MA Week 37 – ups and downs

25th July 2016: reflection on the past two weeks : ups and downs

Firstly, some good news: my paper was accepted for the “Grim Up North” symposium. Hurrah! Now the hard work begins. Actually I’m quite looking forward to it, as I think I’ll learn more about my practice and hopefully I can use at least some of the ideas in my dissertation (which I’m not quite looking forward to).

In a further “Grim up North” vein, I paid my first visit to the People’s History Museum in Manchester, specifically to see the “Grafters” exhibition of photographs of workers. I’ve written a post about this. I also paid a short visit to another part of the museum which deals with post World War 2 social history. There was quite a bit about Thatcher, the unions and the Miner’s Strike. To a certain extent it made my blood boil, re-living the deindustrialisation of the North, but I knew it would. One of the positive things I took from it was a reinforcement of my idea of today’s everyday being tomorrow’s heritage (the presence of a “Rock against Racism” badge cemented this). An enjoyable visit which I doubt will be my last, especially as their riverside café serves good food at decent prices!

I was on annual leave last week and had hoped to get into Print Room a couple of times. However, a combination of an ongoing family problem and a leaking boiler meant I only got in there once, which was a downer. I did some further monoprinting, with mixed results. I worked a little bit into the blue and yellow ones from week 33, and did some black and red ones.

On a roll : taking over the print room with my monoprints

My ideas of using shapes based on the buildings that I’d seen on the Holbeck urban wandering didn’t work brilliantly well. The shapes soon got overly inky and this produced messy prints. I think really I was straying into the realms of screen printing or lino cutting. I also tried really hard with my registration technique. It’s better but still needs a lot of work.

I did a drawn monoprint in red into a couple of the blue and yellow ones and that worked OK. I need to think a little more about the positioning of the drawing in relation to the original shapes, though. The most successful pieces came from using some old combs to scratch into the ink and then layering these up in different colours. This gave lots of interesting texture and variations in colour.  I liked these pieces and could see them developing into part of a bigger piece. I also paid more attention to inking the plate. I rolled the ink out onto the work surface then inked the plate, rather than rolling the ink directly onto the plate. This allowed me to get a smoother inking. Still work to do, but getting better!

Monoprint plus acetate

Stuck at home, I experimented a little with collaging acetate pieces of some of the Holbeck photos onto a couple of the prints. These worked OK and I can work into them again. I also etched another drypoint plate but won’t get the chance to print it until this coming Friday. Aaagh!!

MA Week 36 - Discussion of "Migration and Sense of Place" - Annemarie Murland

Migration and Sense of Place : re-contextualising felt experience through creative practice.

Annemarie Murland

Summary

 

The premise of this paper is that personal experience is a legitimate source and subject matter for visual art practice.

Murland is a native of Glasgow who moved to Australia with her Australian husband. She has a deep connection to Glasgow and the tension between this and her migration to a distant country informs her work. She argues that her “felt experience” of being a stranger in the country where she now lives constitutes legitimate subject matter and source material for her visual art practice. She states she has “never truly left” Glasgow, and “after twenty years [in Australia, her] attachment to [Glasgow] is probably stronger”. And expressed in very strong words. She effectively retreats to Glasgow when engaged in creative practice.

Heritage, identity and felt experience commingle to drive her practice. The deep connection with Glasgow is pulled through to her present situation. The identity and characteristics produced in her work reflect her past and present; “in temporal space Memory and Reality embrace” (Murland, 2009, n.p.). She draws on place as a “conduit for creativity, that when examined from an embodied point of view translates into works of art” via a “visual grammar of felt experience”. Her migration affected her practice and she shifted towards abstraction: “the vehicle of abstraction illustrates my visual concerns”.

Murland acknowledges the role of process in her work; the choice of picture plane, the support, the camera lens. She argues that “chance fuses with the material characteristics of the medium” to reveal “new visual conversations”. She describes her work as layered, “weaving paint” including “soft bands of colour” and undergoing a process of marking and erasure. This means her work covers and reveals, and she describes it as “capturing tactility” – “felt” experience of a different kind,

She also articulates the relationship between life history and visual outcomes: “re-telling one’s story within the context of personal experience has developed a methodological art practice that recognises the role of the artist as individual”. She uses “the line as language” and the investigation of materials to transfer felt experience to canvas via mark making so that her experience is expressed.

