MA Week 56 - London, and moving on with the Mabgate abstracts

Reflection on the past week, 14^th February 2017

 

Mabgate abstracts

February has continued to be positive. I had another tutorial last Thursday and Sharon and I discussed the Mabgate sketches. I was struggling with the composition as the colours were falling too “half and half” but Sharon suggested I do 1/3 to 2/3 ratio of the colours in each of the two pieces. This made sense to me and is what I am intending to pursue. We also talked about the need for “quiet” and busy places in the paintings. Some of what is in the sketches is far too busy but even allowing for this I can see the need for “quiet” areas. 

We also talked at some length about whether the roads should be sharp or not, the use of different thicknesses of paint, and the possibilities of using the stencil of the word “self” (laser cut last week) with masking fluid to produce layering within the paint. Also the possibility of depicting your thoughts from the walk, or what you want to share. A lot of conceptual and practical food for thought. 

Today I laser cut some further lettering, once again including the word ”self”, and also “hope”, inspired by Hope Road which adjoins Mabgate. I’ve cut these out of card, some grey paper, and a manilla envelope. I also cut some out of a photo of the City of Mabgate Inn that I’d copied onto acetate. I found the choice of “hope” and “self” quite positive. I’ll use this lettering in the final pieces. 

Self, self, self

 

I’ve also looked again at the sketches and while they still bear some resemblance to the actual map of the area, they are too complex for what I’m trying to use them for and they fracture the space too much – even though I want to portray fragmentation, since time is fragmented by the act of walking, and the area itself is fragmented in its use, and its users and is likely to become more so with the advent of gentrification. I will therefore simplify them before I start on the finished versions tomorrow. 

Testing ideas on the sketch

I’ve also found another print amongst those from last week which isn’t the best ever but which will give me four I can take to MMU.  With the challenge of the painting I don’t think I will make it back into the print room before the conference.

 

London

We spent the weekend in London, something we used to do quite frequently and now do all too rarely. Part of the reason for the visit was to see the Hockney retrospective at Tate Britain and we also managed to fit in the Rauschenberg retrospective at Tate Modern. I’ll write about these separately. On a smaller scale, but equally interesting, were unexpectedly coming across two printmaking exhibitions. 

SouthbankPrintmakers  were exhibiting in the Oxo Building, and what a feast of printmaking - prints of all sizes and techniques and colours. The works by the entrance door were etchings of urban and industrial scenes by the printmaker Melanie Bellis. Seeing works like these (a) gives me something to aspire to and (b) helps me realise that the urban and industrial are not such unusual subjects, which is positive. By very happy coincidence, Melanie was curating the exhibition that day, and she discussed her work with me. She encouraged me to persevere with my etching into a ground and to be unafraid to experiment with smaller plates until I got my bearings with the techniques. I always find it gratifying when established artists are willing to share their time and give insights – it is a real encouragement. Shortly afterwards I found out via Twitter that Melanie has been granted associate membership of the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers, which was fantastic to hear.

Just around the corner, at the Royal Society of Watercolour Artists’ Bankside Gallery, there was an exhibition of woodcut prints by the Society of Wood Engravers. One of the exhibiting artists, Louise Hayward  was actually doing some demonstrations and I talked to her. Louise’s subject matter is also the urban, in particular, brutalist buildings. I was fascinated to find out that some of her work had been produced by effectively carving into plastic plates, not dissimilar to the type I’d been using for my drypoint etchings. However, they are then (obviously) printed relief rather than intaglio. I really enjoyed seeing the detail and structure of her prints, and once again found inspiration and encouragement by speaking to her.

 

MA Week 25 - Crits

Crits – 29^th April 2016 

Today’s taught session was a Socratic crit and it was good to get some different input into my work. I showed some of the work I’d done last term, as mentioned in my week 20 reflection.  

I talked a bit about my theories of heritage and identity and how I had been exploring printing and laser cutting. My classmate Callum kindly made notes and I added into them later. His “X” diagram is interesting; I am becoming more and more interested in this shape but I had not really seen it as a metaphor for journeys in different directions or for me trying to pull things (ideas, techniques, pieces of work) together. If my work is concerned with the decay of industry, do the cross-braces still need to be at 90 degrees to each other? Should they be decaying too? Should they be strong and distinct or rather more faint?  

