Failure of Imagination

Winchester School of Art launch of the Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media!

2012-02-03T13:04:00.000Z

Wednesday night was the Launch of the Winchester Centre for Global Futures (The name is really overly long, so I'm not going to keep writing it. Instead I'll go with WCGF).

The prospect of three hours of lectures seemed a little daunting, but as It got started, It actually flew by, the speakers were really engaging and there was a lot of time for questions, which I think is always the most important part anyway.

Most students went to see Jake Chapman of the Chapman brothers speak and he did not disappoint. He was down to earth and very open, willingly admitting that he hadn't enjoyed art school himself, though from his description of it, the art school we now know is much different to that of the past. Also when asked how his brother would be involved with his research he joked that he could carry his briefcase and clean his glasses.

I got to talk to Jake a bit after the lecture and asked him about collaborations, he said that it's a little bit of arguing and pushing for what you want, but it's great because only half of it is you and you have someone to see it differently and to critique you, he also spoke of how although everything had there name, they did not split it all 50/50 or anything, but some things were something one of them wanted to do more than the other. I can't imagine working with a sibling though although I suppose you can push your sibling further with less fear of offending them.

Overall I think that the WCGF will be an important part of Winchester School of Art. Research has always been a strong part of the University of Southampton's ethos and reputation and I'm glad that WSA is moving and evolving with the rest of the University.

Bronze Cupcake...

2012-02-03T12:45:00.000Z

So here is the finished cupcake. The photos are by Aidan Connor Frame, a fellow student, as I took so long to take any good pictures of it someone else got there first.

We had an interim show this week, so I displayed the cupcake. It was meant to be on show with a video but I had technological problems and no time to fix them, so it was just the cupcake in the end.

I love this little cupcake, probably because it took me so long to finish and polish up. I don't like it when people tell me it's not perfect because I spent so long working on it and improving it.

People love handling it though and it is nice to touch. It's always heavier than people expect, which is funny as the plaster ones are always lighter than people expect.

Collage Art - John Stezaker

2012-01-24T16:04:00.005Z

I have recently been working will collage. I thought I would look at the work of John Stezaker as he is one of the more famous artists working with collage.

Stezakers work is not complex, he often only collages two images, but they have a big impact. They have been so carefully selected due to the fact that they are compositionally perfect together. Stezaker himself says that he's at an advantage when doing work as he is always finding images. There's always something to do. (See here for an interview with him; http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/triennial/video.shtm) I think that is the great thing about collage. Nothing has to be tidy or finished, the work is always ongoing and I think I could learn from him in that, by working constantly, the art continues and develops.

He also says that we all create our own audience to the work, which is someone like ourselves. I can see what he means, as we often get reactions to our work that we don't understand. We wonder why others didn't see our work in the same way we would have seen it. I think looking at the way people see our work is important and I would like to try and gain some feedback on my work in the future to see how others interpret it.

What makes an object Art?

2012-01-17T22:35:00.003Z

Is this Art? Pompidou Centre, Paris

So what is art? I've been writing an essay on the subject for Visual Culture and it's been really interesting. So many theories have been introduced on the subject, it's hard to know which to believe.
Personally I think art is such a difficult thing to define. I think there are several things which make something likely to be art, from being called art by the 'Artworld', being made by an Artist, having meaning or depth of somekind or even just being aesthetically pleasing.
In the end, the more of these characteristics a piece has, the more likely it is to be art, but there are many pieces which do not tick all the boxes and we should not expect them to.

I want to be surprised by art. The Artworld only works without rules and restrictions. We as the artworld are responsible, in my opinion, of making sure rules are not placed. Only then can art grow and change and stay relevant.

I have enjoyed reading the theories of Philosophers such as Danto and Dickie on the subject of What makes something art, rather than an artefact and I am sure I will continue now to read these theories and enjoy them, much in the way I enjoy reading articles by modern critics. I read them, but never take them too seriously, because in the end I have my own cultural ideas around art and they will be different to those of others, I wouldn't want them to be the same, because then our art would not be as varied and unique to us personally.

Cakeland - Scott Hove

2011-12-31T11:48:00.003Z

Scott Hove says of Cakeland on his Kickstarter page;

"Cakeland is an art installation. Cakeland is also a refuge of beauty, emotional experience and safe fantasy. Everyone has a relationship to cake, in the form of memories around family, marriage, birthdays and celebration. Using the theme of cake, I draw you into my sculptures and installations with the promise and expectation of familiar relation. Yet in experiencing Cakeland, you are faced with unexpected challenges; as in life, it takes patience and determination to win your reward. I guarantee, however, that you won't have to work too hard, because Cakeland, before all else, is a place of joy."

Just recently came across the work of Scott Hove. His Cake themed sculptures and installations are amazing. He talks of his works as 'Indulgent' which is part of the reason why I love it so much. It doesn't pretend to be innocent.

Although inedible, the sculptures are all very tempting and teasing. Hove uses traditional cake decorating tools in his works.

I feel like this is definitely inspiring work.

The Event II at Winchester School of Art

2011-12-22T14:21:00.001Z

On the 15th December, Fine art came together for 'The Event II'.

It was an unbelievably busy day and an amazing success.