Discussion

 

There is much in Murland’s article that I understand, some of it intuitively rather than analytically, and little wonder: .“Born in 1962, my cultural heritage is Irish Catholic”. Yep, me too. Her family migrating from Ireland shaped her family history and personal identity in the same way as my family’s Yorkshire lineage and work in Engineering shaped mine. Her sense of dislocation and longing for Glasgow is profound and almost saddening. Yorkshire is deeply ingrained in me. We are intertwined. However, this gives rise to the question -what is place? Yorkshire was fragmented and its boundaries were redefined in 1974 via the Local Government Act (Local Government Act, 1972), yet Yorkshire still exists – for example, the success of “le Grand Départ” of the 2014 Tour de France attests to this.  From this I imply that “place” is a physical phenomenon, but also a felt/personal/emotional one. So the “sense of place” to which Murland refers in the title might be:

• inspiration
• memory
• site where art is made
• site where art is installed
• effect upon emotions/body

and I’m sure others that I have yet to add to this list which is an immediate response to Murland’s paper.

A further thought on using place as a driver for a visual practice: production of work happens in a (or many) places – how does this affect the end result? An outdoor sketch might of necessity be free-er and less detailed than a final piece – but is it different in other ways, because of where it is made? How does the experience of being in a place (seeing the subject directly rather than via a sketch or photo, being in Yorkshire rather than Lancashire or wherever) – rather than the physical conditions (light, weather, indoors/outdoors) – affect the outcome? I’m not entirely sure here. Another project for me to work on at some point.

Murland’s use of the term “felt experience” is very interesting. It implies a deep, personal sensory experience as opposed to “embodied experience”, which has a less personal implication.  “Felt” could imply the sense of touch only, which would imply less of a holistic experience than “embodied”, but it also encompasses emotional feelings. I prefer the term “lived experience” as implying the sense of being alive in all senses during a particular series of moments.

Murland’s description of process and methodology particularly resonate with me. Her idea of “chance” playing a part in the production of a visual work has repeatedly appeared both creatively and theoretically over the course of my studies so far. Playful action research and “happy accidents” often move the work onto an unexpected pathway and the outcomes arrived at are often the most creative. Other agents which immediately spring to mind and which affect any particular work are my choice of medium, my experience with that medium, my mood and my level of energy.  The layering which she states characterises her work is also another concern of mine. The need to mask and to reveal, ever-changing, is a reflection of our interactions with one another, and another way of depicting one’s identity and story.

Her recognition that telling her story – her felt/lived/embodied experience - via visual means has helped her develop a visual language was also a point of recognition for me. Around the time I read this article, I also had a conversation with a colleague which helped me to understand that which I knew intuitively but was struggling to express verbally, namely the articulation of my holistic experience of a moment of time in visual form. The term “embodied experience” suddenly meant something to me, as did its ability to be articulated in a language other than the spoken – i.e. a visual language.  This has been key to me starting to develop my visual language, or “visual grammar” as Murland terms it. She uses “the line as language” – harking back to the question in one of my tutorials “are the marks saying what you want to say?”. Now, at last, they are, and Murland’s article has helped me to articulate in text some of the sources, methodology and outcomes of my work.

MA Week 35 - Artist Research : Revisiting the Constructivist works of Liubov Popova

In my tutorial the other week, I was reflecting that the pylon abstracts, particularly the red one, had Constructivist influences. I’d been interested in and influenced by Liubov Popova during my Access studies. Sharon suggested that I revisit my Access research into Popova to see what further I could now learn from her work. Ever the dutiful student, I’ve done as she said.

Painterly Architectonic, Liubov Popova [public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

Firstly I opened my Access contextual journal and was surprised to see one of the images of Popova’s work that I’d included. I remembered Painterly Architectonic (1917), which I’d loved as soon as I saw it, with its bold colours and mainly linear geometric shapes. But I hadn’t remembered Spatial Force Construction (1921). The curves and differing weights of lines within that piece were not dissimilar to those in my little abstract. Again and again I discover how I am carrying images and influences subliminally, and how I’m reworking them into my own work without realising.



Spatial Force Construction, Liubov Popova (State Museum of Contemporary Art of Thessaloniki)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

My next thought was how Popova had repurposed her work when the Bolshevik regime required painting to become a medium for promoting communal aspirations (Tupitsyn, p.13). Similarly, I’d repurposed the colours of my urban wanderings to try to start creating a visual language of my lived experience. I chose a couple of library books to view some of her works again and to read a little more about her. It was then that I started to realise how she had also developed a visual language to describe what was happening in her context. This possibly relates to her life history, as Bathmaker would put it; her story in the context of her social situation. However, there are wider ramifications in Popova’s case. Constructivist artists believed they had a fundamental role in delivering the new Socialist reality (Lodder, p47). There was a push to create a more universal, impersonal visual language (Tupitsyn, , p.13).