Crit : salient points

 

I was asked if I identified the laser cutting as an industrial process and whether this tied in with my theory. It wasn’t the question I expected – I felt that my etching experiences were nearer to the industrial somehow. My classmates were more interested than I expected in my laser cut images of myself. In my thinking of further exploration of drawing and printing, I’d rather sidelined the idea of laser cutting but there were suggestions to bring it back in, such as laser cutting some of my drawings and prints. I later thought I could use the laser cut faces as a resist in monoprinting (though I haven’t tried this yet). Another suggestion was to use the multi-colours that I’d done with the laser cut faces on a print of some kind.  

The suggestion also came to use portions of the face images as a repeat pattern. I’d really resisted the idea of doing repeat patterns as it’s a technique I’ve fallen back on so many times when I don’t know what to do next. But later, in the group discussion, we talked about how we can easily dismiss ideas and that we should be open to considering an idea – however basic a technique it is, however many times it’s been used before – and dismiss it only with reason in this particular circumstance, not just completely out of hand.  

The ideas that came out most strongly were around degradation and about not dismissing the laser cutting. I am still trying to pursue my print making and drawing but I will try to let these themes come into the “mix” as needed.

MA Week 20 - reflection on term 2

I've learnt a lot this term. I've carried on with my investigations into heritage and identity. I set myself some objectives in mid-January - here's how I got on: 

Learn more about printmaking

I undertook a lot of action research here.  I experimented with lino cutting, solar plate printing and drypoint etching. The solar plate printing was a totally new technique for me and I got reasonable results . See my Week 15 post. I now have this as a technique in my "toolkit" for future use. The Lino printing didn't yield such good results but this may have been due to the inks I was using. By far my favourite was the drypoint etching. I produced a plate based on my "generative wandering" (see below) and the combination of subject matter and technique really gelled with me. I  like the quality and blackness of lines I can achieve. See my Week 20 post.

Learn more about Laser cutting

Again a good deal of action research. I've used the laser cutter throughout the module. I have concentrated on cutting images of my own face (in keeping with pursuing my investigations into identity) and have developed a much deeper understanding of how to prepare the image and what the laser can and can't do. This is another very versatile technique for my "toolkit". See for example my Taking Stock post. 

 

Generate as many ideas as possible

Use of the laser cutter and print facility, along with the insights gained in the generative wandering,  have generated myriad ideas. I have been able to develop some of them, but I've noted all of them in my creative journal. So they can form a repository for starting points for the next module. 

Do something a bit scary re personal development

I rose to the three-minute-presentation challenge of the University of Leeds's "Heritage Show + Tell" (see https://heritageshowtell.wordpress.com ). I talked about my approach to research by creative practice. See my Week 20 post with more details of how it went. 

Dr.  Tina Richardson, psychogeographer, has offered me the opportunity to write about my generative  wandering in a guest blog post on her website, http://particulations.blogspot.co.uk, so I will definitely be taking her up on that.

Research artists

I wrote a reflection on the exhibition catalogue for "Cloth & Memory" (see my Week 18 post) which encompassed five artists. I haven't undertaken any other formal artist research, but I have begun to follow more artists on Twitter (and some have begun to follow me, which is gratifying). Whilst this is not formal research, it's a really good way to get instant inspiration each day as other people tweet their work in progress or pictures of road markings or brutalist buildings or beautiful landscapes. Me on Twitter : @1962AB. 

Draw for 15 minutes a day at least 3 times a week

I had intended to draw with a pencil in a book but in fact I only did a little of that. I found myself drawing lines with the laser cutter and with etching tools. Overall it probably amounted to 45 minutes a week and more... Honestly!

Do the blog slog every Monday

Through setting this objective I learnt to write more concise blog posts. It didn't always happen on a Monday, but unless there was anything particular to say - like when I read Harrison's book (see my Week 16 post) - this worked much better. I found the blog worked as a kind of overall journal of what I was doing, and allowed me to document and reflect on progress, whereas the creative journal has allowed a much deeper reflection on individual visual outcomes.  

Time management

I have had my usual plans (3 versions) and had to do a lot of juggling about when I went down with flu in mid-February. These has helped me prioritise creative pieces to take forward and ideas that can be documented and "parked" for possible future use.  

