Over the summer holidays I have been inspired by working in orkney and visting not only skara brae but excavation sites,cairns,ancient graveyards and other such oddities.What interested me more then anything was the objects from these sites that could not be explained.What were they?Nobody seemed to know but rough guesses were they were used for some kind of games.
An excavation site where three layers of settlements were found,medevil,victorian and modern day!An ‘uncertain mess’ of trawlers nets mixed with other pollution.Nortland Castle on Westray Islandan old combine harvester discovered in an old abandoned barnhouseSkara Brae,one of the oldest Neolithic sites in the world.A discovery of strange findings outside some kind of strange house on Hoy island called ‘Charlumpa’an instalation I made from the bones of a bird I found in Hoy.An unkown item burnt out.Remaining parts of a sunk submerine fron the museum in Hoy.Limpet growths from the once submerged submarine window
I also visited Crete for a week before i returned to uni and visited the palace of knossos.One of the oldest discovered palaces.What particualry intersted me was not only the paintings which would of been done super quick whilst the plaster was drying but the vast amount of findings which had been stored at the Herakilion museum such as clay objects with there arms risen up in a cult like worship,giant burial vases one which showed the skelton still inside it.A board game with the rules unknown.I realised that it wasn’t what was known that interested me but what wasn’t.Which is what give me such a morbid obsession with death because there is so much that is unknown in regards to after we die but the greeks has such a fascination with it that they made up a whole universe and characters that would look after you after death such as Thanatos who would come to carry you off when your time given by the fates had expired.Objects made to look like this god were also to be found in this museum.
A burial vase.Believed to be clay utensils for liquid with a double spout.But I love how eerie they lookOne of my favorite figures due to how ominous it was without it’s head.
Returning to uni I found it really hard to get into the swing of things so decided to help inspire myself and my morbid curiosity that i would take myself to Surgeons Hall (a place i have never visted even after 10 years of living in Edinburgh) it was extemely worth a vist with miles and miles of basicaly body parts in phthalimide that had either suffered certain fates or had a tumour/disase,tumor,bones and other such items of morbid curiosities.Unlike the Greek/neolithic findings there was much known about these findings.Photo’s weren’t allowed for the obvious reason of the items being body parts but sketches were. One item I found particualry interesting as random as it may seem was the rib sternum in particular the shape it inspired me and made me think of what a wonderful headpiece the shape of the sternum would make,I thought of this,the god Thanos and prehaps an alternate surreal universe where a cult of white clothed figures lived,the leader where the rib sternum as a had piece.
Rib sternum headpiece imagined.Sketch of Rib sternum without ribs attached.
After recently having watched ‘Keep sweet:Pray and obey’ I thought of how all the morman women were required to dress the same.Same hairstyle,clothing etc within a particular sect a polygamous Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, an offshoot of mainstream Mormonism.The women were required to do a dance infront of the men in order to ‘keep them sweet’ and what if this particular cult of white clothed figures did the same.
Female Morman’s dressed in cerimonial white after the death of their leader Warren S Jeffs.
Female mormans of this particular off branch were expected to have their hair styled in one of four particular ways aswell as a certain dress code.
A world where nothing is quite understood we can only guess,a world of darkness,mystery,weirdness and alure.I felt that last semesters work was too dark and heavy and it made me miss the light surreal tones of the semester before.So I feel like moving forward I wanted to mix the best of both worlds altho I haven’t yet worked out if i want there to be a serious message behind this cult (prehaps about removal of female identity?) or just completely nonsensical but this will be something that i imagine will come to light as I work further through the project.
My first stop tho is to make the rib sternum into a headpiece.My first consideration is whether or not I should first make a maquette from card or not and how much of the rib sternum I want to make,do i want the ribs included or just the sternum?Should i make a maquette of both and which would have most impact?
After painting out one of the creatures in black ink I felt that it would transfer really well into waterless lithography which is a technique i tried out last year due to the bold and gestural paintmarks.
The white voile sheet i hope to cover myself in is inspired by Loie Fuller.I hope to experiment with movement and light when I am within the voile.
sewed together piece of the rib sternum of prepared scrunch brown packaging paper with black ink,An imagining of the cult together dancing.
Tomorow i have a visit to the Hawkhill museum college and hope to take sketches of further odditities particualry from the pathology department to add to my research collection.
This week was mostly about tying up loose ends in regards to video work and looking at how I could pull all my work together and display it for assessment.
Firstly,I decided to add some music over both edits of the Red Lady and the flag combo.I decided to use music that gave the feeling of tension with a beat that seemed to echo that of a heartbeat as I felt that it was important that the viewer felt the tension and fear that the red lady feels.The swishing had a space-like feel which I felt added to the dystophian feel behind it.
