Semester 2 week 9.Photoshop/beach combing.

21st Mar 202223rd Apr 2022 | harussell1

The tree that bleeds.

This week I edited some images from photo’s I had taken at Roslyn country park a few weeks ago.I felt inspired by a scene in Pan’s laberynth where Ofelia climbs inside the dark looking tree where a toad lives with a key in it’s mouth.Mixed with ‘The tree of the dead’ in Sleepy Hollow which of the grave of the ‘Headless horseman’ and contains the bodies of all his victims.I felt that the image of this tree would help piece together some of the story telling in regards to the main character.Prehaps this is where she was tortured and once a year the tree bleeds reminding everyone of her final resting place.The white filter on the tree was my favourite as there is a better contrast with the blood.I also altered the colour of garlic grass surrounding the tree to a black looking mould to add to the feeling of decay.

‘The tree of the dead’ containing the victims of the Headless horseman.

A haunting

I decided to use a couple of filters on some pre-exsisting images taken at Roslyn Country park.I felt that it was quite symbolic the removal of the face as by being silenced she had lost her identity,it also connected with the hole in the tree.This image of the woods at Balgay had red lighting without even a filter being used which I felt was perfect.

Flag

if the hole was even slightly too big then the eyelet would fall through,was a bit of struggle to get it to the right size!

Due to illness,the technician had to cancel the forging of the flag pole for this week but I’m going to try and get booked back in for hopefully next week or the week after.The 4th years have the workshop from the 1st April onwards so hopefully I can get booked in before then!

One of the least patriotic flag making video’s I could find.And the technique seemed the easiest.I drew up a similar design and took it to the technician who agreed.

Found objects

I found the metal looking grill on the beach and decided it would be great to use for weaving

Following on from the binding theme I decided to hang this almost hang man figure to the wall.The split at the bottom of the ropegiving the inanimate object legs and a life of it’s own.

https://youtube.com/shorts/Gj5Sp6IHkVI?feature=share

I travelled to Balmerino again on order to beachcomb.The tide was very nearly in but not quite (I keep wrongly judging the tide times online) so I managed to have a quick rumage and somehow pull this light from the beach which must once upon a time of belonged to a ship.Water had entered the lighbulb and it had little growths on the bulb also which made it all the more interesting!I feel that adding the lightbulb as a found object will give more of a ‘dystophian’ theme as i feel that everything else that i have made is more medevil.

What I imagine was once the end of a wall?

1 to 1 tutorial and written work.

This week I decided to have a 1 to 1 with the amazing Maria Fusco,her advice really pointed out what my work had been missing,a stronger narrative, Maria posed the question; ‘Are we visting The Red Lady or is she visting us?And that since the Red Lady doesn’t have a voice what about visiting one of the locations I have been to and doing some impromptu writing?So I wrote the following;

Underground.

The damp moist leafs.The smell of dirt rich in my nostrils.The smell of pine needles my only relief.

I scream,the birds fly.

These creatures, they reach unbelievable places,

Don’t.

The box is too tight.

But that’s the point, isn’t it?

Discomfort,pain,agony and torture because I felt too much pleasure. I felt too alive and now they want me dead.

My legs are bound. No such thing as wriggle room.

I had too much wriggle room.

My head is caged so they can hear my screams.

They.

Females,women,girls.

And god forbid the animals should cause such a racket.

My face is hot.

The cage is heavy.

I try to kick the top of the box with my bound legs.

Of course, they made it too high.

The creatures itch, they tear at my skin.

I welcome death now,

I demand death now.

But I also demand

HIS.

The Cage.

The cage.The dreaded cage.The cold hard steel weighs heavy on my limbs.My view is partial.

Too many friends,

Too joyus.

He never had any.

I did.

My hands are blue.

I don’t talk now.

My throat is seared with heat.Dry hoarse heat.

This death is too long.

It’s night now.

Or is it?

My hands are heavy.

Pulling.Something is pulling.

Is he coming back for me?

Please don’t.

My ribs, piercing like sharpened daggers straight into my lungs.

The rope is too tight.

Mock me.That’s okay,it reminds me I’m still alive.

I’m cold

My ribs hurt

My hands are heavy

I don’t forget.

We also talked about how my work would be displayed in an exhibition context and how would the red lady visit?By the touching/moving of these artifacts do we bring her alive?Is she upset by changes in her environment? No matter what decade in which they should occur?Maria also suggested that aswell as having the artificats laid out and the video’s playing what if she enters the room and paints on the wall with the twine/straw.The item is then left aswell as the painting telling part of her story and adding to her own personal narrative and Maria also posed the question how would she of been able to paint herself in the other paintings that i had done.How would she know what she looked like?And that prehaps these paintings were best left as records of what happened by locals adding to the story.

