly engaged with my own practice - I keep reminding myself of my original brief - to draw attention to unnoticed spaces through a drawing in space.

To effect the drawing in space I have been using thread and wire. The unnoticed space I have chosen to respond to is a corner. Gaston Bachelard wrote of corners 'the meditative spider lives powerful and happy; the past shrivels up and all but disappears.....who is prepared to go beyond the spider to a point of identification with things forgotten in a corner?' (The poetics of Space)

I spent 3 months knitting with wire. I was making forms and then taking them to the space.....and fnding they didn't fit. I know what I have to do - that is make the forms actually in the space - RESPOND to the space. I also feel I need to go back to using thread not wire but I'm still not sure about that....

So this week I borrowed an overhead projector and I placed my stitches on it and projected the shadow onto the wall and into the top corner of my room. 

Then I traced over the shadow directly onto the wall - influenced by Richard Wright the Turner Prize Winner. I used ink and paintbrush as I found pens didn't work but that may have been due to my wall surface. I do like the precision of the pen so will keep trying. Maybe even use white - then it would be truly unnoticed...

I am considering whether I could place the original stitches in front of the drawing....a working back into the work which was pointed out to me by my friend Rosie. Or would the stitches placed on the wall themselves be enough? I love to draw....but is that te resolution?

At college this week we have been given a task - to stage an exhibition in a week.

We have called the exhibition 'An envelope' and all 8 of us will be responding to the subject of an envelope. I want to put an envelope in a corner - mainly because it is something you wouldn't expect to see and would therefore certainly draw attention to the space! I am intrigued by the concept of placing something completely unrelated to the space in the space but that then means I am no longer drawing in space.....or am I? I've been here before what is the definition of drawing!? Anyway I will keep the blog updated as to our progress. 

time marches on......

.....and much has happened!

At college my dissertation has been written and submitted. It was hard work. 8000 words and suddenly they didn't seem enough as my interest was stimulated in my subject. I could write for a year on it! My title was 'Space,Place and the Human Experience - an exploration into the relationship between Psychogeography and the Supermodern.' We'll see....

And so its now on with creating my final piece for my degree show and assessment. I have lost my way. In amongst the dissertation writing I moved house - and it is a project requiring renovation so my mind has not been focused on my artwork at all. That has to change now as it is only 8 weeks before my final show and I really need to resolve this.

This weekend I had a new experience - I participated in the Leeds Contemporary Internation Book Fair. I shared a stall with a good friend from my course - we challenged ourselves to take part - and both of us had reservations - but we did it and it was a wonderful experience.

I didn't make many books per se but thought how I could use my wire forms and represent them in 'book' format. I created some labels - from cotton reels interestingly - and some wire pictures in frames and a couple of different books concentrating on line. I also took in some of my sculptures and made postcards from my photos.

For me, it was a validating experience. Particularly at this stage in my work. A number of people engaged with my wire forms. Many stopped and were intrigued and many commented on my photographs. What I perceived to be the weaker pieces of work was born out by the lack of interest. I managed to sell a number of items too! The experience was very beneficial - in getting out there, meeting other artists, getting new ideas - it was such fun! I'm glad I did it. 

Out of chaos.....

I had a group tutorial at college last week. It was quite a rewarding experience for me - I felt able to objectively comment constructively on my peers work and also see my own work for the development it has progressed through.
And my tutor was helpful!!

As I have gone along I have been taking photographs of my work - the photographs are close ups and have a quality about them that does not seem to be present in the actual work......how to capture the essence of the photograph in my work?
What do the photographs say that the work is not?

I have let this mull around in my head...well I say ' mull' more like 'torment'! I stare and stare at them as I try to figure out whats missing in my pieces that I manage to capture in the images.....

I think it is the chaos.

My work is representation of the chaos that is my head, my life and yet the pieces I make are small, unimposing, quietly intrusive. The words that have come to mind as I have been making have been 'organic', 'emerging', 'creeping' 'intrusive' and yet the pieces I have made recently are anything but......
I go back to the stitches hanging in the air - they were organic and creepy and intrusive. Maybe that is why I love them so much - they interrupt the space, they intrude and say 'look at me, I make you uncomfortable'

My latest knitted wire piece is more architectural - in that it is using the walls and corners, drawing attention to these spaces but it is unintrusive, it is quiet and inside me the chaos is screaming to get out.

As I have been researching and visiting exhibitions and reading about other sculptors I notice how the works that grab me are the ones that shout - look at me!, they are in the way they are not quietly saying excuse me.....and maybe the scale of my work does not justify the chaos is comes from...maybe it is time to upscale and finally get out of myself the mess so that others can truly understand......