Surface pattern

Today we went into the surface pattern workshop and they showed us how to apply different mixes of colour onto a certain material. This was really fun! it wasn't too hard as well which is good.
First we had to wash the desk with just soapy water and then we had to apply this gel onto when it was dry (it smelled really bad like cheese). Once it had all dried, we could place our bit of material on top and then if we rubbed an iron over it, it sticked to the table! 
After sticking the fabric to the table we had to start mixing the colours. It was really interesting because we only had to use a tiny bit of the ink to make the colour form. 
After mixing our colours we could apply them to the fabric using the pieces of wood/stencil and dragging the colour through!
This was a really good session, we have got to go back on Friday and we will be taught how to print our chosen images onto the fabric too!

Cant wait!!!

Book making session!

The book making session was really really good!!! 
We got to make 3 different types of books, it was hard in some places like the sewing part, but it was really interesting to make our own books. I think it would be really nice to make a book for the catalog in the exhibiting and curating modual and also one for photographs in this modual! 

This was the first book we made, its like a flip out book which would be really good for displaying pictures in:

This is the second book that I made which I thought would be really good for sketches and information etc: 

The last book that we made was a Chinese one which looks like it would be really good for a note book or a jotter:

The book workshop overall was really good, I cant wait for the next workshop!

Michaels reading session (Richard Wentworth)

Michael Day's reading session was really good! We read though a interview with an artist named 'Richard Wentworth'. During the interview he talked about his son going to oxford and he made a quote saying 'hes very very smart but hes smart like artists are smart', I thought this was a really interesting quote as we all questioned whether he was on about being academic compared to more of a practical source.
Michael went through the interview step by step to make sure we totally understood the text. As we went through there were certain words that confused us but we discussed what we think they meant and Micheal Day clarified the meaning behind them.
I really liked the part in this interview where Richard Wentworth said 'Im quite interested in the image of a handrail, you don't need it but its good to have it there if you fall. Part of civilized intelligence is it notice it before you trip, not to be looking around for it mid-fall'. I like to think that the handrail is a part in our practice that we feel most comfortable perusing and as long as we know the handrail is there we can experiment always knowing that we have that to fall back on!
I have really enjoyed going to these reading sessions as I have started to understand how important it is to break down the text so that it is easier to understand.

Grahams reading (Death of the Author)

We had a reading session with Graham, the text was called 'The death of the author'. When I read it before I found it really hard to understand. We started the session and Graham asked who didn't understand the text and most of us put our hands up but what I did like about the reading lesson was that the text did become clear as Graham started to explain what each section is about. 
I have kept the copy of the reading as i want to have another look over it just to gather a bit more understanding of what each section is on about. It was a really interesting read but some of the large words were hard to understand.

New piece of art!

I was looking at this artist called 'Ghada Amer', she uses different sewing techniques and paint to create her artwork.

This is a piece of art called 'Red drips-Coulures Rouges', she used a mix of acrylic, embroidery and gel medium on canvas:

This is a close up of the stitching she has done.

This is the full view of the piece of art, she has used red drips of paint before applying the thread.

I wanted to explore the idea of using thread in my work because the way the thread is placed over paint looks really interesting!

This is a piece of art/poster that I previously made:

I thought it would be really interesting to take the main element of the picture which is the homeless person and duplicate him a few times on a canvas but use thread to highlight the outline of him.
I wanted to experiment with different types of mediums like paint and posters and thread etc.

I started with getting a canvas, I didn't want to get a big one because I just wanted to experiment to see if the idea worked to start off with. First I gave the canvas a coat of Gesso to form a protective layer from the acrylic:

After giving the canvas a protective coat I applied red paint in the same style as 'Ghada Amer'. It was really good because it started to form layers as I put different tones of red on top of each other:

This effect was really good because some of the paint started to drip and created an interesting element to the canvas. It was like the paint had a mind of its own! I let the paint fully dry before trying to add the thread. When it was dry I formed a template of the homeless guy from my poster and placed out where I want them on the canvas. After, I started to place the thread on the canvas in the shape of the template using gel medium:

This is a close-up of the thread being used on the canvas:

This is what it looks like now, I still need to put more thread on the canvas:

The main reason why I wanted to take the picture of the homeless man and duplicate it on a canvas is because as I am still looking at consumerism and language, I didn't want to make the theme too obvious to the viewer but allow them to interpret it themselves. The canvas represents the world of consumerism, and the homeless man duplicated represents those that are forgotten in that world. I have used the colour green thread as it is a natural/economical colour which some aspects of consumerism aren't  also red is connected with things being bad etc. so the idea of there being homeless people in the world of consumerism and mass consumption is wrong!