1921 – Six characters in search of an author

Maria mentioned the playwright Pirandello Web and his play ‘six characters in search of an author’In this play the characters visit the audience in search of an author to make their characters more ‘complete’Prehaps the Red lady will visit the audience in order for the audience to give her her ‘voice’ by understanding her paintings.

Maria had suggested one of her own pieces of work ‘Master rock’ mainly due to all the different elements that came together to create this ‘experimental drama’ it was interesting to think of all the different narratives combined from the poetry to using the narative of a survivor called a ‘tunnel tiger’ who dug through the mountain and was the only person to survive,to an artistical mural and a musician as the voice of the Master Rock. It made me wonder if prehaps I could bring spoken word back in and prehaps use it over the videos.

Another person mentioned was the writer Ursula K. Le Guin and her science fiction based short stories ‘The Buffalo Girls’ which features a dystophian world and a play which is currently on at the Royal Court.

The play features a woman in a windowless cell in an Asylum in 1863,the audience visits her there where she has no memory of whom she is and becomes the accomplice of a medium who requires a new assistant.Altho I like this narrative I think that it’s all too common that we visit the character and what is expected instead of the character visiting us which changes the whole dynamic.

Semester 2 Week 8 Move for Ukraine/short movies

11th Mar 202222nd Apr 2022 | harussell1

This week was a great week for many reasons,but especially in reguards to the fundraiser.Sunday night a reporter contacted the #Move for Ukraine facebook page from ‘That’s TV Scotland’ asking if one of us would mind giving an interview about the walk.Kristina and Taylor were obviously going to be too busy with the walk and would want to save there phone batteries incase anything were to go wrong.Alyssia was working so I volunteered to do it. It was via zoom and the journalist made it as relaxed and as friendly as possible.I was really nervous but knew that it had to be done to get as much coverage as possible for the cause.

https://www.facebook.com/ThatsTVScotland/

She asked me to send her any photo’s related to the cause and asked me how we came up with the idea,how Kristina was feeling,about her connections to Ukraine and how much we aim to raise etc etc.The interview only lasted about 10/15 minutes but it was enough time to get the point across.

That afternoon I decided to make some art in relation to the project using movement.So i used my feet and hands to create the ukraine flag.I felt that using my feet had an important significance as people had walked 1000’s of miles fleeing the war and i wanted it to represent that.

The left hand side was made using my hands and the right my feet.Altho i liked the ‘swishy’ sea like motion that the blue had made on the left I felt that the flag on the right was more symbolic.

https://youtube.com/shorts/D_dpcsOwYJs?feature=share

https://youtube.com/shorts/9ZeJcIx7C_0?feature=share

Wee blue and yellow bird made by Rachel in my studio.Was unintentially painted the colours of the Ukraine flag and given to me.Thought it would serve as the perfect wee emblem for our project.Birds reflect freedom,flight and most of all movement.

Poster I made for the protest expressing concern at the actions of Putin reflecting Hitler’s.

The girls finally completed there walk around midnight on the Thursday night.Kristina said that they were tired but mostly from not getting a proper night’s sleep due to the cold and that they decided to double up the end of their journey so that they didn’t have to spend another night in a tent.And that they had managed to book a hotel for one night at Burnt Island along the way and that that really helped give them the energy to spur them on.

Rather frustratingly,my toilet decided to leak (yet again) all over my bathroom floor so I wasn’t able to attend the protest which I was really wanted to attend but I heard from the girls that it went well.

Our current amount is sat at £740 so hopefully by the end of the month we will of reached our target if all continues to go well.

This project has turned into something that i would never of imagined and I am so proud at all the hard work put in.I had never met any of the girls prior to this and we have all worked so hard to get the project to where it is at.

Headcage

I like how the cage frames particulary well areas of the face.

This week I did some filming with a friend who is a fellow student.We have been in education together now for a few years and she is an amazing director and films really well so I love having her film my performance pieces.I wanted to display anguish whilst in the head cage but we also realised through trial and error that the filming worked best when the hood was fully up and the cape was tied right up under the chin in order to create more shadow and the hood moved really well particulary in slow motion.

https://youtube.com/shorts/NikBsR5ZMCs?feature=share

I feel that the movie’s work well but that the images alone are more striking.I think i may work on shortening the video’s down even more so that they just consist of a few images.

I grew up watching this music video on repeat as my dad was a big fan of Jean Michel Jarre.I can’t seem to find who the artist was that shot this video but it also was the inspiraton behind the headcage shots altho the Red Lady’s eyes are deffinately more threatening!

Ana Mendieta

Mendieta would often use chicken blood in her work to raise awareness of issues women faced such as domestic abuse and rape.

Joseph Bueys

‘The Pack’ I like the way Bueys has transformed these inanimate objects into looking like living things.

