This week was the week of silent group crits.Personally I would of prefered to of had crits before this point so that i could gain more opinions and reactions to my piece which would of helped shape it better.But I know that’s not everyone’s preference.
MucusMain suspect.The covid sticks were reguarded as ‘too literal’ My faithful Camera lady Emily Chan,Inspiration taken from a scrub down/murder board.A Covid board!
I personally felt that everyone took the performance far too seriously and looking for deeper meaning when it is meant to evoke a feeling of unease and humour through the absurdity.The audieces reaction was far too quiet even when I played Taylor’s piece which made me question alot of things.How does this piece fit into the world of art?How do I evoke more of a reaction?People I had shown who aren’t in the art world seemed to understand it better then the people who were.I think that’s because they took it at face value.I want my art to be availible to the general public so does it really matter that a select group of people didn’t react the way I hoped and instead rather awquardly.
I loved the motion of the movement of the jelly.It was mentioned tome during the crit that it should prehaps of been casually thrown at the audience?Or that i should of tried to of served it along with the mucus.
Reactions weren’t as I expected.
You think I’m funny?!?
I wasn’t going for as much of a comedic value with this video so i’ll let people off on the laughing front.
Reactions from the crit were as follows;
‘Dark,gross and disgusting.funny,scared would be made to drink the mucus.Are the party cups to do with parties and socialising?Beer pong.Tutor interupted to ask how the videos were read? Did Taylor applying the green to her face symbolise it could be passed on?Covid had been made more light hearted through this.Without the covid test could it still be read as covid?Isn’t the mucus dependent on the individual?Sterile and unclean,clult/infection spread,mindmap,green liquid as a starting point for disease,are the tests too much info?Less info ont he performance and just show the jelly?Show items one by one.Cup with overpour of mucus.Green works well itself.Just keep pouring untill no water left.Bobby Baker table of occasions.Calm but chaos,no reaction to the chaos from the covid monster itself.Have people standing in a line constantly smudging each other with the green paint or use red thread and get people to walk to one another with it.
I felt that a bedsheet was the most fitting for the covid monster because if it was gonna spring up from anywhere it would be your bed!Especially as you spend the most time in it whilst ill.
Dylon dilueted in water and salt.The colour turned out much better then expected and esactly what I wanted considering the dye sachet was only meant for a small amount of material equal to that of a shirt.
I used a mixture of pva and olive green paint in order to gloop it onto the bedsheet and make it seem as realistic as possible giving the effect of snot/mucus.
Using the plasma cutter in Welding I cut out the shape of the ripe sternum using the card maquette that I had made previously (something i do which helps me work out the size and how things will work/not work.I had drawn out the outfit but it wasn’t untill I tried ti on in realisty that I realised it could easily be mistaken for a hijab which ofcourse I didn’t want.It made sense that the ribsternum needed to be detached from the headband as it was the headband and the colour grey that as making the outfit look most like a hijab and that the rib sternum should be made into a necklace to sit where the ribs are.
The theory behind the plague Doctor outfit was that it would ‘isolate’ the doctor meaning that they wouldn’t get contaminated.Much like the modern day PPE.I wanted one of the eyes to give resemble one of the plague dr goggles/gasmask.
I wanted the covid moster to resemble almost that of a scooby doo villian in terms of it’s mischieviousness but with a more sinister intent.
Same of the scariest masks are some from the victorian era,outfits would most commonly be made using ‘crepe’ paper (something which was new to that era and everyone was very excited about) masks were however made using paper mache,fabric and paint all of this left terrifying results!I wanted the covid monster to be infuenced by the simplicity of outfits like these almost with a mixture of a ‘bedsheet ghost’
simple yet sinister
Amazingly sad movie but I love the fact that altho the outfit was just a bit sheet the meaning was so much more then that.
I decided to attach the positive covid test first using super glue and then by stitching them on and adding the positive symbol in the middle of the ‘eye’ and then adding the pva and ink gloob to the other eye area.The necklace then gave great shape to the head and the shape of the rest of the gown had a rather formed yet high fashion shape to it the fitted ends of the sheet giving great shape to the arms.It resembled a body bag tho but also the hood used before someone is hanged.I hoped that the body bag shape wouldn’t cause offense to anyone who’s family member had died due to covid as that isn’t what i have intended.
The hooded head reminded me of a hang mans sack.