Anna's reading session (Adam Chodzko)

Yesterday we had a reading with Anna in the AirSpace Museum. I was a really good afternoon because we didn't just read through the piece of text we also went out to the Hanley bus station!
Before we went to the reading group with Anna, we were asked to read the text from Adam Chodzko and also bring along a text that relates or opposes it.
When reading the text from Chodzko, it was interesting because he was exploring the ideas of public spaces and how people interact within them etc. So, when I started looking for an artist or text that could either relate or oppose to the Chodzko text, I thought back to the first semester when I was looking at Micheal Landy. The piece of text that I chose which relates to the Chodzko text is a overview of an exhibition from Landy called 'Breakdown'. 'Breakdown' was where he was situated in a major shopping part in London and occupied a shop and started to destroy all of his things (including other artists artworks). This was a relation because Chodzko talked about there's looking and then there's looking for something, I believe that Landy was looking for that something which would change thought processes of his viewers.
We started to discuss that people are becoming so unaware of things out in open spaces because everyone is always in a rush!
The second part of the session was going out and seeing the old Hanley bus station. Anna had shown us a few pictures beforehand highlighting what it looked like before when it was built in the 60's. When we got down there I realized that alot can change over a few years and some places can become neglected and people do walk past oblivious because they are always in a rush.
Here are a few pictures of what the bus station looks like now and also what the new bus station will be like:

Each section of the old bus station now looks abandoned and grotty where at one time it would have been lively and a god place to be!

This is the new bus station which is being built:

This new bus stop is being made and looks like a very modern building.

Once we had a walk around the bus station we were set a task, the task was to use a picture that you have taken from the walk to the bus station and draw on top of it something that will make the place look more interesting or inviting.

This was a really good reading session! Very fun!

Brought Vitamin P Book

Today I have just got my Vitamin P book which was recomended to ys by Stephen. It looks really good! im going to have a good look through it see what is has inside!

Visiting artist lecture: Doug Fishbone

When fishbone started to explain his practice he began it by showing us a picture of 2 pieces of art. Both pieces displayed a joint of ham but one had a bottle of wine next to it and the other didn't, he started to explain that the audience will all go for the one with the wine because it is more appealing! This was an introduction saying that we can control audiences reactions to art in different ways.
Doug Fishbone work on alot of performance work, he uses a very strange way to interact with his audience and that is through hypnosis!
His main aim when producing the artwork was to see if he could convince people using visual gestures.
Using the motion of hypnosis, he wanted to see if he could control peoples reactions instead of them being uncontrollable which is a natural thing for us to do. When he looked at the responses from the audiences he said it was very strange.
Once he did this experiment then he created a 2 screen installation, 1 of the screens was of the audience being filmed from the experiment and the other which was opposite was the actual film that was being watched (This means that there would be 2 audiences one on the screen and one viewing the installation piece).
He wanted to find the answer to this question, how do we perceive things?

He said something towards the end of the power point that was really interesting and that I could use for my practice, he said that most art is a juxtaposition, another words if you see something like a naked woman on a tractor, it doesn't mean that if you buy the tractor you'll get the naked woman!

Thought of the day!

When I walked into the studio today I looked at some of the previous pieces of work that I have 

done and saw this one:

When I looked closer at the picture I thought it would be really interesting to incorporate a painting with the picture. So, as I have been working on a painting previously I realized that it connects with this image very well. Using this idea, I think it would be really good to add a canvas onto a poster!

Instead of the guy holding a board with the piece of language on, it would be interesting to experiment with replacing it with a very small canvas showing an image of beauty. 

This will make a big contrast as the guy is a homeless guy holding something that is displaying such beauty!

Im going to do a few experiments with this idea as it will become more clear!