The Halloween edit gave more of a creepy vibe then the tension I was seeking but being a sucker for a baseline I decided to make this edit anyway as i felt like the flash imagery worked well with the beat.
Collaboration
I got asked by a fourth year Claire Gamble if I would want to collaborate with her in a photoshoot which would be shot by a local photographer (Lydia Smith Dundee) as she was making viking styled jewlery and thought it would be a great idea to incorperate the Red Lady’s asthetics with it.So I modeled holding an old book with jewlery on it,a challice with earings in it and a stuffed crow on a branch with jewlerry hanging from the branch.There was a white mark which had appeared on the hood of the cloak which Claire tried to remove with a wet wipe which ended up leaving a wet mark on the hood which the photographer wasn’t happy about.It was decided to tie a shoulder throw made from crow feather around the hood area.I agreed to this altho it doesn’t particualry go with my aethetic.Upon viewing the photo’s afterwards i realised it looked more like hair and I can’t say i was a fan of it but these photo’s were to be used by Claire for her degree work mostly so I didn’t say anything and luckily the wet hood dried for the ‘in character’ shots that I did. I particulary like some shots that were done using red lighting and the ones which were up close to my eyes are it looked like I was going to cry (but really I just had hayfever eyes that day haha).Sadly the photo’s are not yet availible so i’m not able to post them to the blog but hopefully in the future they will be so that I can add them here.
Displaying for assessment.
It’s difficult to get a real perspective from this photo alone but I had originally envisioned having the head cage up on a plynth as I felt that it was a very important part of the story so I wanted to draw attention to it but I felt that it would distract from any other found items/sculptures I also found that the other pynths weren’t long enough for the other items particulary the long spear shaped found item.A class mate suggested turning the longer plynth on it’s side.I liked this idea height wise because it instantly makes the audience member crouch down and therefore starts to get them actively ‘involved’The table was too basic
Dirt!I decided that why not involve the audience member in what I found most exciting,which was a huge part of the process and also part of the story an archaelogical dig/found items
Digging style tool used by Archaeologists which has a similar shape to the digger tool that I forged
I decided to merge alot of the strong ideas together for the final assesment piece.I took Maria Fusco’s advice and filmed a performance piece where the Red Lady appears and leaves her mark and tell’s her story by making cave-like paintings.I felt that it was important to partially use natural colourings due to the Red Lady’s surrounding being the woods, so I mixed the compost used for the dig in a little water and used a mixture of sticks and an electric cable to paint the images I also mixed the red paint with compost water to give it a darker grungier tone.I also used the cable to scratch in some detail to show frustration,anger and a feeling of being on edge.It also helped with the primitive feel.
I felt that the reverb of the door slamming went well with the reverb present in the music.I wanted the movement of the red lady painting herself to be almost as if she was praying and moving in a hypnotic motion.
The image on the right is her abusive husband warning her not to meet or gossip with others.Gossiping and singing with friends.This is my favourite image due to the simplicity.The blood Robots have arrived sent by her busband to kill her by draining her of her blood which helps keep their lights bright and the rest of the village.Instead of painting over it i decided to use the coffee stain on the plynth as the full moon which powers ‘the tree that bleeds’Unbeknown to the blood robots the Red lady’s spirit is eternalised due to the eternal powers of the blood from the tree that bleeds she is also given able to time travel.Kerpowww!The red lady is back to seek revenge on her husband,men and to warn women of the past and what is to come so that history stops repeating itself.
The red lady then uses her time traveling powers to travel through different decades leaving items and hints at what is to become the future for women if they don’t act now.
“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum”
(Don’t let the bastards grind you down) (Margret Atwood 1985)
The handmaids tale has played a huge part in this project I think more subconciously then conciously as I am a big fan of the books and TV series. Something that has echoed in my mind is that in the second book ‘The Testaments’ there is a chapter where many decades on into the future diaries are found written by Ofred which then become artifiacts as the historians try to piece together what happened and I like to think that about the ‘unknown artifacts’ left by the Red Lady as people try to piece together what these items are and where they have come from.
I have been following a facebook group for a while called ‘Remebering the accused witches of Scotland’ which is a petition which has been started to get the goverment to issue a public apology for the hanging of scottish witches. I found that this radio programme discussed the issue in more depth.
Also the fact that woman are still being painted as ‘witches’ in today’s society should they be too outspoken.So really how much has changed?Particulary in the sense of abortion laws being brought back into states in America by states either goverend by ‘christian’ males or ‘christian’ females but more often then not males. This is why I felt that it is important that the narrative that the red lady is trying to tell is that the past is going to repeat itself in the future if the change doesn’t happen now.I feel like the rust on the items particualary the headcage ties in with these ‘age old’ laws and ways of thinking.And yes,some of the items may look medevil but it is a physical representation of age old laws making a revival.