‘Pirates’ was a show I watches as a child and the top right character who allways remained in a sack reminded me of the covid monster.As I child I forever wondered who was in the sack which I want the audience to do with covid also.
A mixture of pva,ink and olive green paint left int he plastic pot from pouring onto the sheet turned out to make a perfect eye!
A poster I made and put up in the corridoor in order to see what people would respond.The respose wasn’t as interesting as I thought it would be.I think I will mayb put more up around the uni and see what happens.
On the left a collage piece aiming to resemble the gloom of the covid monsters.I find this to be quite an effective way of resembling it.
On the right is a page from the book ‘A brief history of the dance of death’ by Ian Breakwell.I think I would like to overlap the faces of thoose who have had covid with the covid monster.After speaking to a tutor who knew the artist himself he said that most of his work was actually done on the photocopier which is something I used to be really keen on years and years ago.
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 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!Hurrah!An eyelet is born!The kit I had bought seemed to be more for leather punching then materialAs advised by the welding technician i measured the distance between the eyelet as this would then be the distance that would need to be measured out on the flag pole as i would make hooks there.I also measured how long I would want the flag pole with a little extra left at the top of the flag for some kind of design (which i’m still slightly undecided on)
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 weavingI found the middle object at the beach and felt that it looked similar to the Red Lady’s symbol.The weaving has a troubled anxious feel to it.The feeling of a tangled web or something that would be done with repitision whilst the person worried.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.
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?A burnt almost snakeskin looking effect cast onto stoneI wanted to take this whole stick home but it proved too heavy to carry and kept getting metal splinters in my hand so I just kept the metal triangle.
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.
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.
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 was alot about experimenting,trialing different ideas and seeing what worked and what didn’t.I also felt like it was quite a lsow week and I have been struggling with not really having anyone to bounce ideas off of in the studio.
I did however,find that it really helped having my one to one with one of the tutors this week.She really helped clear my head in regards to the whole performance/sculpture balance.She recomended that i do keept the performance aspect even if it is just the short films and maybe have a performance opening night of the exhibition then leave all the things i have made out and some films running.We talked over the idea of this dystophian world and the importance of the character having a backstory.Prehaps her character was invented by men in order to stop there wifes from gossiping and to keep them under control and these stories were told to young girls so that they would behave.We also talked about leaving bound items in the woods and punlic places etc.
We also discussed the myth of the red lady in the modern day world.What if she was like Bloody Mary or slender man?What if parts of her tale were true and the rest got lost in myth and then resurfaced as an internet myth?
Slender man was created on a ‘something awful’ online forum for a 2009 photoshop parnormal image contest.The myths were then expanded by fan fiction.The myth of ‘slender man’ encouraged two 12 year olds to lore their friend into the woods and stab her 19 times.Which infact seems more sinister then the myth itself.
Bloody Mary was used in the olden days by women in order to see their future husband in the mirror.They would either day it 3 or thirten times whilst holding a candle in a mirror and soemtimes when walking backwards upstairs.It is said you would either see the face of your future husband or they may see a skull or the face of the grim reeper instead.It is said that staring in the mirror for long spells in darkness actually causes hallucinations.
After watching ‘The First Monday in May’ on Netflix I was inspired by some of the faces cages on the catwork and the whole concept of fashion and art merging.So i drew up a design for a medevil style headpiece almost on par with a ‘scold’s bridel’ but without the mouthpiece as I wanted to show that altho she was free from her husband’s control she was still imprisoned within her own mind consistantly looking for revenge.
An original ‘Scolds bridle’Image drew whilst watching’the first monday in May’Using imagery to story tale.The brown crumbled paper gave an aged feel and the plaited twine holding it up made it feel like a medevil posted or warning sign.Head cage made using sticks.Playing with imagery in regards to a head cage,Development stages of a maquette used to measure out for making it with metal and to understand design flaws
I was encouraged by the welding technician that before trying to make the headcage,to try and make it from cardboard first so i could then take it apart,Measure the strips and then make it with metal,it would also point out where there might be difficulties as he predictied that making this kind of structure may prove troublesome but in order to problem solve it was best to make the maquette first.
The cardboard proved to be too heavy so never held the shape well enough and started to fall inwards.For some reason I had forgotten that maquettes are supposed to be made with card.Using card wouldn’t have as much give and therefore would hold much more like metal.