 

Overall progress

I continued to work under my "heritage" and "identity" theoretical perspectives and this worked well. Throughout, I have kept a reflective perspective on the work I'm producing and - equally importantly - how I'm progressing and what I'm learning. I've documented mistakes and experiments and solutions, and also when I've chosen to pause an investigation because it is not yielding the results I'm looking for. The latter is important in making judgements about how to progress, both creatively and from the project management viewpoint.

Undoubtedly the breakthrough during this module was reading Harrison's fine book, "Hertiage : Critical Approaches", and undertaking the generative wandering to Armley, both of which happened in the same week. I had been trying to find some underpinning theory whilst remaining true to my beliefs that I was working on identity and heritage narratives arising from my own lived experience. Harrison's book vindicated my approach.  

The combination of the two gave me confidence in applying a theoretical perspective and a research method (the wandering) directly to my work and I went on to produce four acrylics-based pieces which responded directly to the colours and shapes I encountered. I also used laser cutting to help prepare the corrugated cardboard in two of the pieces as an experiment in depicting myself as an integral part of my work and as my identity in the heritage of Leeds. Within these pieces, I worked quite freely, in an unfettered and almost automatic way. This was quite a departure for me as I would usually do a good deal of testing even for a small piece. I enjoyed this freedom and need to allow that to continue.  

There is more to explore from the wandering, such as temporality, decay, boundaries and so on. I am hoping these themes will continue into the next module. At this point, I feel my theoretical perspectives and techniques are really starting to come together. My confidence in my practice - and in myself - is growing as I take these steps in my professional development. I am feeling much more comfortable with my theoretical perspectives of heritage and identity. I still enjoy the mixed media approach to practice and I imagine I will continue to pursue this in the next module. Overall I think it has been a successful term and it should stand me in good stead for the next module, which embeds a closer relationship between theory and practice.

 

 

 

MA Week 20 - reflection on the week

Lots of exciting making this week!

I finished my cardboard pieces. I really liked the colours and textures that emerged. The collaged  laser cut pieces gave the idea of my presence in my creative work. The collaged photos gave a kind of industrial, yesteryear black and white-ness that appealed to me.  The mixed media worked well; the compressed charcoal toned down the acrylic colours and gave a kind of mucky, industrial feel, which was just what I was thinking. I would like to work more with textured grounds and also perhaps with a series of pieces.

Armley 2

 

I also laser cut lots of heads and worked them up into an image of increasing intensity. This was an it that had its roots in something that someone mentioned at the crit. It is a depiction of the increasing intensity of this term on the MA!

Stress levels increase in proportion to proximity to deadline

 

I also spent a day working on my etching plate. It's a simple drawing, but the black etching ink brings out the industrial quality of the subject matter and the inherent dirt. I worked on differential inking of the plate and this gave convincing results. I really liked working with the plate and this is something I would like to do more of.

Thinking about inking

 

Other than that I am up against it for the module deadline and I am on micro-management. The overall plan is booted out in favour of detailed lists that must be achieved for delivery. Time is very tight, so I'd better stop blogging and go get on with my creative journal!

MA Week 19 - Reflection on the week

A slightly better week, although still feeling very much under the weather.

 

Work in Progress presentation

Friday’s session in college was a series of work in progress presentations. I found the whole day dragged and it over-ran to the point where I was practically asleep (not least due to recovering from this bug), which wasn’t very polite to fellow students. We seem to have had a spate of crits, work in progress, etc, and sometimes you just have to do the work. Anyway… I talked about the application of the “heritage” critical perspective, the laser cut images of my face, the solar printing, drypoint etching, the generative wandering and the acrylic pieces on paper. I got mixed feedback. One fellow student felt I needed more structure in my work, like restricting it to one theme e.g. the gasometers of Leeds, or one type of practice, e.g. printmaking. Another fellow student felt the breadth of techniques added interest to the themes. I guess there is always a tension between “freedom” and “system”. It’s true I’ve sometimes felt a bit off down a blind alley this term but I have repeatedly tried to take stock and pull myself back to a narrative that I can explain. Perhaps I need to think about that and learn to explain it better!  