This article lists the states which have banned abortions.A woven piece of wood which looks like a vagina a symbol of the female being entrapped and restrained.The piece of card with the red paint was initally used to paint off of during the performance piece and the test piece that i did on lining paper but I felt was a strong piece in it’s resemblence of bloodshedI wanted some of the prints to look like little gifts from the red lady to the audience to enable to give us little clues of her past.Final resolved display.
I think I am mostly happy with the resolved display altho I would of liked use of the projectors so that I could of had my video work of the red lady and the flag displayed over it. As this is an important part of my work but I understand that projectors are prioritized to fourth years at this time of the year.I also wish I had more space so that things could be laid out a bit better but hopefully that oppertunity will come in maybe third year and hopefully fourth year. But I feel like all in all I have used all media’s to the best of my ability and tried to pull them all together along with the performative and story-telling aspect.I hope that the audience are able to participate and feel a sense of excitement,thrill,horror but also take into consideration the more serious undertones.
I feel like my creative journey to get to this stage has been a bumpy yet exciting ride,I am firstly super glad that I differed so that i was able to use the workshops and really draw them into my practice. I have learnt alot of new skills through them which I hope to take into my future practice. Secondly, I have learnt the importance of a strong narrative from speaking to Maria Fusco which had a really strong impact on my work as I felt like the narrative had to many loopholes and was too ‘lost’ prior to speaking to her.I feel like the mixture of story telling with the feminist undertones has relayed real problems that are still current for women in today’s society.
This week,I started to look over some of the found objects that i had found and how i could display and put them together.I also looked at how some of the found objects relayed with others and how they could be combined.
The lightbulb was half filled with water that never seemed to come out.I felt like finding this object was a breakthrough moment (even if it was later on in the term as it gave the project the dystophian feel I had been hoping for but for some reason I had found myself lost without realising it using materials that only suggested a medevil era such as steel,rusted objects and natural objects.This has been a complete learning curb for me and has taught me to consider the use or materials in regaurds to the narrative of the story/project more in the future.I liked the way in which the objects fitted togetherCurious unknown artifactsI wanted to attach this object so that it would stand but due to the rust i wouldn’t be able to weld in,I tried superglue and the rust just peeled off.I realised I have a bit of an obsession not only with this auburn colour which may be why I am so obssesed with anything rusty.Twine became the only option for attaching the two items together
The Blood robots
After finding the lightbulb I felt that this helped draw in the dystophian influence and it also made me think of an Angler fish ,I decided what would happen if I mixed this with a robot? The edwards sciccor hands syle blades are hollow and draw the blood from people which in turn fuels the light bulb and also fuels the light within the town.
The mouth was also inspired by the Angler fish.
The blades were inspired by Edward Scissorhands.
Giant bomb inspired the tank in the stomach that fills with blood.
The making of the flag pole
To the right are two samples of the twist and a diagram showing me when i would need to twist.I twisted the wrong way at one point.OOPS! But we made it equal by twisting it the same way at both ends.Eyelets for the flagpole were forged and then welded on at both sides.Flag eyelets were a nightmare to keep in the material.But aslong as it attached I didn’t mind too muchMeasurements were very important to makesure the handle was at arm height and the eyelets attached to the flagpole were the right distance for the flag.The flag measured 302cm in total so quite a distance!The handle was brushed with a gold brush a technique I have used throughout.I liked the uredescent glow the handle had.
Something I should of done prior to making the flagpole was measure inside my car as the flagpole proved to be too long for it,so I had to take it back to the workshop and remove a good 20cm.The technician suggested making an extension so that it could still resume to it’s original height.I did this by welding a bigger squarer pieces of metal to a smaller piece enabling the flagpole to just slip inside of it.Altho this was a great idea at the time it just seemed to make the flag pole to ‘top heavy’ and removing the extension from the bottom of the flag pole made it less so.It was also really difficult to get the right kind of soil for it to stand in.The soil was either to hard or too soft.It managed alot better with the harder soil altho it took a while to pitch it into the ground.
Flagpole extension.Bottom Half slides onto the rest of the flag pole and acts as an extension (it also meant the flagpole could fit into the car)
A slow motion edit of the flag up Law hill.The wind was super strong that day and the flag pole had to be held up towards the end and the flag started to tear out of the eyehole it was that strong so I had to hold the flag pole and the flag after a while.
This shot I felt was particulary powerful due to the way it caught the sun right in the middle of the eye symbol.I choose Balgay park to film this part in as I had allready scouted out this particular area last time I was there and noticed that the lighting was amazing at that time of day and how it made the leaves look red and how eerie the trees looked.I only edited the warmth slightly in this shot along witht he contrast as the sun was doing most of it for me.Sadly tho due to how loose the earth was and the fact it was on a hill I wasn’t able to get the flagpole to free stand.
