10.11.20 Tutorial with Andrea
We had a face to face tutorial so I took my recent work to Locksbrook and set it all up in the studio. It interests me how different it looks against a white wall and a grey floor. Most of my photos of this work have been in the metal or sculpture studio, where it's very cluttered, or at home in the house or garden, where it's inevitably very domestic. It was good to have the opportunity to take some photos. It does make me realise that I probably need to find a way to set up my makeshift photo studio again... and also see if I can access the photographic studios at Uni. Andrea said she'd ask about inductions. I hope that the proposal Tim, Sarah and I have written for the Michael Pennie Gallery will also give me a chance to photograph and video my work.
We had a face to face tutorial so I took my recent work to Locksbrook and set it all up in the studio. It interests me how different it looks against a white wall and a grey floor. Most of my photos of this work have been in the metal or sculpture studio, where it's very cluttered, or at home in the house or garden, where it's inevitably very domestic. It was good to have the opportunity to take some photos. It does make me realise that I probably need to find a way to set up my makeshift photo studio again... and also see if I can access the photographic studios at Uni. Andrea said she'd ask about inductions. I hope that the proposal Tim, Sarah and I have written for the Michael Pennie Gallery will also give me a chance to photograph and video my work.
Concrete shoes: Andrea asked whether I could make some wearable concrete shoes. That could be interesting. I've written about my relationship with shoes here. Making them wearable has a wonderful pointlessness about it, as they would in fact be utterly unwearable. It reminds me of some of the work I did during my BA, especially a series called Wearing the unwearable.
Other 3, Wearing the unwearable, 2014
I have used this image for my business cards as I feel that it encapsulates a number of significant aspects my practice. It's about embodiment, it's performative, it's dark, thought provoking, curious .... and funny. There are also clear links between this and my more recent Body cocoon series and the private performances I've done since lockdown began. One main difference is that this sculpture was made as a hanging sculpture; the Body cocoons I have made to be worn, by me at the moment, but maybe in time, by others too.
The main link, for me, between the Wearing the unwearable series and the idea of concrete boots is the conflicting responses that each engenders. Wearing this sculpture, Other 3, I was completely trapped. The zip is on the outside so I was reliant on my friend to zip me in.... and let me out! I couldn't see, I could barely move my arms, and I found it hard to breathe. It was a relief to get out. I haven't invited anyone else to wear this sculpture because it's so potentially traumatising. Instead I began to make some more readily wearable soft sculptures that can be put on and removed independently by any willing participants. I call them Living sculptures. The first Living sculpture series I made was bright and cheerful looking, definitely more garment-like, but still odd. The second series was made in response to the decommissioned Shepton Mallet Prison for B-Wing and was, inevitably, much darker. I called it Living sculptures, Prison series.
This all leads to my most recent explorations of wearable (or utterly unwearable) sculptures made with steel, Body cage and Constrained. I see clear links between all of these ideas. They communicate through the associations that the viewer has with the different materials and contexts, I think. They are stark, but with some ambiguity too. Are they cages or armour? A prison, or protection?
Extending this idea to the wearable concrete shoes- they would be utterly unwearable, in a practical sense, as who ever wore them would not be able to move. Trapped? Or grounded? Although the wearer could put his/her feet into them, the shoes would be too heavy to lift. This reminds me of what I've read of Camus' notion of the absurd. I must revisit that and have a look at it in more depth. It obviously also touches on Freud's idea of the uncanny - shoes as body parts, familiar, yet unfamiliar when cast in concrete.
Wearing concrete shoes also made me think of my experience of having a body cast of my feet. I was definitely trapped! I've written about it here. I've copied the relevant section below:
'The mould-making involved a different kind of physical work. On the first day, very generously, Alyson and Gareth undertook the skilled work of making the silicon moulds of my feet, but it meant that I had to stand, and then perch, for many hours. This is tiring in a different way, but I found it most interesting psychologically as I also found it very claustrophobic. I was literally stuck in one position, utterly helpless, for so long. There are also certain risks associated with body casting – shock, fainting and DVT amongst them. It’s a different kind of labour. After that, the processes of strengthening the moulds, trialling them and finally casting my feet in Jesmonite involved days of physical activity again - walking, lifting, standing, pulling, pushing, clamping, pouring. I love that both these new processes are so physical but also that they involve plenty of mental and emotional labour too - thinking, learning, making decisions, problem solving and waiting, of course.'
And here are images of the casting in progress.
Concrete boots, for me, also have associations with gangster movies and murder.