Visit to Hanley Park

Just before dinner and our artist lecture today I decided to have a walk around Hanley Park to see if there was anything interesting that caught my eye. I saw a few things that was really eye catching while walking around, this was what they were:

I thought this poster was funny/interesting because it is alerting everyone of something that isnt there! This sign is highlighting that there is a danger of thin ice whereas if you look into the background, the water isn't frozen over.

This second photo that I took when walking around highlighted beauty! The way the sun was shining down onto the water created some unexpected speckles of light which was really nice to see.

In the center of the park where the water is there was a small boat house. It had been all boarded up except it left a few gaps in the boards so I put my camera in to see what was in the building and it produced these images. It was like a derelict building, a bit dark and dingy. But the way it looked as if I was looking through a spy hole was really interesting!

I went around the other side of the boar house and took a picture from a different angle. This was a really nice image because you can just about make out that there is a wall on the left but the main focus is on the light appearing at the end of the tunnel like building. When I went back and looked at these images, this picture does relate to the term 'light at the end of the tunnel' which is also a religious element.

This is a similar picture to the previous one, the only difference in this picture that I like is that because there is a chair in the right corner and has bars on the windows, it gives the impression of a jail or someone who lives in a run down place!

This was the entrance to the boat house which does look run down and un-cared for.

This is another angle of the neglected boat house!

Addition to painting

When I got in uni today and looked at the perivious painting that I did I realized that I hadnt painting around the edges so they were still white. So Ive just finnished applying colour around the edges of the painting to make it look more professional and also so it doesnt look like ive stuck the image on the front.

Random pieces of blinds

I found these random blinds in the back of our fine art studio and I think it would be interesting to make a piece of art out of them or with them. Ill keep hold of them until I think of something!

Small talk with Stephen

After we had our group reading session with Stephen in the morning, I spoke to him after because I was a bit confused as I have so many ideas and don't know how to find a connection between them all.
When talking to him he referred back to the piece i produced for the Dispatches project.

This is the piece from the Dispatches project that Stephen thought was really interesting and I could develop further. He really liked the way I have Photo-shopped the image as if im taking bits of colour away from the picture. He also said that it looks like one of the original 3D pictures! The way I have changed it in Photo-shop makes it look like how super-heroes are perceived, but what Stephen found interesting was that superheroes are people everyone wants to be and looks up to whereas my image shows a homeless person but in a superhero quality. It was suggested that I could keep the original image and only use the effect on the homeless guy, because then you wouldn't need the writing on the board as it will speak for itself!

This is another piece that me and Stephen discussed:

He really liked my idea of changing this poster into a video/installation. Also he did say that instead of saying they are queuing for a sale at a shopping center, let the viewer think about what they are queuing for because they could be ina queue for anything eg. blockbuster. I don't need to be too direct, I need to start being able to let the viewer think for themselves and use their imagination. 

Stephen did say that if I want to change medium like painting etc. as long as I document it well, then it will be alright to jump from paint to video and maybe then to installation art. 

Reading session with Stephen (Tony Swain)

Today we had a reading session with Stephen Boyd about a piece of text called 'Tony Swain (narrative deficiencies throughout)'. When I first read through this text I found it really hard to understand, so I went back and broke it down section by section and underline any words that i didn't understand. With the words I didn't understand I researched them in a dictionary and most of the sentences stared to make sense. When reading through this piece of text, it was describing Tony Swains work and what types of mediums he works in. Tony Swain works with newspaper and paint. The text was really interesting because it was saying that paint and newspaper are not normally put together/alongside each other, but in this case Swain uses them both in a way that they start complimenting. Stephen asked us to rate how hard it was to understand the text at the beginning of our talk and we all decided as a group that after having a good thorough read through it, we would give it a 5.5 for difficulty to understand. After we had given it this grade of difficulty, we started to read through certain sections that we didn't understand with Stephen and he explained what they are trying to say in the text. We all realized that there is more to the text than we thought so we would have to raise the difficulty level for understanding higher!
After having that first session of reading with Stephen, I know next time that i need to read through it and then read through it again to make sure I totally understand it fully. This is because in some cases, the text may be saying something simple but in an elaborate way!