Different edit where by I enhanced the blue of the sky and the warmth of the flag more so.I felt like doing this gave the sky much more of a dystophian/outer worldly feel.
I decided to overlay the Red lady with the movement of the flag as I was interested in how the material of the flag would move with the cloth of the hood.I also wanted the symbol on the flag to tie in with her torment and torture.I have just kept the orginal sound in for this video as there seems to be a scream in the background without it even being purposeful.Altho I have wanted the video’s to be soundless I may experiment with some with sound too.
This edit uses a slightly warmer tone and did’t turn out quite as condensed as the first one (I’m still trying to work out what I did differently it may be due to how I exported it).All in all I’m really pleased with how both of these have turned out and I think is amongst my most sucessful piece so far.
Just lately I have been watching the Andy Warhol diaries on Netflix.What I found particulary interesting from this doccumentary is that few people really knew Warhol as his personality was part of an act and a persona and most of all part of his art.I liked the fact that this doccumentry wasn’t another run of the mill doccumentry about his work but rather a deeper and darker look into Warhol himself via his diary entries.It made me think about ‘The Red Lady’ and how much of a cross over there is between my personality and hers.I think we certainly share the same strength of character.
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.
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.
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.
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
Ana Mendieta liked to work with the four elements and created this piece as she felt that she had been torn from her homeland and wanted to feel the body to earth connection again. Altho her theme is very different to mine I admire the symbolic qualities of her work.Particulary the use of red in the top left and bottom middle photo,it really adds a darker context to the work and is simple yet captures your attention.I also find it slightly ironic that the top left and bottom middle photo look like that of a murder scene and the and the artist fell to her death from a 33rd floor window of her apartment (it is thought that she was pushed by her husband)Prehaps she predicted this through her art?
Mendieta would often use chicken blood in her work to raise awareness of issues women faced such as domestic abuse and rape.
Joseph Bueys
I can’t say I believe in the ethics of Joseph Bueys work as it seems rather ‘show off’ in terms of how much he must of spent on particulary the exhibition I Like America and America Likes Me (performance, 1974) by not stepping foot on american soil.Using a plane then an ambulance to get to where he needed to go.I do like the fact that he used being a shaman as part of his work practice and how performance particualary in this exhibiton was mixed between his natural state and symbolic shamanic gestures.It made me consider how this could possibly influence my work in reguards to mixing the every day with the performance itself.
‘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 libary for the birds of London’
‘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.
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.
Scold’s Bridle which I viewed in the Mcmanus Gallery.A drawing made with sticks of the head cage derived from the Scold’s bridle.I wanted the painting to look almost primative and that it had prehaps been etched onto a wall or painted into a story book I used brown paper to help heighten this effect.I think I may use this effect to story tell with images.
I bound together the straw and willow branch with plaited twine.I felt like this was almost ritualistic and needed to be done as part of the process.The object was bound together which is a popular practice within witchcraft in order to protect someone or something.The object had ambiguity in working wel not only as a sculpure but also as a prop and painting tool.
I felt that the action of binding with the straw fit in quite well with a couple of the reasons witches may do binding. Particulary ‘controling a person’s behaviour,thoughts or emotions’
I then flicked the branch up and down in the paint before using it to paint the image of the red lady on the wall.The image looked as if it had been drawn with bloody nails and even the red paint that the straw lay in had a gory looking after effect to it.
I felt that this image worked well to represent the ghostly yet ghouly image of the red lady that would of been etched into every child and women’s head.‘Forever watching,forever waiting’
I deffinately felt that my work connected rather well with Cy Twombly’s lines.I thought it would maybe interesting to hand the things I make from the beach onto this tree.Oink!Found the marking on this piece of rock really interestingThe door to the abbey.A place where i hope to do potential filming I just need to find someone to film!Thought there was something really haunting about these lines as they reminded me of nail marks and the Cy Twomby painting above.Sadly these parts of the Abbey aren’t structurely safe enough to walk amongst.My favourite two findings are the rusted stick and rusted shape heart, I feel like they are just screaming to be welded together!!I wonder what they belonged to originally?
This week I focused on more character development for whom I have now called ‘The red lady’I focused on a series of angry faces but reflecting back I think I need to add more menacing like what is seen in the short video I have made.
I experimented with a series of different ways of doing the eye make-up.Two eyes?One eye?Drawn with a brush?Drawn with fingers?I found that altho having one eye painted on worked well in the video as it exsagerrated that eye as I flew towards the camera and my hair covered the rest of my face.The primative look of the smeared on black snazeroo had a real viking feel to it and made the cahracter seem alot darker.
Favourite shot as I love how the crinkles in the corner of the eye causes themake-up to flicker up at the corners.