Nevertheless, Popova had her own style and made strong use of the line, the colour and the volumetric (Lodder, p45). Lodder quotes Popova (p255): “A Cubist period (the problem of form) was followed by a Futurist period (the problem of movement and colour) and the principle of abstracting the parts of an object was followed logically and inevitably by the abstraction of the object itself”. This describes a very analytical approach to the development of a visual language which ultimately reveals itself as Suprematism. A scientific approach, almost? Could or should I take a more scientific approach to my own work? It may help with time and project management and also make me focus more on continuing to develop my own visual language.

Popova is further quoted (Tupitsyn, p160) as commenting on her drawings in 1921: “In Russia, as a result of the social and political conditions that we are experiencing, organisation has become the objective of a new synthesis”. Again, an acknowledgement of the social context and of development of a visual language. A further interesting twist is that she evidently started to develop the Painterly Architectonics after seeing Islamic architecture on a trip to Samarkand (Dabrowski, p17) – so, in response to the built environment. As I’ve mentioned many times in this blog, my own work takes the built environment as its starting point in many cases. Dabrowski’s comment was a surprise as I’d imagined these works would take industry as their starting point. However, I think that’s an example of me as the viewer putting my own interpretation on another person’s work.

Another surprise to me was Popova’s choice of colours. I always think of her (and more generally, Constructivist) work as mainly featuring red, black and white. But many of her earlier works feature blues, oranges, browns and yellows. However, each one has a limited palette (possibly an influence of cubism?). I wonder it that had also stuck somewhere in my memory.

The shapes of Popova’s curves and lines appear to me to describe not only the Futurist obsession with speed and motion, but also the turmoil of the aftermath of the October Revolution. I know very little about it, and have just quickly read the BBC Bitesize about it. The situation described touches a chord with the present day, post-Brexit vote. Our country is in turmoil. How are we, as artists, dealing with this? Only Bob & Roberta Smith springs to mind.

Something also very striking was the balance that Popova achieved in her abstracts; According to Dabrowski, (p11), she always remained rooted in painting. I’d grappled with the balance of a work when doing my pylon abstracts, particularly the red one. The result wasn’t bad, but it could be improved. Sitting at home leafing through the library books, soaking in her work, I realised I was receiving a lesson in balancing the abstract work.

Viewing her works again two or three years after first seeing them, I could perceive and understand her development of a visual language in a way that I hadn’t hitherto. My own journey to understand, experiment with and refine the marks I’m making starts to make more sense to me via reflecting on what Popova did. I really wish I had hours more to pore over both the texts and the images within the books and reflect on them.

MA Week 35 - Etching and a different kind of abstract (2)

Reflection on the past two weeks – 11^th July 2016:

Etching and a different kind of abstract (2) 

The other thing I’ve been working on this past fortnight is my first ever conference abstract. I’d heard about a symposium called “Grim up North” via social media. Its topic is Northern heritage and identity, which I have of course been researching. It’s aimed at MA and PhD students and postdocs, so it was a foregone conclusion that I should have a go at submitting an abstract. 

Preparing the abstract was quite challenging but interesting. I followed my usual approach of reading the question (i.e. the call for papers (CFP)) and working up a response. I had enough confidence in my writing ability to know that if I kept drafting, something would eventually appear. It took a lot of grouping my thoughts, though, and to get out those 250 words I had two or three lots of initial scribbles plus six or seven drafts.

 

How to write an abstract - the long way

One of the initial hurdles was trying to focus in on what I wanted to say. It took a while for me to realise that I didn’t need to submit an account of everything I’ve been doing, but rather focus on just those bits that overlapped with the CFP. To help strengthen my submission, I read back over this blog, in particular the posts on heritage as a critical perspective from Harrison’s book . I’ve also got some part-formed notes about identity from Bathmaker’s book, Exploring Learning, Identity & Power through Life History & Narrative Research, that helped.  

I’ve also recently read a really relevant paper by Annemarie Murland, Migration and Sense of Place: re-contextualising felt experience through creative practice. (Edit: now discussed in this Week 36 post).The gist of this paper is about translating the embodied experience of a place into visual form. Murland talks about the feeling translating itself into the marks she is making. This was something I think I would have eventually arrived at, with my deep, black, scratchy marks, but Murland articulated this hitherto half-formed thought.  This unlocked the final piece of the jigsaw, namely the fact that you can depict a lived (felt/embodied) experience in a non-figurative way and the marks can say more than a figurative depiction could do. 

The next bit of editing was the style. I’d written in the first person, but thought that wasn’t right. I read Murland’s abstract of her own paper plus the abstracts of a couple of others I had previously printed off, and suddenly the style came to me, and this strengthened the text a good deal. 