Reading chosen

I have chosen to join the reading session with Stephen because I have read through the piece of text and it is a good read. It is really interesting because it is about painting on newspaper and how people perceive it.

This is the piece of text that talks about painting on newspaper that we will be reading tomorrow with Stephen.

Continuing with painting!

Today I started to carry on with the painting that I started last week. I found mixing the paint to make the certain colours difficult but once I spend an hour or so testing colours it started to bring itself together.

Here I added the tree at the top of the canvas, it is dark because the sun is shining from behind it.

After painting the tree, I started to add the see which blended nicely into the blue sky and used different colours of yellow and browns to create the colour of the sand.

As i am looking at artists like Barbara Kruger, I wanted to insert my passage in 'Secret of happiness is to admire without desiring'. I thought it would go nice blended in with the sand.

This is a close-up of how I have painted the sea as if it is crashing against the rocks. This still need s alot more detail!

I am thinking of using this as part of my Exhibiting and Curating project as well as my personal practice as it would be interesting to experiment using the idea we have for our group project.

Grahams Seminar

Just after Grahams lecture we had our seminar and we had to take in our semester 1 essay feedback from Alka. He read through all of our feedback's and it was really helpful as he gave us some tips for the next time we write an essay which is this semester! In the next couple of weeks before the next seminar with Graham I need to continue my research on artists and write a short introduction to this semesters essay with a draft title. He said that it is early days and that we will keep changing the title and the introduction to work with the rest of the essay. This is okay as it will give us an essay that makes sense as a whole!

Grahams Lecture (Abstract)

Today we had a lecture about abstractism with Graham. we started by talking about 'Proto-abstraction' which 'proto' is another name for before.

Proto-abstraction

This began in the 18th century. 

The beginning of abstraction could be seen in 'Constable' (outdoor oil) in them times they were seen as sketches not art. If you have a closer look, quickly an artist named 'Turner' used brush effects producing it into a painting. Turners earlier work was representational.

19th century was very modern, photography changed things as it is fantastic for representational 

Romanticism painting started in the 18th century.

Impressionism

Camille Pissaro - it is radical because he creates a signal for impressionism (can see every brush mark) the landscape is made up of all of these brush marks.

Monet created a piece called 'impression sunrise', leading to the term impressionism. This piece is good because you can see the feeling in the painting, not what you can do with photography. It was romantic expressionism. He also created a piece called 'Waterloo Bridge', a painting of London,  it is representational but that's only part of it, the other part of the story is the expressionistic effect.

Abstract is not representational!

They use abstract because they don't have to show a detailed painting.

Georges Seurat 'A Sunday afternoon on the island of La Grande Jatte' the difference between him and Monet is that you cannot see his brush strokes. He started to use primary colors which was an advance in science. He painted with tiny little dots of red yellow and blue which creates a painting, it was more about using what science has discovered. It was a different kind of abstractness, it was a scientific vision.

Japan sealed itself up from the west, this was until the late 19th century. When they started trading they wrapped up their goods in japanese prints. The pictures were extremely graphic and was in some way abstract. It was about shape and line rather than it being representational.

Manet produced a piece called 'Emile Zola' where he painted a japanese print in the background.

Seurat was very geometric, as if it was created by a machine. For an artist to behave like a machine was something new in art.

An artist called Matice, created pieces that was in between representational and abstract. 

Daran also produced the same kind of work, worked alongside Matice

Abstraction (no representation at all)

Many artists tried to achieve that effect of music.

When they moved away from expressionism they looked more at geometry (extremely modern).

Mondrian created a sequence of the tree, Started off a bit like matice but when he sees cubism in 1910 then it becomes more analytical. the tree becomes lost.

Mondrian 'De Stijl' going back to primary colours started to create full abstraction using squares

In this time art is referring to itself, not representational at all!

What about now?

Sarah Crowner, looks back at artists like Josef Albers to create oil and gouache on sewn canvas with cloth and linnen. Now we could use this history, or we could abuse it but the right thing to do is transform. It is like music, music doesn't represent anything, it is a system but everyone is devoted to it, abstraction is a genre that has meaning in itself, its a game that you play.

Sarah Crowner took the game of abstraction to a piece of installation art.

