new painting preliminary stage

Cross-course critique

It's the cross course crit tomorrow and I havent done the [poster] that was requested on Monday. Well I haven't been there since Monday, though. I need to organise my trips to the heart/blood nurses and my specialists alot better.

I have the work that needs to be brought in like my three hard-edged collages, paintings and sketchbooks. My half-finished sculpture is at the studio and so is my mother and boy collage/painting and the more recent sketchbook.

I know what I am doing creative speaking but I'm a little erratic in the studying sense but I am reading a book by Nauman, read a book on J. Cornell and re-reading a chapter by S. Sontag about the Metamorphasis of Vision.

The second assignment (2000 words) has been set and I have chosen a question on the social life of an object. The object that I have chosen maybe a photograph bought from a junk-shop or a Ladybird book that I have found in a charity shop that is well used and has been through many little hands. Frequent readers may find correlations with this and with my last essay on Images and Things.

exhibitions 22-02-10

I'm quite happy with how this exhibition has turned out. It took an unbelievably long time to set up just my bit but hey...that's all in the details.

New painting 6x6

This is a new painting that I have finished. This is in the style of Gillian Wise and I have painted a few more larger compositions that are alot more [finished] than this one. There are going to be more of these using alternate paper/canvas etc...

Manchester day trip and others

I decided to have a run out to Manchester today with a few pals and took them to the Manchester Museum and a wander through China-Town and the Northern Quarter. It was a bit fresh but we had fun times. I managed to buy a book made out of processed elephant's dung. It's just a notebook sized book but I'll find some use for it...maybe printing or painting experiments.

The Images and Things exhibition is coming up next week so I'll need to get into Uni early to prepare my display box and print out the images that I am using. There is a seperate [but a tenuous link] exhibition dedicated to the a timeline of the 1980's that incorporates photographs that are either found, personal or cultural. So, I'll need to find some relevant images.

street decollage 2

I found these on the billboard at Manchester Town Hall.

three

Little off-the-cuff experimental collage.

composition using found photographs

I found these photographs tossed away in the garbage bin. I decided to rescue them and show them in a different context. I quite like how I've managed to create an almost Cubist effect and give them machination. I will be experimenting with this concept in the near future.

CMYK experiments

These are the first run-offs of a composition that I have been commissioned to paint/print. They where first conceived when I was told that the letterings that are described where disassembled.

Lamenting the loss of letterpress galley

I recently made a galley that was going to be used within a book project that I've already bored you with previously, the one about a mother butchering and a father consuming. The thing that I want to point out is that when I came to do some more prints on prepared inked and collaged paper, the technician in his wisdom, deconstructed what took me an hour to make and now I need to do it all over again.

The excuse was that all things get tidied up at Christmas but it had my name on it and I TOLD him that I needed it long term. What makes it so laughable is that there are some still hanging about from before I made my galley of letters. With news that I'm getting recently, I don't need this hassle and the extra work.

On a good note, I had a fleeting conversation with 3rd year tutor Jane Brake, whom with Simon Faulkner, are organising the IMAGES and THINGS exhibition for next week. As you know, I am/will be designing and constructing a display box to put my items in. The word from Jane is that she thinks it will be a good idea to have these items in a display case that is already made and looks professional enough. So I'll make my box (as I prefer it to be displayed on the wall) and as a back up, go with her judgement.

Morecambe

Morecambe 13 February 2010 at 3.30pm, looking towards Kirby Lonsdale.

Thumb status photographs

As you can see, the sequence starts from the bottom, up.

Anna Lee Keefer

This is work constructed by artist Anna Lee Keefer. I found her blog on WordPress and Her work is interesting enough in a sense of how her boxes are constructed. She is more of a Fine Artist than an Archival Artist in how she makes and paints her subjects and items other then using found objects.

Joseph Cornell Boxes

The thing that does interest me more and more is noth the archival aspect of this guys work, it is the feeling that we are just the guardians of transient objects such as money, garbage etc. We have the possessions in our midst but when they fail to achieve their usefulness and gather our interest, they are simply cast aside and wait until their next guardian to pass by.

I am an avid collector of first edition (and sometimes other editions)of Ladybird books. I usually collect the non-fiction kinds but when the art is of interest...storybooks. The newer books leave me cold, they seem less sweet and more mechanized (as been designed in Photoshop). The reason behind my ever growing collection is that these little books had quite a life and possibly been passed down in families and entered other social circles. In a way, this may have connection with money collectors etc...

IMAGES and THINGS exhibition coming up

Due to lack of interest I am now one of the lucky ones to have been given a part in the up and coming exhibition in the link gallery based on the theme of IMAGES and THINGS. I'll have all eight of my images displayed as well as the appropiate things displayed in a home-made box.

I have been looking at how other artists such as Cornell etc constructed, filled and displayed their boxes and artworks. I DO need to do the research and other design work to make sure that I don't make a hash of it all. This side of art is quite new to me and I have to find other artists ans movements. I know about the FLUX people and of course, the DADAists but hey, there must be others to find and assimilate.

I'll be designing the box all way through the weekend and hopefully have Paul help me out with the details. And yeah, I'll be using the lats from fruit-box wood (a theme that is running through most of my latest work)and (if I can find it)a rusty[ish] with frame.

And now for a stepback, I've FOUND the screen/litho print workshop after the lecture and seminar today. The tutor is Howard and he seems to be quite a nice guy. I've bought an A4 piece of lino so, there is some fun to be had sometime in the near future. I'm going back to a project that I started awhile back where I collected off-cuts and unwanted/spoilt thrown away prints and collated them into a book. I still have at least a book full from months ago. This may be the genesis of my probable home-made book with inks, collage and text.