It is known that the vikings only wore make-up on their eyes,this was called Kohl and mainly made from a mix of antimony,burnt almonds,lead,oxidized copper,ochre,ash,malachite and chyrsocolla.
My future plan is to print a couple of these off using the printing suite for some good quality images (as the libary prints that i did were quite poor) and to hire a black and white film camera to take a couple of images with that too.As i think these would do well blown up.I also want to take a couple in the area where the lecture halls are in DJCAD as i feel like it has quite a dystophian feel which goes along quite nicely with my character.
Forging.
This week in the forging class I worked on something called a ‘pineapple twist’.This is achieved by heating the metal untill yellow and the scales are lost then squaring off the sides with a hammer.It was a very time pressured activity tho as I then had to take what looked like a wallpaper scraper and hammer it in the middle of each side untill it caused a groove.I had to hammer it into the same groove each time so if it had moved whilst hit i had to reposition it.I had to work alot on my hammering skills before I could do this tho as my hammering wasn’t as hard as it needed to be but once I got to making the twist my hammering was spot on which was really rewarding.The technician had said he wouldn’t judge me if i wanted to focus more on the metal work side of things but this was the worst thing he could of said because then I had to prove to him (and myself) that i could do it haha.My lines were straight (ish) but not bang on.I then had to twist the metal in the vice one way and then do it all over again then twist it the other.The results were alot better then expected for a first timer and it showed up quite well once i brushed it with the gold brush.I would like to go back and practice it again tho so that i can get the lines straighter.
You can see towards the left hand side where the scraper didn’t reach into the groove well enough.
A better view of the whole handle.Prehaps the is a likable touch to the almost primative quality of the handle not being quite ‘perfect’Last year during lockdown I climbed into the ruins of a fenced off castle on the east coast on a liff ledge (urban exploring is one of my favourite past times) and found what looks like an ancient poker.The technician reckons it has been in the sea at one point due to the sand-like crustaceans living on it.I don’t want to alter this object (mostly because I’m worried it will be worth money) but I would like to use it in some way as a prop.I may experiement with different ways it can be used.
Woven Sculpture
I found this piece of wood whilst filming in the forest which I felt was very vulva like.To start with i imagined it in some kind of choker (but it was a bit to death defying) haha.Then it just made sense to weave it into (what was originally) a bin lid (found in the forest whilst filming too).My future plan is to make the lid into some kind of trap/shield so I may take this apart again as I realise how important it is not to be attached to work so that it can be developed further.I also would quite like to try and make the wood into a headpiece.
Placed this experiment over the photo and realised it would look really interesting as a mask.Considered this piece to cover the mouth following on from the story that she was silenced by her husband but I feel that it looks to Hannibal Lecter!I decided to write out ‘The red lady is watching you’ as if it was written in blood with my fingers.But the piece was too big to fit anywhere.I love the sweeping gestural yet creepy effect of the writing.I may put it up in the corridoor..
I was inspired by Richard Ramirez’s satanic blood symbols that he would write using his victims blood.Apparently due to the oxysidisation of the blood once it is outside of the body it remains bright for a long period of time.
I had initally planned on filming myself walking throught the woods and disapearing at various points the re-appearing.But when filming it my friend who was filming said that you could really see any of the detail of the props/eye make-up when we were doing this. and that it would work better if i was coming towards the camera especially due to the way the light was hitting and nicely bouncing off of the headpiece I felt that i wanted to take advantage of that with some more closer to camera filming.My regret is that i didn’t get my friend to film horizontally for the shot.
I decided that i wanted the film to be grainy as I remember watching the new I.T at the cinema and being terrified of the scene where the scene in the book comes alive and it had a grainy quality to it and this is how i wanted this to seem that it had come straight out of an old horror book/scene.I wanted the image to be silent like a silent movie but I decided that the slow mo sounds were quite creepy within themselves.I do want to try a variation of other edits tho with and without music this week.
There doesn’t seem to be an awful lot of information about female warriors/tribes of the past (prehaps because the history books were mostly written by men)
But I particualry enjoyed reading about the wrath of Tomyris the queen of the Massaegetae and the vengeful way of which she waged war aganst the Persian King Cyrus the Great
‘…she took a skin, and, filling it full of human blood, she dipped the head of Cyrus in the gore, saying, as she thus insulted the corpse, “I live and have conquered you in fight, and yet by you am I ruined, for you took my son with guile; but thus I make good my threat, and give you your fill of blood.”
There are matriachal societies which exsist today such as the Minangkaubau in Indonesia where by the mothers and daughters pass down the family name and claim the inheritance etc.
Zadie Xa
A fellow class mate had told me to look at the work of Zadie Xa as her work corresponds to some of my character work.
I appreicate her mixture of discaplines and there is something to be said about how she used the space around her during her exhibitions.Altho her visual asthetic is more playful then mine.