The game of painting is changed, you can do anything with it, paint on clothes paint on walls etc.!

Process

You can use all different things to put paint on an object, you don't have to just use a brush, you could use a spray gun, a broom or maybe even the tub of paint itself!

Visiting Artist - John Wood (Performance)

Today we had a visiting artist named John Wood who specializes in performance art. I found this really really interesting because the way they performed it was in a fun way. 
They showed us several different pieces that they have put together over the last few years, one of them was called:

Board

This was interesting because they had to rely on each other so they don't injure themselves. This was good because it was all about communication but the strange thing was they didn't talk all the way through the piece so it was like using their senses. what they had to do is use a piece of wood during their act and balancing it on themselves and letting it drop in different ways. They even let it drop on top of themselves sometimes!
He mentioned something about an artist named 'Samuel Beckett' which I will have a look at.
When they first started with this performance art they got slated, this is because people said that it was not art but just a performance.

Three Legged

This was another piece of performance art that they produced. They still looked at the ideas of decision making.
He also mentioned something about an artist named 'Philip Decoufe' which ill have a look at.
In this piece they strap their legs together and stand against a wall while a tennis ball shooter fires balls at them (sometimes they did get caught by the ball). This piece was also about working together and relying on each other for direction!
When they were explaining on how they got the ideas for these pieces of art, they said that they just went into the studio and messed about and had a bit of fun. Most of their performances are to do with timing, they try to produce work an like a how to do guide, eg. how to dodge a ball or how to do an Olympic dive.
Before they created each of the videos they started the ideas off by sketching them on a piece of paper, them they would make that into 2D, then finally turn the 2D piece into 3D which was the performance!

Twenty Six

Another piece that they created that I thought was really good was 'Twenty Six'. In this piece of art there are twenty six different performance videos. One which was interesting was where a person stood against a wall and then heavy balls on strings swung and fell either side of him (this could have been dangerous if he moved a bit to the left). Another that they showed us was using a leaf-blower to keep a piece of paper up against a wall, I can remember trying to have a go at they with a fan which was really fun! There was a really funny one where a person was standing on a table and another just came past and broke one of the table legs and the person on the table fell off, as the person who kicked it supported his fall. The most amusing one was when they created a thin tube, long enough and wide enough for people to fit down, then 1 person slid down on his back and went down fine the first time but the second time he wore a life jacket and opened it on the way down and got stuck (i can imagine it being claustrophobic). Because I am interested in exploring paint this semester, they did a piece of performance art in 'twenty six' where they covered a ball in paint and dropped it onto a piece of paper making a pattern (the camera had an arial view). John Wood mentioned that in this piece where a guy opened the door and a plank of wood fell on his head, he made him do it more than a couple of times for fun (must have hurt). Finally during the performance of 'twenty six' they showed us a human book shelf where two people stood on one end and the opposite end gave way and one of the people slid off (a bit like a book would do if it collapsed on them).
John Wood said that when they started off they didn't have much money at all, plus when he did the 26th video on 'twenty six' he broke his neck.

Notebook

This was a further piece of performance art that they showed us and also consisted of more than one video. They said that they showed this video in the center of Middle borough. This idea originated from trying to find something to do when they were on the dole. They started this by placing a match between a books pages and lighting it and seeing how long the book would last being open! (some people didn't like the thought of burning books). I can remember doing this one in high school where you put a long bit of paint and see how long it takes for it to rise up a piece of paper, was really fun! One of the ones they showed us is getting a funnel and filling it with the right amount of sand which when they let it out would fill the circle area they drew on the piece of paper. The one that i really liked is the illusion one, this is the one where they put a piece of string with a load of balls on it and dropped them one by one at the end of the table, but the viewer couldn't see the string which left the balls looking like they were stacking up on top of each other perfectly!
When he was explaining about these videos he mentioned that his intention was not to use these objects in the way that they are intended to be used.
An interesting fact that they said was that they us to work in the studio from 10pm till 5am in the morning and the studios weren't soundproof either (I bet that was loud!).
The reason why they have performed all of these is because they thought about what they would do if they were stuck on the moon and bored!