But what about the ambiguity? There's no doubt that having shoes which prevent one from moving are a severe limitation, but they would also literally ground one. Why am I interested in the idea of being grounded? I think it's something about being tethered to the earth, to life, and it's something to do with temporality and our (my?) mortality. Again, it's connected to embodiment as our bodies tether us to life, yet they too are ephemeral....
Body cocoon 4, if you go down to the woods today:
These images and the video definitely conjure up something of fairytales and nightmares. There's also that element of apparition, especially in the video of me waking towards the camera. Andrea also mentioned ritual, like Ben. I must think more about that aspect. Think about the backdrop - the forest is so much more effective than the garden. She said 'It's fire.'
Body cage, performance:
Funny, but troubling. Gothic. Medieval. Middle Ages. Ritual. Torture. ( I'm listening to Hilary Mantel's most recent book about Thomas Cromwell... lots of torture there.) Is it protection or a trap? Armour or a cage? More ambiguity. Is it both at the same time? Humorous and dark? Shades of Frankenstein? Am I the female Dr. Frankenstein? Andrea said that the story of Frankenstein is an ideal of a man giving birth to a man. Interesting idea. Does the fact that I'm female and that I'm, 'knitting together' or 'giving birth' to these complex sculptures, affirm gender? My work is made of parts, literally, as in body parts or abstractions of body parts, but also parts as stages in the process - observation of my body, my body in the making, performance with my body, brought together as a whole.
Joan of Arc?
Andrea said 'desired/repulsed', which seems to be yet another binary in my work. For years I've described the conflicting responses that I hope to provoke in my viewer as 'attraction, repulsion, horror and hilarity'. More ambiguity. I think this ticks those boxes...
Performance in my practice:
I have always described myself as a reluctant performer, but I do recognise that performance is an integral part of my practice, and it seems to be becoming more and more explicit. I have to say that I'm much more comfortable 'performing' in the ways I have been recently - in private, with just my long suffering partner, Dave, as my audience of 1 but also as photographer, videographer and, increasingly, director! I also prefer being hidden, invisible, anonymous. Anybody/everybody/nobody?
Andrea has challenged me to think more about the role of performance in my practice over the next month. What are these performances doing? What place do they have in my practice? At the moment I see them as physical drawings, sketches for my more static sculptures. For my recent series of assemblages, Parts of me, performance featured heavily - the metal forms were taken from performances of me struggling to get out of Body cocoon 1, each of the Body cocoons had been worn by me, as some kind of performance, during the process of making the assemblages and I view the process of having my feet cast, strengthening the moulds and learning to cast them as another kind of private performance. It was physical and involved the whole of my body, as did the metal work.
But will these 'performances' become something more? I am definitely reluctant to perform live, so maybe a longer video or film? IAndrea said to this about the backdrop/setting. Go back to that forest? Or explore other similar ideas? She also asked about whether I would create a narrative? Or antinarrative? I know that situating any of my work in that particular place, or Jonny and Jenny's wood, automatically starts to create a narrative in the viewer's imagination, so maybe I don't need to create my own. But maybe I do? What do I want to communicate through these snapshots? She told me to watch the film Midsommar, a Scandi noir horror film. Sounds perfect. What is it about horror that is so appealing? (Read Jonathan Faiaer's essay about knitting and horror films again). My kind of research! And research ritual eg the work of Marcus Coates. And how do my own Scandinavian roots fit into this?
Boundaries - literal and metaphorical:
I mentioned leakiness, as Julia Kristeva describes it, in relation to the female body specifically, and the abjection that it provokes. Blood, sweat, tears. I was thinking of it in relation to my ideas for Constrained - what might pour/spill/leak out of the metal bands? Andrea mentioned liquidity and then I remembered that Ben hadn't liked the concrete shoes but had suggested casting shoes in soil. How about wearable soil shoes? That then led us to the elements in my practice -fire/soil/earth/steel/rust/water/wind. What happens at the boundaries between these elements? Metal plus water =rust, fire plus metal = welding/discolouration/melting, earth plus water = mud/new life/growth, wind and fire= devastation. Where does the human body fit in? I know that the human body s made up of a vast percentage of water, our bodies also return to the earth. Interesting to think about all of this....
Where do I go from here?
I decided, after my tutorial with Dexter last week, that I would concentrate on sculpture while I have the facilities at Uni and leave the participatory aspects of my practice till after I've finished, and also when the pandemic stabilises. I'm still happy with that decision, but where does performance fit into that plan? I know that this module is precisely about discovering where my practice sits within the context of contemporary art so it's really good to research performance further.