The card proved to be much easier and more light weight in regards to holding it’s shape.The card to however reveal a problem area which was in the top right corner which didn’t attach very well.
Added some Ivy that i found to the design but I feel that the centre part of the structure doesn’t stand out as much with the ivy around it.I think once the headpiece it made that i would like to try weaving around itSome cardboard packaging which i felt related well to the woven straw and twine on regards to asthetics but not in regards to material.
An Artist that was suggested to me by my one to one tutor this week was a previous student called Morgan Black who’s work focuses primarily on gender and who’s degree show imagined a past different from the one we know. I find their illustrations interesting,altho personally I prefer to do my illustrations by hand.I also like the artefacts that they have made outside.
Sekai Machache was another artist whom was mentioned to me.I find her performance pieces and costumes particulary striking especially in the surroundings she has choosen which provide the perfect surroundings.The way the colours reflect in the water is particulary striking.
Monster Chetwynd work was mentioned as her crazy bat lady image relays in a similar way to the red lady image.Altho the crazy bat lady imade has been created by cut up seperate images then glued together.I do appreciate and like the surreal quality of this image tho.I have created images like this in the past so may be a good idea to try and do something similar again.
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?
Work I selected and decided to feature on the gallery wall.
A couple of pieces that were decided as stronger pieces that prehaps I should of featured in comparison to what I did.
We decided to use the new gallery space within the college in which to feature our work.I had alot of resolved pieces that i was torn between but didn’t want to hang them all up.Looking back I realise that i should maybe of asked members of the class which were my strongest pieces before hanging them.For some reason I also thought that only your more recent pieces could/should be hung.The tutor reminded me that this is not the case.As alot of the class believed my earlier abstract shapes within space worked better and were alot stronger and had more potential to move forward into other medias such as digital animation.This is an idea I have allready considered and plan to use noise with it such as the scraping noise of a brick against concrete with it. It was recomended that prehaps I look at some Russian animation by the tutor.
Workshops : Working with collage,I felt that it allowed me to process a lot of ideas in a short space of time and alltho collage did not end up being a part of my final piece i felt that the development helped my thought process.Working with mixed media has always been a strength of mine but using the photocopier to produce different versions of the images I had created definitely added strength to my work as a whole and helped towards more of a resolved piece.
Altho my screenprint was strong I tended to apply too much paint when working on lino/mono prints so the image wasn’t particularly crisp but there was a couple of ‘happy accidents’ where the paint had created marks which looked intended.Emulsion on wood/paper I found effective but I struggle to stick to just paint without involving other media.
Development I found that the best way to develop and refine my ideas was to look at what had been working and what wasn’t. Collage was successful in producing ideas but it was straying too far away from my theme and did not have the minimalist ‘void’ approach I was looking for.My minimalistic mixed media/experimental paint approaches seemed to work the best so I decided to create as many different experiments as possible before photocopying the images and reversing the colours.I think finding out what works best and creating many paint/mixed media experiments worked to my advantage.
Outcomes My best outcomes came from the most minimalistic and perhaps less considered (to a certain extent) approaches.Such as my paint experiments/mixed media photocopied pieces. Worst outcomes was definitely working with lino/mono print but I think this comes with refining the technique.
Time Management: I felt that my time was managed effectively throughout each workshop and when working towards my final pieces.But I felt that I should have spent more time editing and selecting my final piece and perhaps should of asked my peers opinion in order to help develop my own.I think this has been a learning curb and will remind me in the 3D project to take a more considered approach when it comes to the final selection process
Questions that were brought up during the crit was whether I would think about furthering the typography as it seems to of worked well.I agreed with this and also the fact that the backwards writing worked well with the acetate and that maybe I should think about taking it further later on in the project.
Was asked about whether I had used printmaking and whether I had considered prehaps using this more.My reply was that I didn’t like the texture of printmaking because it didn’t photocopy very well and looked quite grainy.I was looking for a smoother effect in order to keep the illusion of ‘the void’.
Alot of people agreed that using the acetate was a good idea as it greated nice shapes and that it was evident that I had looked at early work and progressed it.
Reflecting back I feel that the group crit was pretty sucessful as I was able to identify how the project should move forward.I think i need to think alot more about the strengths and weaknesses within my work so that I am better enabled to identify which pieces are the strongest when it comes to the editing process when hanging final pieces.
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