I talked a bit about decay arising from the charred MDF laser cut and another fellow student suggested this could be a theme moving into the “decay of my heritage”. I guess that theme is already there, but not overtly, so that is to think about for the next module. When I talked about the generative wandering I mentioned the people doing their thing in the present as I looked for the past (jogging, baby-walking, Diamond White drinking) and that was reflected back to me in the idea of temporality – another them to explore! From the tutor and fellow students I got some names to look into: Karel Martins (designer), Daniel Eatock (creates responses to something particular), Leeds Surrealist Group, Psychogeography hub on Tate website, Paul Ricoeur, Zygmunt Baumann. So a few to read up on over Easter.

Reading

Speaking of reading: I had a skim over the first couple of chapters of “The Craftsman” by Richard Sennett (2009), which had been recommended by my tutor. It didn’t grab me – clearly not every book will do that. I felt his premise of Pandora’s casket (sic) being equivalent to a culture of man-made things risking continual self-harm (p2) needed more exploration and explanation to convince me. But perhaps that’s because I’m an old programmer, not a Greek scholar. In fact Sennett talks about programmers and business process improvement in chapter 1. I’ve lived through what I need to know about both programming and process improvement. So I’ve paused reading that book. 

Much more relevant to what I’m currently doing, but less snappily titled, is “Exploring Learning, Identity & Power through Life History & Narrative Research”. Again, I’ve only had time to skim the first one and a half chapters, but lots of interesting ideas. Within the first few pages we have the idea of “life histories” – one’s life story in the context of the social and historical conditions prevailing (p2), problems around construction of identities which matter because identities shape people’s practices (p3), and the idea of the tension between the politics of the state and the possibility for social change through the small everyday acts of individuals (p5). In Chapter 2, the ethics of narrative enquiry are explored, including the fact that the researcher will always have a stake in the formation of the written identities of the participants because she or he too is a human being. I have only got to about page 16 and I think there is plenty in here for me to explore and reflect upon. The idea of “life history” is appealing as I think it relates to my idea of “lived experience”; the individual’s experience at that particular point in the space-time continuum. Also, even using myself and my own life history as a source, I am reconstructing my own identity and experience – more clearly? Less clearly? Tilting it to whatever I want to say now? I am hoping I can get time to have a closer read of this book as it seems to complement some of the ideas in Harrison’s book in terms of my own critical perspectives. I think this will also have to be over Easter, the way things are going.

Making

In and amongst all the reading and presenting, I have managed to etch a new plate based on my generative wandering to Armley. I have only done two test prints so I will need to work on it further next week. However, it is taking shape and looking promising.

 

First proof

After the work in progress presentations, I nipped onto the laser cutter and engraved the image of my face into two pieces of corrugated cardboard. I wanted to work on these with mixed media, again based on my Armley wandering. I’ve done a couple of coats of acrylic with a 1-inch house brush. I’m just working freely and intuively with these. They are test/experimental pieces but on a bigger scale than I’d normally do such work – they are about 52 x 39cm each. The colours are based on the colours I saw during the wandering, with the blue layer also possibly representing the sky.

Armley 1 : Corrugated Cardboard Work in Progress

 

MA Week 18 - Reflection on the past 10 days

A mixed bag of fortunes recently.

 

Week commencing 9^th February was really productive, with the breakthrough reading about heritage as a critical perspective and with the generative wandering. I then went on to finish off the acrylic piece I’d been doing the week before (see this Week 16 post), and also started another acrylic piece on paper which was a visual response to the generative wandering. 

 

Armley, WIP, February 2012

 

I had also managed to get some advice from IT about how to prepare images for the laser cutter (as mentioned in this post under “Laser cutting”) and I had made a different template of my face. I tested this and decided to simplify it even further. The IT guys and the laser technician both thought that I was probably aiming at something too ornate with all the detail in the hair and eyes. 

Then week commencing 15^th February was a disaster. I had Monday afternoon off and used it to prepare the simplified image mentioned above. Then I came home to do some blogging and found my poor partner down with flu. So arty time lost on Monday and Tuesday as I packed him off to get some rest and tried to look after him. On Tuesday I then cut the simplified image from 9mm MDF and it burnt. This wasn’t entirely unexpected but it was still a blow as I’d hoped to build up a stack of these cut images as part of an ongoing idea of being able to “look down” into the image and see what’s inside. I’ll ask further advice, but I think I might be at the point where I have to pause the laser investigations. I’m not getting the results I’d hoped and there are deadlines looming! I have learnt lots about laser cutting notwithstanding.  