Finally I sought the opinion of three people whose views I respect; my colleague Jenny, who teaches skills including academic writing to PhD students and postdocs; my colleague Liz, who is also a lecturer in Fine Art; and my long-suffering tutor, Sharon. Each of them gave me some useful insights. Jenny pointed out that I had a disconnect in one paragraph – easy to do when you’ve done so much editing. Liz gave me some deeper insights into my comments about use of colour and also some useful references about that topic. Sharon pointed out some repetitions and advised me to read the abstract out loud to myself. I edited it then read it in my head, and thought it sounded OK. When I did finally read it out loud, I was amazed to find repetitions I’d missed. I’d never heard of this technique before and it is so simple and useful. 

The abstract is reproduced below, and was submitted yesterday. I don’t know if it will be accepted or not. Whatever the outcome, I think it has been a really useful exercise for me. It’s helped me to hone in a little further on what I’m doing and how, and I’ve learnt some good lessons about abstract writing along the way.

 

Using wandering and visual response to investigate Northernness: How did I get here?

“The North” exists not only as a physical entity, but also as a lived experience for the Northerner. How can this embodied experience be investigated and depicted using visual methods? 

Within the various stages of deindustrialisation - the decay and rebuilding of urban Yorkshire - lie the roots of the heritage and identity of many Northerners, myself included. The search for our roots can be depicted visually; the transformation of the urban landscape forms a rich source of visual material. Heritage and life history perspectives can be used to articulate stories of the places, people and objects of the North. By combining these theoretical perspectives with urban wandering, it becomes possible to visually describe the embodied experience of living here.  

This combined approach opens up an immersive, visual research method which gives rise to visual responses. Looking, observing and connecting with the built environment and its peoples, past and present, brings a sense of place, of being and of belonging. As today becomes tomorrow’s heritage, so this visual research adds to the pool of collective memories.  

The creative outcomes generate a personal visual language of Northernness, deepening understanding of identity, self and heritage. The urban landscape reveals new shapes and colours, repurposed through the choice of marks and materials. Abstract, non-figurative artworks invite the viewer to share the embodied experience without the pre-conception that might be suggested by a figurative image. Colours come into play: black and white suggests the grim industrial past. Vibrant colours depict the embodied experience of the present and hope for the future.

 

 

MA Week 35 - Etching and a different kind of abstract (1)

Reflection on the past two weeks – 11^th July 2016:

Etching and a different kind of abstract (1) 

It’s been a funny old fortnight. I had hoped to get into college to do some more printing on 1^st July, but the Print Room was closed. Just as well as most of the day was taken up with phone calls back and forth to different places as my partner’s Mum has been unwell again, which has taken up quite a lot of time and energy for the past two weeks. 

I said in my post of 27^th June that I wanted to prioritise printing, so I set about learning a bit more about etching into a ground. I found a few youtubes to watch – the ones I particularly learnt from were Edinburgh Printmakers and Middlesex University . I also had a good look at the Printmaking Handbook on Etching (Gale, 2006). This resulted in a basic understanding of what I needed to do, 1½ pages of notes, and a desire to get going.

 

Etching ruminations

Mike in the Print Room had very kindly said he would walk me through the process on the afternoon of 7^th July. When I got there, he’d found some old plates that had already had soft ground applied, and we worked on these first in a kind of Blue Peter “here’s one I prepared earlier” way. At Mike’s suggestion I rolled one through the press with a piece of hessian, which gave a nice texture to work into. Working on the pre-grounded plates meant I could get them in the acid whilst learning how to apply a ground, which I did next, using both soft ground and liquid ground. 

I initially bit two plates, one for 45 minutes and the other for about an hour and 10 minutes. The next day I engraved and bit three smaller plates, two soft ground and one liquid ground. I bit the liquid ground and one soft ground for 45 minutes, and the other soft ground for 1 hour 15 minutes. Sadly it wasn’t enough for either of the soft ground plates. When I checked them they seemed to have a groove in them, but when I cleaned them, it was barely there and they had been marked rather than etched. 

When I printed the two bigger plates from the day before, these were also very faint, despite Mike cranking up the pressure on the press. We concluded that they probably needed biting for longer. It was a disappointment but that’s how you learn. The little liquid ground plate wasn’t too bad. I was chatting about the process with a colleague who can remember a lot more Chemistry than I can (despite me having a degree in it) and we concluded that perhaps I had actually scratched the copper on the liquid ground one as there is less ground to mark into. That would open up a groove in the copper before the biting starts, so possibly allowing the acid to get into it better.

 

Soft ground plate (top) and liquid ground plate (bottom). These are fainter than the photo shows.

Anyway I really enjoyed the process and want to have another go. Ideally I need to do some tiny test plates and bite them for different lengths of time. I don’t know when I’ll be able to do this as I won’t get into the print room this week and I am becoming conscious of the deadline in a month’s time. Also, I guess it would be better to do this when a fresh batch of acid has just been added into the bath (seems pointless to do it just before changing the acid). So that’s added to the to-do list.