10x10

At the end he showed us a video called '10x10'. This was where they go down in a lift and you can see different performances in each room like throwing a paper aeroplane etc. 


I really liked the idea of illusional art which ill definatly have a look at!

Book on Painting!

I went into the library yesterday and took out a book on painting because this is one area that I would like to work on further as I didn't do much painting in the first semester. Stephen mentioned that this book is a good read so ill give it a go!

This book is 1 of 17! So if this book is good I might take out some of the others too see what is in those ones.

The titles for the 17 books are:

1. APPROPRIATION
2. THE ARCHIVE
3. THE ARTISTS JOKE
4. BEAUTY
5. CHANCE
6. THE CINEMATIC
7. COLOUR
8. DESIGN AND ART
9. THE EVERYDAY
10. FAILURE
11. THE GOTHIC
12. PARTICIPATION
13. SITUATION
14. SOUND
15. THE SUBLIME
16. UTOPIAS
17. PAINTING (the one I am currently reading)

Liverpool Exhibition Visit

On Thursday we went to Liverpool to visit some exhibitions, it was really good to see some of the recent contemporary art that has been exhibited.

We first went to the Walker art gallery and as we went into the exhibition space we saw a wall with loads of sticky notes on:

I thought this piece was really good because it allowed the viewers to participate even before entering the exhibition itself. We all had a go at putting one on each of the questions, it was pretty hard to think of an answer in some cases because I found out that there is more than one answer for each one of them. 

This sticky note was below the question 'Who inspires you?' and I found it pretty amusing:

American Pie is one of my favorite films so I thought that was funny! Except from the odd silly answers, it looked like it got a really good outcome. 

This is a picture of Phil Simpson having a go on the post-it note wall:

Phil Simpson writing on a post-it note.

As we walked into the exhibition we walked past John Moore's painting prize that was made by 'Sarah Pickstone'. It was really nice to see this piece of art for the second time. As we have recently produced an artist statement last week for the 'Dispatches' project, I wanted to have a read of what Sarah Pickstone said about her work. It was really interesting because it said that the painting that she had created was a representation of the poet 'Steve Smith' in a deranged landscape. One of the interesting things about this is that its a painting from one artist reflected through another!

After reading the artist statement it said that the poem that was written by 'Steve Smith' was a very dark poem, Pickstone changed this in a way wanting to make something more joyous out of the poem.

This is the John Moore's painting prize:

As you can see she has used colour to bring this joyous feeling to the poem even though it is of a dark nature. 

I saw a couple of pieces opposite the painting prize winner that caught my eye. One of them was a previous painting prize winner called 'Kieth Coventry' who created a piece of art named 'Spectrum Jesus'. When I first looked at it, it looked a bit weird, but in a good way! This piece of art was an oil painting but also used wood and glass. Coventry's work displays a dark flip-side to idealism: Urban decay, Social failure etc. The artwork displayed was a blue monochrome depicting the face of Christ.

This is the artwork from Kieth Coventry called 'Spectrum Jesus':

 

The other piece of artwork that was opposite the John Moore's painting prize I didn't manage to jot the name of he artist down. But, it was a strange piece which I might research more into. This is what it looked like:

  

I saw a piece of art while I was walking out of the Walker art gallery which caught my eye. The main thing that drew me to this piece was the different textures and how the paint has been allowed to fall/slide down the canvas. It was like gravity was taking the paint!

This is what this piece looked like:

I really liked this piece as it didn't just use paint but also used other materials. I had to take a closer picture to see the finer details:

This piece displays layers really nicely, I think ill take a book out from Uni to do with painting and see if I could incorporate these elements into my work!

After we came out of the Walker art gallery, we went over to the Bluecoat. Unfortunately it was closed as I think they were setting up for another exhibition. So, we decided to make our way down to the Liverpool Tate. Again, there was an exhibition called 'Glam' that I would have liked to see but didn't start till the following day so we have decided to go back and view it at another date. As we were there anyway, we had a walk around the other exhibitions that were taking place in the Liverpool Tate. Some of the pieces were really interesting and involved its audiences really well, for example, there were a couple of dark rooms where one you had to take a camera in and use the flash to see, and the others had video's playing.

I saw 2 posters that had language/text written on them which I thought was pretty interesting: