Half Term

I thought I’d write about half term - a week away from responsibilities that pay my keep. Whilst others planned trips home, holidays in the sunshine, a week of rest etc, I boasted heroic plans of a week spent ‘getting on with my own work.’ Things have felt like they are going well recently with my project so I had high hopes for this week.

Suffice to say, three days into half term, &my bubble is fairly well deflated. It’s been an anti-climax week, characterised by lack of motivation, two many sittings of This Morning &Loose Women &a battle with the value of my practice. I feel crippled by the lonely weight of working for &by myself.

As much as I find the technician jobs at the school under-stimulating I take for granted that they offer me time in the real world, adding a touch of structure to my life. This week has been lonely &I’ve found myself escaping into London just to have people around me.

Yesterday I went to see the Pop Life exhibition at Tate Modern. I knew I wouldn’t like it, but I’m glad I went; it’s quite a significant exhibition. Today I went to see the Turner Prize exhibition.

While I was in room3 I was struck with an idea for my own practice. I don't know where it came from. I can’t draw any connection what-so-ever between what I was looking at &the idea that came to me. But I think it could be an interesting development for my project &when it hit me I drew a deep breath before my sigh of relief. The tube journey into London today was spent fighting back tears because I felt so deflated but the 30 seconds of Idea came like food for my Making-Soul.

Perhaps tomorrow will be a good day, a day I can spend making in the studio. Then again, I thought that about this entire week.

If not … there’s always Loose Women. It is the holidays after all. Also I have a trip to New York that I can start booking and planning.

boxes

It seems like an obvious development for me to develop the studies I've been working on, onto cardboard boxes (having used cardboard boxes a LOT last year and because of the interest they offer in their association with fragile homes). The following two images are pages i've scanned from my diary. I jotted these scribbles down at some point when I wasn't in my studio but started thinking about the application of the studies onto piles of boxes.

So i started to apply the green to the boxes, then have tried working patterns etc on top -- admittedly, not very successfully. Here are some of the stages of experimentation:

Box, painted green with windows cut out - but 'subverted' -- out of their original place, also possibly original scale.

Attempting to work pattern based on shapes and textures from wall surfaces onto the box, with shadows overlayed -- WAY too busy, totally unsuccesful.

So I tried one side of the box with no 'pattern', just shadows. Before I applied the lines of shadows, I covered the surface of the box with text - an account of someone's experiences of the war in Ambon. It's better than the above image, certainly, though that isn't saying much.

Right, must dash. SO much more to update -- ideas, experiences, thoughts re living life as an artist. BUT, I'm working on my time management, I've spent three hours today on my practice and I'm meant to be meeting someone in two minutes for a coffee.

over and out.

ps - here are some images from my design ideas for the previous work i've been posting up on this blog. I often think the outworkings of ideas are as interesting as any finished piece. you may disagree:

Drawings in Bethnal Green

A few weeks ago I went to Bethnal Green to do some drawings. I was looking for shapes and patterns found on the wall surfacces of the buildings there and trying to 'subvert the context' of the shapes and patterns I saw... as I have been doing with my recent studies (based on photos from Ambon). Here are some scraps of designs based on my observations.

I intend to use these, and my collection of photos/images from Bethnal Green, to develop some more studies/design ideas.

Tuesday 20th October

I've spent some time working out what to do with the last piece I posted up on here. It was first at school that I learnt that you can't be too precious about your own work (it helps that i'm not really that pleased/attached to this piece so far) so I decided to bite the bullet and cut it in half. I know it's not finished yet, but I'm not sure what to do with it yet. This is how where I'm at with it so far:

(I'm having an editing problem on blogger - I want the two images to be viewed panaramically (?) ... so they sit next to each other. Imagine them like that.)

editing colour

I've tried editing the colour in the photo. The edited phone defo looks better - which one is most realistic, I don't know. I took the pic in bad lighting.

Nevertheless, it's pointed out that the contrast is certianly important and more successful x

no time to write...

No time to write...

I'm struggling a lot with managing time in terms of working for myself - it's hard to validate time spent on my art. Sometimes I feel like I'm hurting peoply by turning down spending time with them because I choose to work on my art, but if I didn't I'd never get any art done.

It's going to be a squeeze to get 15 hours in this week, which in my mind is the absolute minimum amount of time I want to spend.

Nevertheless, today I squeezed in 4.5 hours and now I'm running late with lots to do. Here is a photo update from the days work:

more to come...