This week was a busy week,inductions and my very first face to face crit since coming back!
But first of all we’ll start off with the Blacksmithing induction.
My intial idea was to make a shaman’s staff but it turned out that that idea was a little too adventurous. First of all we took some industrial metal rods and cut them up,We then filed the sharp edges off ready for heating up in the machine (of which I have forgotten the name)The rod slid into the machine but wasn’t able to touch to sides of the coil it went into otherwise you may be given an electric shock so the teacher had made a stand to use so that you could easily slide the metal into the machine.
This machine was used to remove any sharp edges on the metal.The metal must be held at either a 45 degrees angle or straight against it so that it didn’t get caught and fly from your hands.The machine used for heating the rod up.All of the grey scale from the metal must be gone and the metal must be yellow in colour before the metal is ready to be hammeredThe axel is what is used to lay whatever your hammering onto.In order to add the twist the metal but be clamped into the vice then clamped again and twisted.Depnding on how tight or how far you twisted the metal effected the final outcome of the lines!If the stick was slighly out of shape a cow hide hammer which is softer would help mould it back into shape.This was best done not when the metal had returned to it’s grey colour but still hot.The stick must be kept close to the leg and when hammering you must hold the hammer from the middle because as I found out,if you don’t it strains your wrist and makes everything much harder work then it allready is!In order to achieve the tip the metal must be continously hit from a certain angle whilst the metal is rolled to make sure all angles are equal.I found this very difficult to achieve especially within the time limit of trying to do it before the metal cooled again.As you can see the angle is still slightly off but not too bad for a first try.The gold tip was created simply by using a metal brush with gold coated steel wire on it which then transfered onto the mental when brushed with it whilst still hot.
Altho the idea was initatlly to make a shaman’s staff I feel that it was important to get the technique right first before trying anything more adventurous plus I ended up making an interesting looking arrow/wand which really isn’t too bad at all!
So for my crit this week I decided to use a performance art technique which I had seen used in the past.I told the handful of people in my crit to sit on the floor and i had choosen a spot in which to put a chair with the symbol i had choosen for my character above it.I went and put on my head piece and retrieved the arrow whilst letting suspense grow.I had also painted the symbol on my eye and was wearing the red cloak.
The feedback was what I was hoping to achieve,so therefore i felt that the crit was sucessful.Some of the feedback was as follows; ‘I hated it,I felt as if I was loosing my nerve.’ (this was from the woman whom squirmed) haha.
‘Sitting on the floor felt like being in a position of weakness,I felt small and un-nerved’
‘The symbol had an egyptian feel and made you look almost like a Spynx’
‘Thou shall not pass’
‘Dystophian,handmaids tale’
‘Alien like’
‘Plague mask’
‘Make-up very sci-fi,should of disapered mid way through someone elses crit and came back with it on’
‘It went from a fanciful fairytale to scifi’
‘Was wondering if there was going to be a speach’
‘Noise brought you back into the room’
It was suggested that i could also of used the staff/wand/arrow to point at different people.
In the future I could do a performance piece within the uni where I jump out on people.
Piece was reminiscent of Marina Abramovic where she sits and stares individually at each person who ques to sit infront of her.
I felt that personally I got the reaction that i wanted from the audience but as the tutor said it would of been interesting to see if i could of held composure should people of not of had their masks on.Which made me wonder how the people I saw do it how they managed.What did they think of?
I think i do want to use the staff as part of the act in the future as I feel that this character should remain silent and reaction should be caused by her movement and eye contact.Part of her back story is that she was tortured for being a tale tale and not allowed to speak so she inserts her control using other methods.I allways remember growing up that when me and my friend had been up to mischief her mum wouldn’t even say anything she would just give us a look that was more scornful and terrifying then a telling could possibly ever be and that it the kind of power that i want this character to purvey.
I don’t know how confident i feel about staring at people within the uni.I suppose within an art school environment your pretty safe but it’s deffinately not something I would want to try in public.I feel that i am happy to perform in a space that has been organised to perform in and I am interested in making short films but that is it.Ofcourse the publics reaction is allways going to be more interesting but there is also nothing more unpredictable or volatile then the general public and having worked with them for many years I wouldn’t feel safe,I mean after all a member of the public held a handgun to Marina Abramovics head when he was given the opertunity so anything is possible.
Is there anything more powerful then a stare?The eyes are the windows to our souls after all.