I know that I often limit myself to what I know I can do/transport/store/afford/justify. I am a one woman show.... except recently, Dave has been much more a part of my process, especially during the first lockdown. I baulk, though, at the idea of asking someone else, with time and different skills, to be my audience of 1/videographer/photographer. But why? Who would I ask? How could I pay them? It all feels very daunting, but I have been wondering about applying for one of the Uni grants that Alyson told me about and then paying a professional film maker, maybe someone like Karni of @karni_and_saul. I follow her/ them on Instagram and I really like the dreamlike quality of their work and the situations she uses. She seems to work with dancers often, and that sense of embodiment is alluring. I must think more about this idea. I do feel as if I want to explore moving image rather than still images. Could I film myself? Could someone else perform? And how can I plan all this in the middle of a pandemic?
Post script: Collaboration with Film students? Green screen? In the photography studio? Is that authentic enough for me?
Research performance....
I will definitely keep on making too, as my explorations with embodiment have something about them that expresses so much....
Soil shoes
Canvas body and rust
Constrained, plus canvas/velvet/knitted body leaking out? Is it a strait jacket?
Knitted water, is it Body cocoon 5?
Concentric metal
The main link, for me, between the Wearing the unwearable series and the idea of concrete boots is the conflicting responses that each engenders. Wearing this sculpture, Other 3, I was completely trapped. The zip is on the outside so I was reliant on my friend to zip me in.... and let me out! I couldn't see, I could barely move my arms, and I found it hard to breathe. It was a relief to get out. I haven't invited anyone else to wear this sculpture because it's so potentially traumatising. Instead I began to make some more readily wearable soft sculptures that can be put on and removed independently by any willing participants. I call them Living sculptures. The first Living sculpture series I made was bright and cheerful looking, definitely more garment-like, but still odd. The second series was made in response to the decommissioned Shepton Mallet Prison for B-Wing and was, inevitably, much darker. I called it Living sculptures, Prison series.
This all leads to my most recent explorations of wearable (or utterly unwearable) sculptures made with steel, Body cage and Constrained. I see clear links between all of these ideas. They communicate through the associations that the viewer has with the different materials and contexts, I think. They are stark, but with some ambiguity too. Are they cages or armour? A prison, or protection?
Extending this idea to the wearable concrete shoes- they would be utterly unwearable, in a practical sense, as who ever wore them would not be able to move. Trapped? Or grounded? Although the wearer could put his/her feet into them, the shoes would be too heavy to lift. This reminds me of what I've read of Camus' notion of the absurd. I must revisit that and have a look at it in more depth. It obviously also touches on Freud's idea of the uncanny - shoes as body parts, familiar, yet unfamiliar when cast in concrete.
Wearing concrete shoes also made me think of my experience of having a body cast of my feet. I was definitely trapped! I've written about it here. I've copied the relevant section below:
'The mould-making involved a different kind of physical work. On the first day, very generously, Alyson and Gareth undertook the skilled work of making the silicon moulds of my feet, but it meant that I had to stand, and then perch, for many hours. This is tiring in a different way, but I found it most interesting psychologically as I also found it very claustrophobic. I was literally stuck in one position, utterly helpless, for so long. There are also certain risks associated with body casting – shock, fainting and DVT amongst them. It’s a different kind of labour. After that, the processes of strengthening the moulds, trialling them and finally casting my feet in Jesmonite involved days of physical activity again - walking, lifting, standing, pulling, pushing, clamping, pouring. I love that both these new processes are so physical but also that they involve plenty of mental and emotional labour too - thinking, learning, making decisions, problem solving and waiting, of course.'
And here are images of the casting in progress.
Concrete boots, for me, also have associations with gangster movies and murder.
But what about the ambiguity? There's no doubt that having shoes which prevent one from moving are a severe limitation, but they would also literally ground one. Why am I interested in the idea of being grounded? I think it's something about being tethered to the earth, to life, and it's something to do with temporality and our (my?) mortality. Again, it's connected to embodiment as our bodies tether us to life, yet they too are ephemeral....
Body cocoon 4, if you go down to the woods today:
These images and the video definitely conjure up something of fairytales and nightmares. There's also that element of apparition, especially in the video of me waking towards the camera. Andrea also mentioned ritual, like Ben. I must think more about that aspect. Think about the backdrop - the forest is so much more effective than the garden. She said 'It's fire.'
Body cage, performance:
Funny, but troubling. Gothic. Medieval. Middle Ages. Ritual. Torture. ( I'm listening to Hilary Mantel's most recent book about Thomas Cromwell... lots of torture there.) Is it protection or a trap? Armour or a cage? More ambiguity. Is it both at the same time? Humorous and dark? Shades of Frankenstein? Am I the female Dr. Frankenstein? Andrea said that the story of Frankenstein is an ideal of a man giving birth to a man. Interesting idea. Does the fact that I'm female and that I'm, 'knitting together' or 'giving birth' to these complex sculptures, affirm gender? My work is made of parts, literally, as in body parts or abstractions of body parts, but also parts as stages in the process - observation of my body, my body in the making, performance with my body, brought together as a whole.