Anselm Keifer

Der Gordische Knoten by Anselm Kiefer. I appreciate the darkness in Kiefers painting and the way he incorpates Norse mythology by marking Runes into his work.I also like the dark textural effect.

‘Field of the cloth of gold’I particulary enjoy Kiefer’s exploration of the tension between beauty and terror which I feel that this painting depicts well and the textural elements.

Mark Dion

I feel that my fascination for beach combing and for curiosities long hidden within nature could be compared with that of Mark Dion’s work.Altho he doesn’t re-purpose the objects as such he stores them more as artefacts but in an artful and interesting way.I suppose this could be something to consider when it comes to displaying my ‘Artefacts’ publicly.

‘The Texas cabinet’ The Texas cabinet actual reminds me of a cabinet within my house where i store alot of curiosities.

Goshka Macuga

From Gondwana to Endangered, Who is the Devil Now?, 2020 Altho this tapestry is based on economical issues mixed with humans portraying animal characteristic as part of the ‘furries’ trend I look the dark dystophian feel to this picture.

Hanna Tuulikki.

‘Deer dancer’ Taking from a performance piece at the Baltic.

I like the way Tuulikki communicates words with movement via her performance pieces and the simple,effective yet symbolic use of costume.

Semester 2 Week 6 What once was lost now was found.

27th Feb 202222nd Apr 2022 | harussell1

Waterless Lithography

I started off this week by finally printing off the symbol I had created onto material.I was advised by the teacher that wetting then drying out the material (untill it was damp) would help the ink to soak into the weave of the cailico creating quite a bold print which is what I was looking for as it went with the bold punky aesthetics.Due to the stiffness of the material it created creases in the final piece which was accidental but I created an aged look which gave it more of the feel of being an artifact.The next phase is to make the pole to attach it to which I plan to forge and use the ‘pineapple twist’ technique for the handle.

image on cotton was much bolder then when it was printed on dry calico,

The offical welding of the headpiece!

Welding the headpiece together cause alot more issues then was first thought.In regards to how it would be welded (this was tricky when trying to attach the inside) Try to bend the circle just right (this required bending it around a plastic pipe with grippers and by hand.And part of the head piece needed to be forged in order to be bent around the plastic piece at the side of the headpiece as due to the fragility of the metal and the plastic it couldn’t be welded together.This took alot of adjustments before it could be put right.It became alot more time consuming then what we initally thought.Luckily the technician found some hoops that he had made for another project and suggested that for my next appointment we just attach them as they were the perfect size and it wouldn’t be a waste of metal.

Decided on a mixture of steel rods and circular steel as if i made it all with the steel rods it would be far too heavy.I plan on making the circular steel rust by spraying it with salt water.

Found artifact #no5.

The welding technician said that he reckoned the top half of the object was once a door hinge.

I wanted to attach the triangular top half of this piece to the rod and knew that welding wouldn’t be an option to the amount of rust on both object and by the metal being too corroded and thin and if i sanded down the metal it would end up coming through due to the fragility of it.So after conversing with the technician we decided the best idea would be to bolt it either with an already rusted bolt or with a new bolt then spray salt water on it in order to rust it.I will need to research the ratio of salt to water because altho i have heard teachers talk about it I have never done it myself.

I want the drawings to tell a story to help viewers piece things together.I want the drawings to look almost primitive/medevil through the use of sticks and finger painting to using ink and fine details.

Aboriginie cave paintings painted in the Northern territory of Australi believed to be 50,000 years old.These paintings depict ceremonies,to ancestrial spirits to animals brought over by the europeans and even drawings of the now extinct Tasmanian tiger.

Medevil ink drawings

Medevil ink drawing.In order to do anythink with ink it first had to be made using quite a labourus process which included cutting down boiling hawthorn.It was also quite matriculous because if it wasn’t boiled down in the right way it couldn’t be used.I don’t know if I would have the patience to use this process but in this modern day we luckily have lots of other alternatives.

The red lady ft the white lady

I was introduced by a fellow classmate to Balgay Park.I knew nothing of the history of the park and the cemetry and it wasn’t untill I got home and had posted some photo’s to my art instagram that a friend told me that the ‘white lady’ supposedly haunts the bridge that lays between the cemetry and the woods.It turns out that there are many stories about the white lady,but one thing that is agreed upon is that she was a beautiful lady,a beautiful lady torn apart by grief,after her lover tragically dies she throws herself from the bridge in despair.In other stories she hangs herself and another tale is that a wicked witch living on the other side of the bridge in a hut on the cemetry side throws her from it and that you can still hear her screams to this day and see the dent in the rock where her head hit.The rumour is that if you ever cross the bridge at night you will meet the same fate as the white lady.Ledgend also has it that if you run over the bridge backwards and forwards 12 times on the night of hallloween that she will appear.