Lazercutting and Lino printing
I found lazercutting alot more technical then I thought it would be.I really struggle with anything technical due to my dyspraxia.I have a short term memory because of this and because there are so many instructions with anything digital/technical i get lost really easily and have to keep asking the tutor to repeat themselves.I still really enjoyed the process especially how unpredictable the end image is.I felt that my image turned out closer to the original image then anyone elses did as there’s were alot more detailed then mine.The small dots made by the lazer gave it a real pop art feel.It was difficult to get the esact right amount of ink on the lino cut (i have in the past put too much) and then when i got the right amount i managed to get a flek of ink in the middle of the symbol.It’s also difficult to get the print straight on the paper.But practice makes perfect and prints are deffinately something I want to take further in my work so I am currently in the process of booking an induction with the main print workshop.
Sandcasting.
Sandcasting was such a long and complex process,again alot longer then I thought it would be.The technician advised me that the process would normally be done over a couple of days but due to the restrictions and class sizes it now has to be done in a day.
The biscuits were first glued to a board of sorts,had a special kind of sand with oil in it added then a cast was made of that before the boards were drilled together and the liquid bronze poured in.Before this could happen tho it had to reach a certain temparture. (this was checked regulary by using a probe)The liquid travelled down the funnels made in the sand down to where the biscuit casts were.
The biscuits casts were then sanded down to get rid of the rough edges before being sandblasted.They were then taken to be painted using a certain paint that needed to be applied by using the heat of a welding gun.I choose to go for emerald green and magenta/blue.The biscuits then had waxed applied and were polished to bring closer attention to detail.
Before the paint and polishAfter the paint and polishThe outcome was deffinately worth the wait but I just don’t think I could see myself using the foundry in the future.I found the process far too time comsuming.Maybe it has something to do with my very short attention span but I like to work on serval things at the same time and sandcasting doesn’t really allow time for that and what if you go through such a long process just for the outcome not to be what you expected?!?I am glad however that I gave it a try.Nothing ventured nothing gained.
And for my next trick..
This weekend I plan on making a black and white silent movie in the woods.It will involve the character pacing amongst the trees and disapearing from one area then re-appearing in the next.I also have an idea for the character screaming at the camera in a silent rage.I would like to experiment with different music and sound in the background.(Hopefully I can get some asistance from the i.t lab with this)I like the thought of white noise playing whilst she screams but these things don’t allways turn out quite as you expect. This weekend I plan on making a black and white silent movie in the woods.It will involve the character pacing amongst the trees and disapearing from one area then re-appearing in the next.I also have an idea for the character screaming at the camera in a silent rage.I would like to experiment with different music and sound in the background.I like the thought of white noise playing whilst she screams but these things don’t allways turn out quite as you expect.
I have found myself becoming inspired by a mixture of different cultures,from witchcraft,to shamans to ancient egyptians to vikings!I think mainly because all these things have allways interested me.So it makes sense that i bring all these elements to my work.Oh and the more morbid the better.My Mum was allways worried about my obsession with The Return to Oz as a kid because I especially loved the part where the queen could choose a different head to wear from all the heads she had cut off and I guess my morbid frame of mind has continued ever since!
Objects bound in a banishment spell.
The aesthic,style and strength of a viking woman has allways been something to be admired..I want to bring parts of this into my character and the development.
I find the egyptian eye make up quite inspirational and also the power of the female queens.
I have also started to wonder if the warrior like/strongness of the character has become my alter ego.The strong part of me that has prehaps carried me throught the last few months and prehaps even the last few years.
I’m baaaaaack!And damn it feels good,after a turbulent nearly a year of being homeless,working in Orkney untill I found my feet again I have deffinately come back very reformed and very ready/eager for this semester to begin.
Because I had spent so long ‘out of the game’ it was hard to know where to start.So what better place to start then my blog itself.Looking back on my most previous post I occured and onimous hooded character who never had a chance for the character or costume to develop (certainly not technically anyway so I decided to start there.
I got so excited to start using the workshops that I imediately drew up a plan to make the bone mask into a metal mask and started off by looking at the shapes within the mask and making it more abstract so that it would work more effectively in metal,I also love the process cycle (i think that’s what it’s called) and how and object can change when made using different materials.
Original Bone headpiece using a birds breast bone and skullOmninous character,headpiece could also be flipped.Could the same effect happen using metal?
I decided that the shape made by the breast bone would work more effectively if this shape was cut into the metal.I decided that it would all be made using sheet metal.
I talked over what the process would be with the welding technician,I wanted to individually weld together individual sheets of metal to make the headband to be in keeping with the asthetics of the original piece but we soon realised it would be much easier to just bend a piece of thin metal to the size of my head.(A very big measurement due to my alien sized head)
Used a bucket to bend the metal around then hand clamps to clap it into place before using a clamp to hold it into place and weld it/file down rough edges.drew out the headpiece shape onto sheet mentalUsed a plasma gun to cut the shape out.
I decided that i prefered to use the shape that had fallen out of the sheet of metal rather then the shape that was left in it.Instead,I decided to use this spare sheet of metal to practice using the spot welder on(a piece of machinery which i find genius).I ended up really liking this little demo piece and wishing I could use it for something!I think i will deffinately use a similar technique for a future process.