Julie Shiels artwork

I really admire these photographs and the way they question life's little foibles.

Julie Shiels

I have just this moment happened upon Australian artist, Julie Shiels. I don't know that much about her but I really admire the work that she is coming out with. On her blog, she has photographs of her more recent exhibition entitled, Rubbish Theory. What i have gathered is that she has used throwaway packaging from toys, technology paraphenalia etc and somehow got these items to look fantastic. Also, she has a knack of photographing scenes that other people walk past and a fine collection on discarded sofas/mattresses with oblique stenciled messages/memories.

http://julieshiels.com.au

update

Been to the Docs today and got the thumb cleaned up and dressed...took photograms of the injury and I will upload said images tomorrow. I had the chance to pop into the local college where I did my Pre-Degree Foundation and the sculpture I constructed is still being displayed and it looks good. Some more pieces that I had done are being displayed and they all (other art-works as well) needs to be taken home. The sculpture is 6ft x 4ft so that will be a hard graft slogging that home.


This is the beast of a construct that I did for my Foundation course.

I've bought a couple of great art books today from the Cancer Research Charity Shop they are:

The Full Works of Lucien Freud
Picasso's Sketchbooks
The History of Wood Printing
Edvard Munch and Photography
The Facts of Life-Contemporary Japanese Artists

They all cost just one pound each, a bargain at a fiver. Afterwards, I walked past a Telephone Box and found three sections of window pieces - one glass and two perspex. They'll find themselves in a collage very shortly, there are some bits hanging around that needs to be put together...

oh dear

Due to the chopping off portions of my left thumb, I am now going to miss out in urgent workshop time. I was going to buy three metres of copper to do my verdi-gris [piss-acid-yoghurt] experiments and construct a tidier version of both my mother and boy fruit-box collage and the scale model of my sculpture/construct and speak to Paul [studio-tech-guy] about possible snags in the process/exhibition exercise.

This is all so periphery really because there is a one day project run by one of the other lecturers/tutors all about research and library things. The reason I'll miss all these activities is that the dressing on said body part needs to be changed and the wound has to be looked at in some detail [there will be pain and (hopefully no) blood] and I might be conscious enough to take photographs of the dis(finger)ment.

I have eventually been able to finish off what I was doing on Friday before I was so rudefully interrupted by the recent butchery activity. The piece I was doing looks great as a neater test piece for my Ben Nicholson inspired mural. And yes, I have managed to use the guilty Stanley Knife but, with much more apprehension than before.

accident-friday night

After working on test pieces and other maquettes I finally did the inevitable...I've chopped off a large portion of the left handside of my left thumb. It bleed copiously and I started to panic a wee bit. I'm taking blood-thinners etc and had to get a rush trip into the A&E. They couldn't sew the thumb so now I have 1/3 missing from that area. It's put a stop to my over-keeness, I suppose, now that what I was doing has been so abruptly halted.

I had the accident right after watching Matthew Hopkins-The Witchfinder General at about 2.45am and finally got seen to at 6.25am, I got home at 7.30am and feel asleep... It's just a bit of a shock, in the light of the day, having a huge left thumb encased in plasters and bandage.

Bruce Nauman book

With thanks to fellow student...Ryan, I have now got suitable reference to Bruce Nauman. I have an interest in this because of his use of language, text, structures and site specific work. I'll [read] import this book into my ethos and try to wring out ideas. I need to buy The Art of Seeing Sideway by Alan Fletcher next, I'd rather save and buy the book that interests me rather than borrow on short term l.oans. I usually owe quite a few bob towards the months out albeit it is a good thing for on the spec referencing.

various collages

Two collages using paper that I found on the walk to the bus station.

mother and boy-initial collage

This is the genesis of my present work at the moment. It is a collage of fruit-box wood and high denisty acrylic paint. The story behind it is the accumulation of wood material and the urge to use text, in the form of (business) signage either in box form or as neon. For the aspect of finance and time, I need to paint my slogan using acrylics as the letterpress process is not conclusive.

unfinished sculpture

These two images may be of the same thing but they have a subtle difference. the elongated part on the right is going to be of light and have more depth than the three slightly samey parts on the left and bottom.

The dimensions of the above is 3ftx3ft X three and 1.5ftx4ft X one so in fact, the true dimensions are 4ftx3ft. This is just a test piece somewhat a scale madel for the final thing, this was going to be in excess of 25ftx20ft but...in hind-sight needs to be a bit smaller (9ft or 6ft). I am working on the principle of the GOLDEN SECTION...

my space at the uni

This here is my work station in the Interactive Arts studio. It is a little messy and rough around the corners but it's what I called home this year, anyhow.

An odd photo that I took from an analogue television.

summary of day offs

I have had two days off from Uni due to lethargy and medication side__effects. My sculpture is now on the go and the front pieces are finished. I need to box them together now and pin all components securely. There is going to be lights in the piece and now I have bought a strobe lights...this is going to be utilized within the scope of things. I am finding it hard work to fasten the side pieces to the facades but...I will prevail.

collage number two

This collage is a bit neater and uses PVA to bond it all together. It is a lot smaller than collage number one. I have used cardboard, paper and fruit-box wood for this composition.

collage number one

I did this collage this afternoon and took in excess of three hours to complete. I have used both wood and paper labels and used PVA and a lot of tacks to hold it together.