Joan of Arc?
Andrea said 'desired/repulsed', which seems to be yet another binary in my work. For years I've described the conflicting responses that I hope to provoke in my viewer as 'attraction, repulsion, horror and hilarity'. More ambiguity. I think this ticks those boxes...
Performance in my practice:
I have always described myself as a reluctant performer, but I do recognise that performance is an integral part of my practice, and it seems to be becoming more and more explicit. I have to say that I'm much more comfortable 'performing' in the ways I have been recently - in private, with just my long suffering partner, Dave, as my audience of 1 but also as photographer, videographer and, increasingly, director! I also prefer being hidden, invisible, anonymous. Anybody/everybody/nobody?
Andrea has challenged me to think more about the role of performance in my practice over the next month. What are these performances doing? What place do they have in my practice? At the moment I see them as physical drawings, sketches for my more static sculptures. For my recent series of assemblages, Parts of me, performance featured heavily - the metal forms were taken from performances of me struggling to get out of Body cocoon 1, each of the Body cocoons had been worn by me, as some kind of performance, during the process of making the assemblages and I view the process of having my feet cast, strengthening the moulds and learning to cast them as another kind of private performance. It was physical and involved the whole of my body, as did the metal work.
But will these 'performances' become something more? I am definitely reluctant to perform live, so maybe a longer video or film? IAndrea said to this about the backdrop/setting. Go back to that forest? Or explore other similar ideas? She also asked about whether I would create a narrative? Or antinarrative? I know that situating any of my work in that particular place, or Jonny and Jenny's wood, automatically starts to create a narrative in the viewer's imagination, so maybe I don't need to create my own. But maybe I do? What do I want to communicate through these snapshots? She told me to watch the film Midsommar, a Scandi noir horror film. Sounds perfect. What is it about horror that is so appealing? (Read Jonathan Faiaer's essay about knitting and horror films again). My kind of research! And research ritual eg the work of Marcus Coates. And how do my own Scandinavian roots fit into this?
Boundaries - literal and metaphorical:
I mentioned leakiness, as Julia Kristeva describes it, in relation to the female body specifically, and the abjection that it provokes. Blood, sweat, tears. I was thinking of it in relation to my ideas for Constrained - what might pour/spill/leak out of the metal bands? Andrea mentioned liquidity and then I remembered that Ben hadn't liked the concrete shoes but had suggested casting shoes in soil. How about wearable soil shoes? That then led us to the elements in my practice -fire/soil/earth/steel/rust/water/wind. What happens at the boundaries between these elements? Metal plus water =rust, fire plus metal = welding/discolouration/melting, earth plus water = mud/new life/growth, wind and fire= devastation. Where does the human body fit in? I know that the human body s made up of a vast percentage of water, our bodies also return to the earth. Interesting to think about all of this....
Where do I go from here?
I decided, after my tutorial with Dexter last week, that I would concentrate on sculpture while I have the facilities at Uni and leave the participatory aspects of my practice till after I've finished, and also when the pandemic stabilises. I'm still happy with that decision, but where does performance fit into that plan? I know that this module is precisely about discovering where my practice sits within the context of contemporary art so it's really good to research performance further.
I know that I often limit myself to what I know I can do/transport/store/afford/justify. I am a one woman show.... except recently, Dave has been much more a part of my process, especially during the first lockdown. I baulk, though, at the idea of asking someone else, with time and different skills, to be my audience of 1/videographer/photographer. But why? Who would I ask? How could I pay them? It all feels very daunting, but I have been wondering about applying for one of the Uni grants that Alyson told me about and then paying a professional film maker, maybe someone like Karni of @karni_and_saul. I follow her/ them on Instagram and I really like the dreamlike quality of their work and the situations she uses. She seems to work with dancers often, and that sense of embodiment is alluring. I must think more about this idea. I do feel as if I want to explore moving image rather than still images. Could I film myself? Could someone else perform? And how can I plan all this in the middle of a pandemic?
Post script: Collaboration with Film students? Green screen? In the photography studio? Is that authentic enough for me?
Research performance....
I will definitely keep on making too, as my explorations with embodiment have something about them that expresses so much....
Soil shoes
Canvas body and rust
Constrained, plus canvas/velvet/knitted body leaking out? Is it a strait jacket?
Knitted water, is it Body cocoon 5?
Concentric metal