Charred remains of grand designs

 

Then even bigger disaster as I went down with the flu myself on Wednesday. So I’ve done next to nothing for a week - I didn't even get to college on Friday. Even my finely honed project management skills (!) can’t pull a week back over three weeks. So I will need a bit of prioritisation and juggling as I move towards the deadline. It’s such a shame after such a breakthrough the previous week, but that’s art, that’s life.

MA Term 2 - Taking Stock (1)

Predictably, I started out with a plan for this term’s work. Few things get done in my life without a plan, or at least a few lists. This plan was a bit different, though. As the module this term is about practice, I intended to have a couple of weeks of planning and thinking before starting with a vengeance. I was also aware that I couldn’t plan to the nth degree, because I don’t know where my experimentation will take me. However I soon decided that a better approach would be to jump in with some of the techniques I want to learn, then stand back and see where I’ve got to. I intend this to be an iterative process, so after about 3 weeks of term, it’s time to reflect and see where I am. 

At the top of my plan, as overall drivers, I documented the following:

• Learn more about printmaking
• Learn more about Laser cutting
• Do something a bit scary re personal development
• Play and experiment lots
• Research artists – new and old favourites
• Draw for 15 minutes a day at least 3 times a week
• Do the blog slog every Monday

So far I’ve been doing lots of experimentation (action research) with laser cutting and printmaking. I’m a novice in both of these, but these were areas I identified right at the outset as having the potential to add to my preferred technique of layering images. The results have been mixed, as one might expect. The detailed reflections are beginning to appear in my creative journal, where I find it easier to annotate, but a flavour is given here.

Printmaking

I finally wrote up the work I’d done before Christmas, when I did some etching which produced encouraging results for a first unsupervised go. I want to do some more etching but it takes such a long time… I have had a go at lino cutting at home, but this hasn’t produced such good results. I have had difficulty inking the lino and the colours haven’t mixed optically in the way I expected. My cut lines leave a lot to be desired but I guess that’s a matter of practice. The design didn’t turn out as I’d hoped – I wanted it to be kind of like a Soviet propaganda poster, with the sun rising over an industrial scene – but I always find you learn lots the first time you do anything. The image is from testing the blue ink. It’s blotchy, but it’s a lot cleaner image than the 3-colour reduction I was attempting.

Blotchy gasometer : work to be done

I have also made two solar plates with a lot of help from Lyndon, the Print technician. The first one is a lot better than the second, because I over-developed the second and part of the detail has washed out. I’ve not yet had chance to print these but I will hopefully do that this week.

So a “tick” for that category.

Laser cutting

I’ve tried three main images. The first, of some bricks, I rastered into some MDF in the hope of giving a bit of texture to the board, but it didn’t work so well as the incision wasn’t as deep as I’d hoped. I might put some acrylic paint onto it anyway to see what happens. But then I need to think if I need gesso and if that will just negate the texturing.

 

Yorkshire Rose

The rose worked quite well as a starter idea. It was an experiment to see what kind of curves and lines would work in the petals and in the leaves. It needs further work but I can see potential. I would like to make this into a leaving card for a colleague who has been a good friend and who is leaving Yorkshire next month.

 

Pensive... perhaps thinking how much is still to do...?

The self-image is a typical piece of my work. The pensive image is a “mood” I’ve used before. I’ve cut this in paper and in card, setting the cutter alight with the latter. I finally found out that I haven’t prepared the image quite correctly so I will need to seek further help with this from IT. 

A “tick” for this category too.

 

Do something a bit scary re personal development

Got some ideas but not yet done anything on this one.

Play and experiment lots

This is really what I’ve been doing with the printmaking and laser cutting, and in retrospect I don’t think it is a separate driver

Research artists – new and old favourites

Just not had the time to do this. It would be good to choose one artist and look at them in a bit more detail.

Draw for 15 minutes a day at least 3 times a week

Mixed success. I have drawn more but not 3 times a week. I’ve also found that putting a 15 minute limit on it makes me rush. But even if I draw for half an hour once a week it is better than nothing.

Do the blog slog every Monday

Ummmm……..