I found it rather ironic that I found this location the perfect location not only to place objects that belong to the red lady but prehaps to also film whilst knowing nothing of the ledgend of the white lady.

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is wp-1646295209415919960699852202409.jpg — I felt that this was an appropriate place to place this object as prehaps the white lady was unhappy at her surroundings being cut down so let this as a warning?

Placed beside an old grave waiting to have the trigger pulled…

I feel that this will be the perfect next location for filming.I didn’t realise how many red tones there were with the leaves untill after I had taken the shot.I love the exposed tree roots and the way the light falls.

Mothmeister.

An artist I have become quite interested in latley is Mothmiester who is a collab of two artists from Belgium who create grotesque post mortem style fairy tale characters who often come complete with a stuffed animal and a variety or curiosities from their own private collection.I love the darkness of these characters and how they go against the fairy tale ‘norm’.

As a child I allways loved darkfariy tales like the Grimms brothers and Mothmiester reminds me of them.

Another source of inspiration that is allways at the back of my mind from my childhood is Queen Mombie from ‘The return to Oz’ Her stare,poise and voice were allways very powerful and literally terrified me as a child yet drew me in as I allways wanted to watch more!And altho I don’t plan on my character speaking there is alot to be said as I found out during my crit about the power of the stare,my friends mother would only have to glare at us and tighted her jaw and this was more frightening then words alone.

My plan next week if I get a chance between the group project is to film myself screaming inside the headcage when it is made.I wanted it to be filmed in slow mo and silent almost like the Sirus Black Azkaban prison shot in Harry Potter

Semester 2 week 5 Tools and Ghouls.

18th Feb 202220th Feb 2022 | harussell1

This week I was working between a mixture of disaplines (my favourite thing to do) I started off the week by learning another skill in forging which was to ‘draw out the metal’ in order to make a small spade like tool.I felt that it worked well with my theme and provided another ‘artifact’

In order to make the flat end the metal had to be ‘drawn out’ by heating then hitting the metal from the top to the bottom of the heated section.The metal then had to be hit hard on the edge of the axel in order to create the ridge. The bottom half was also made by drawing out the metal and tapping the metal whilst rotating it on the axel and the twist (which is allways my favourite part) was made by simply heating the metal and twisting with a vice before brushing it over with a golden bristled brush for added effect.

For some reason my wrist and fingers were really hurting with the hitting that day.I blamed it on not using my favourite hammer but the technician told me this wasn’t true.I also prefer to use a lighter hammer as otherwise it puts too much strain on my wrist and I only have tiny wrists.The technician said that not everyone is built for forging and that if it hurts too much it’s ok to stop.But as they say ‘Mumma didn’t make no quitter’ haha

I decided to start the waterless lithography process for making a flag with the symbol on it. The process was deffinatley alot more then I expected and very meticulous.The process deffinately wasn’t as long as the foundry one tho.First the plates had to be cleaned with acetone,then scrubbed twice (with a liquid i think had silicon in it),rinsed and then a liquid applied which had a mixture of wheel cleaner and silicon in it before being dried off with newsprint before the design got painted on.I decided to use light washed down toner on one sheet and undiluted toner on another and a layer of silone with white spirits applied.The sheets then had to be left to dry over night before booking another session.I then had to use a heat gun on the design so that it would set into the aluminum sheet.To start with I didn’t have the heat gun close enough so the design hadn’t set and then i had it too close and the heat had travelled back up the gun causing smoke to billow out! (apparently this has never happened before) the gun had to be left at an open window to cool down!

Once the ink was rolled up I then applied the ink by rolling it on I then put the design under the electric roller.It was interesting experimenting with more and less ink just to see how the final design would turn out.It was also hard sometimes to apply enough pressure so the ink would mark the plate showing up on the paper.I did lots of practice prints on newsprint.I was advised by the teacher to maybe go smaller on the design next time as it was too big for the paper and mounting board and would mark the sheet. There seemed to be a small part of the print missing on sheet i liked the most which may of been due to missing that section with the heatgun.The technician advised that waterless lithography would never be perfect and at some stage you just have to come to terms with what you have.But I find that really hard to do unless it is a ‘happy accident’ and i like the end result. Luckily as a back up I painted with acrylic onto some transfer paper the design but due to time limitations I have had to book another session next to do that in.

Image painted with acyrilic onto transfer paper.

Next week I aim to try printing with the transfer paper and maybe try printing onto cloth and seeing how it goes.I can feel my impatience kicking in as I feel deperate to see the design as a flag allready but printing requires alot of patience which hopefully I will slowly learn that patience can pay off and results aren’t allways going to be instant but something that can slowly be worked on in time.