Once I was confident and happy using the spot welding machine I attempted to attach the copper welding rods to the metal.Via trial and era I realsied that it would be too difficult to use the original one rod that i was intent on using as i wouldn’t be able to successfuly sandwhich the metal plate on top as it wouldn’t balance properly so i instead decided to use three to help the plate on top balance out better.However,once I added the three copper roads altho i intitally thought it looked better once I put it together i felt like it looked worse and that i should of just left it how it was.
Overall i think it was a good first attempt and alot of problem solving helped develop the process and the finished piece in ways I hadn’t expected.
Drawn using the left handContinous linedouble penA couple of developmental pieces drawn using different techniques as part of a process cycle after the handband had been sculpted,I really love how this accentuates the change,
I started working on a short film for this character and also wondered how i could attempt to use her in my crit on Tuesday.I decided that it would be interesting to see how this character could effect other people.I once did a performance workshop where one of the participants simply sat infront of the audience and just stared at each individually individually.I actuall found it really intimadating and felt that this would work well with the darkness of this chracter who is meant to be a mysterious myth and ledgend.
After pulling off the paint from a paint lid i realised it would look pretty cool on the eyeIdea for short black and white movieVariation of styles drawing the characterEye has an egyptian eye feel to it.Need to try out make-up and headpiece.works in progress.
The idea I have for the film would be a black and white silent stop motion style film.The only noise would be the zzzaaaaapp of the teleporting shamans stick/wand that would transport her to different places in the woods.
This week I also decided to visit a couple of local exhibitions to help inspire me again and get the ball rolling a couple of these included the Bauhaus exhibition at the Cooper Gallery.I was super hungry during my visit to this exhibtion so I didn’t spend as much time there as I wished so will re-visit again prehaps later next week altho I’m rather embaressed after mistaking one of the booklets that belonged to the exhibition as a freebie and having to do the walk of shame today in order to give it back.The part of the exhibition that really caught my attention was the black and white video at the end which was a recording of art students talking about the huge ‘gap’ between what was being taught in schools and what was being taught at unversity.This still seems very relevant today,why has nothing changed?!?
I also visted the DCA’S Ray Yen Song and Tako Taal exhibition,my particular favourite being Ray Yen Songs as I loved the mix of media which intertwinned,as it was based on family mythology it made me think about ideas of how i could intertwinne different media’s for my current project aswell as the mythical element.
I loved the textural element of the gown and how it displayed the mysthical creatures faces on it and that the faces of the monster were on everything even the shoes!
I finished off this week by looking at medievil torture devices for the head as mentioned to me in my tutorial the headpiece was quite reminiscent of one of them.Which as i have allways been facinated by the darker side of history but i also love high fashion so why not mix the two together!I also thought that prehaps the headpiece could be part of the characters tale was she tortured and then in turn haunted the land?
Was she pacing the land forever looking to get revenge against thoose who scorned her?The silent movie could be reflective of her now having her voice taken away by the contraption due to tales of her gossiping etc.
I also felt that the head piece had a shamanic feel to it with the one that was made from bone and the one after that so looked at a couple of shamanic headpiece,I feel like it would be interesting to see how the style of some of them would look if created with metal.
I love how the bits with the ovals at both side look similar to that of a woman’s ovaries.
Not being able to see the eyes gives a further air of mystery but how would the character otherwise interact with the audience?
Last night I attended a night of performance art from Embassy members.
Each act was strong and powerful in it’s own way and touched upon a variety of subjects from race,gender and queerness to what we are mediocre at.
I felt that each performance desired a reaction from the audience whether it be that of outright shock/horror or the want to engage with the performance itself.Some performances engaged with the audience and made you part of the act.Such as a particular favourite of mine the act ‘Harbinger’ by Martina Morger and Wassili Widmer. It was a performance which I felt everyone could resonate with as it was about the monster in all of us. The word ‘Harbinger’ means a person or thing that announces or signals the approach of another.
We are asked within this performance as to how we see the world.We are also asked to re-evaluate our cultural assumptions about race,gender and sexuality.Our perception of difference and our tolerance towards it’s expression.We are asked to question why we have created them and if fear of the monster is really a kind of desire.
I liked the fluidity of the movement of the female character and how she engaged with the audience crawling amongst them like a monster and whispering in there ears to shake her hand in 3 seconds time.The interaction between herself and the main monster character was interesting as they mimicked each others moves whilst the female character wore a painted face mask made of cloth.I also liked the use of light which created two shadows of the monster and due to the angle of the light the shadow cast two different images.
What made this performance stand out from the rest was how audience engaging it was making you feel alert and involved and a present part of the performance.
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