23.2.21 Tutorial with Andrea
My notes before tutorial:
Opportunities
Sculpture
1. Researching materials for outdoor sculpture:
Thinking about sustainability vs durability.
Dissolvable thread? Natural fibres? Planning to set up various installations outside to trial them both.
Monofilament? (Monofilament and performance?) Knitted wool/felted knitting? eg Pillars of fire
Opportunities
- The Harbutt Fund
- New Contemporaries, 3.3.21, 2pm Submit the 4 Parts of me
- Stone Lane Sculpture Park, 28.2.21, 12 noon
- Textile Society - Student Bursary, 3.3.21, and Critical Writing Award, 30.4.21
Sculpture
1. Researching materials for outdoor sculpture:
Thinking about sustainability vs durability.
Dissolvable thread? Natural fibres? Planning to set up various installations outside to trial them both.
Monofilament? (Monofilament and performance?) Knitted wool/felted knitting? eg Pillars of fire
Pillars of fire, 2019
2.. Researching sculpture
Books!
Curtis, P. (2017) Sculpture: vertical, horizontal, closed Newhaven and London: Yale University Press
Dent, P. (Ed.) (2014) Sculpture and Touch Farnham: Ashgate Publishing
Moszynska, A (2013) Sculpture Now London: Thames and Hudson
Royal British Society of Sculptors (2016) Sculpture shock London: Black Dog Publishing
3. Looking back to move forward, ideas
Using my body - Play with proportions
Not worry about gravity
Literal vs unexpected, visual surprise?
Make the viewer think.
Embodiment of ideas....
Knitting as shapeshifter ... Thinking about how versatile and literally flexible knitting is. ( eg Look at Heart of darkness and All the babies I might have had
4. Transgressive yet playful?
Dexter said 'Be tougher. Be cruel to yourself. Be brave. If you think 'I can't do that', do it.
Notes and reflections after the tutorial
Parts of me are my strongest works. It's partly about the methods - assemblage of knitting, metal and cast feet. Submit just these for New Contemporaries. I think Part of me 2 is the most successful because of
Andrea: 'They are morphed between human, mechanic/organic. More idiosyncratic. Embodiment/ disembodiment. presence /absence, negative space. An alien wearing a wool coat? The parts replace some of the aspects of humanness. Knitting itself brings another element'
Gravity- Dexter said don't think about gravity Andrea says DO think about the body in relation to gravity... but maybe as a spiritual thing? Don't use it as a safety net....and maybe more about the apparition?
Knitting - has associations with comfort, the body, women's work, the private sphere, but it's also 'matter out of place' (Douglas) so will create a comfort/discomfort binary. I think it needs to be wool.
Shroud- revealing/concealing. Each knitted piece is not worn, precisely, but shrouds the work in different ways and to different degrees so that the metal beneath is partly visible.
Transgression: 'If something like the sense of discomfort is beginning to appear, push it.'
Using feet? I asked whether it's ok to pursue feet, in concrete instead of Jesmonite. Andrea: 'Keep using feet, or maybe arms? With bracelets or other ready mades.' Why do I still want to use feet?
Stitched self portrait? I asked whether this was something to pursue and Andrea said she thought that I should focus on the ideas behind Parts of me as the stitched piece is much more predictable and less contemporary.
Books!
Curtis, P. (2017) Sculpture: vertical, horizontal, closed Newhaven and London: Yale University Press
Dent, P. (Ed.) (2014) Sculpture and Touch Farnham: Ashgate Publishing
Moszynska, A (2013) Sculpture Now London: Thames and Hudson
Royal British Society of Sculptors (2016) Sculpture shock London: Black Dog Publishing
3. Looking back to move forward, ideas
Using my body - Play with proportions
Not worry about gravity
Literal vs unexpected, visual surprise?
Make the viewer think.
Embodiment of ideas....
Knitting as shapeshifter ... Thinking about how versatile and literally flexible knitting is. ( eg Look at Heart of darkness and All the babies I might have had
4. Transgressive yet playful?
Dexter said 'Be tougher. Be cruel to yourself. Be brave. If you think 'I can't do that', do it.
Notes and reflections after the tutorial
Parts of me are my strongest works. It's partly about the methods - assemblage of knitting, metal and cast feet. Submit just these for New Contemporaries. I think Part of me 2 is the most successful because of
- the shoes,
- suspended at an angle,
- the fallen foot
- the draped knitting
Andrea: 'They are morphed between human, mechanic/organic. More idiosyncratic. Embodiment/ disembodiment. presence /absence, negative space. An alien wearing a wool coat? The parts replace some of the aspects of humanness. Knitting itself brings another element'
Gravity- Dexter said don't think about gravity Andrea says DO think about the body in relation to gravity... but maybe as a spiritual thing? Don't use it as a safety net....and maybe more about the apparition?
Knitting - has associations with comfort, the body, women's work, the private sphere, but it's also 'matter out of place' (Douglas) so will create a comfort/discomfort binary. I think it needs to be wool.
Shroud- revealing/concealing. Each knitted piece is not worn, precisely, but shrouds the work in different ways and to different degrees so that the metal beneath is partly visible.
Transgression: 'If something like the sense of discomfort is beginning to appear, push it.'
Using feet? I asked whether it's ok to pursue feet, in concrete instead of Jesmonite. Andrea: 'Keep using feet, or maybe arms? With bracelets or other ready mades.' Why do I still want to use feet?
Stitched self portrait? I asked whether this was something to pursue and Andrea said she thought that I should focus on the ideas behind Parts of me as the stitched piece is much more predictable and less contemporary.