Here's a picture of me in my mask (made of cupcake cases and sprayed gold), taken by one of the Live Press photographers;

I am with my friend Tessa Gray, who I often collaborate with. In fact, on the night we worked on a Photobooth together, thanks to previously made plans and Tess' technical know how, it went down without a hitch and we got the images we needed.

Our sign was clearly awesome.

Here's a picture of the booth:

The booth is an interesting piece of work, but the photographs are not yet ready to exhibit, as the final outcome of the project needs more work and it's quite an ambitious piece, but all will be revealed soon.

I also did a piece on the performance stage at The Event. I have yet to edit the video but see below for a couple of stills;

The performance was me 'decorating' my face with cake decorating ingredients including Icing, hundreds and thousands, edible gold dust and edible gold glitter flakes.

It was the first time I had done the performance and it went reasonably well. I would like to do it again though using buttercream and icing flowers etc and make the whole thing more intricate and less messy, so it becomes less about covering my face and more about the decorative aspect.

I also want the camera to be far closer to me when I film it next time.

Bronze

2011-12-13T09:51:00.002Z

On the right hand side of the above picture you can see my bronze cupcake
And a close-up.

The bronze casts have now been removed from the molds and are sitting in water. Soon I will clean off the last of the sand/plaster and work on my cupcake, neaten it up and polish it.

Bronze pour

2011-12-09T12:20:00.004Z

Today we did the bronze pour, it was great to see and very warm. The bronze is now cooling and I can't wait to see my cast cupcake on Monday.

The bronze is heated to 1100 degrees Celsius.

It is then lifted out in a carbon pot.

The impurities are skimmed off the top of the molten bronze.

The bronze is poured into the sand/plaster mix molds. (the wax structure was encased in the plaster sand combo and then put in a kiln to dry out and for the wax to melt out, so the plaster can be poured in).

It will take a day to cool.

The left over bronze cooling.

It's a lengthy process but should be worth it!

Alelier Printmaking

2011-12-09T12:15:00.002Z

Here is a photo of my cupcakes in the Printmaking Atelier. Unfortunately I did not have a camera with me, but got a quick snap on my phone. Hopefully other people took better photographs! The exhibition last night was great, the whole of printmaking came together and the show was beautifully curated by a fellow student. It was great to see how the range of works in our studio came together.

We have put the desks back today, but moved them around a bit. It's nice to change the space we work in a little. It's really quite refreshing.

Preparation for bronze casting

2011-12-06T16:46:00.000Z

Current work in progress

2011-11-26T13:22:00.000Z

Slowly building myself a cupcake army.

Some more thoughts on Cupcakes.

2011-11-24T13:34:00.003Z

HIDEOUS

I've been thinking about cupcakes too much and now I'm just beginning to really despise them. I want to make more art about them. I want there to be people suffering and terrible things happening and then I want there to be icing everywhere and cupcakes covering their heads, because cupcakes make everything better.

But they don't, they are just these self indulgent, horribly sweet little things which are so trendy right now and with the glitter and the over the top icing and accessories they are just hideous. They have curds inside and glitter and gold dust and hundreds and thousands, but what tops it all off is that they are individual, personal desserts. They are self indulgent, you don't share a cupcake, it's all for you. Miniature desserts, Ugh.

(image via: http://cutestfood.com/)

Installation experiments

2011-11-23T18:22:00.000Z

Last week I did a few quick experiments in the installation room with the film that Tess and I shot during our first experiment.

I first tried to project onto the floor by angling the projector toward the ceiling and then mirroring the projection onto the ground. This didn't really work in the way I wanted it to. So I projected onto the wall.

I then found that projecting onto the wall actually worked well for what I was trying to do. Although the video was on the wall, it still felt as though the viewer was looking down onto the scene.

I then played with the idea of adding the silver tray, which we had used to put the cakes on in the original experiment, to project onto. There is something I really like about this, however I felt that it made the work harder to understand as you can no longer properly see what is going on.

So next I placed the tray on the floor. I liked this as it showed what was left after the experiment and was itself physical evidence that the experiment had taken place.

I sat in the room and thought about how the projection could become an exhibition. We had previously thought that we could have a picture of the cakes in the exhibition as a reference back to the original experiment and to show the audience how they tempted people. Whilst sitting there though, I thought it would be a much better idea to have the physical cakes there, much like the way that in 'Making a Scene', the way in which viewers walk through the room in Gillian Wearing's piece is similar to the original performance.

Thus I would like to host an exhibition with Tess in which there is a performance within a performance. I am hoping to do this before Christmas, just need to get some other work out of the way first and wait for the space to become available.

Repetition

2011-11-22T20:38:00.000Z

I was recently thinking about the nature of repetition within art.

I am currently casting multiple identical cupcakes. Other artworks with multiple 'copies' have been:

Anthony Gormley's 'Field' series:

And Ai Weiwei's 'Sunflower seeds':
This last photo is one I took at the Tate this summer, of Ai Weiwei's Sunflower seed installation in the turbine hall.

Although their themes differ somewhat from mine, I feel there are similarities with the ideas and the method in which I want to display my work. Like Weiwei's my work will all look identical (although they are not), whereas Gormley's differ more significantly.

By making lots of identical cupcake pieces, I want to play on the cupcake culture and the way that cupcakes have become such a big part of society, it's a strange phenomena really, the way that people try to make lots of perfectly identical cupcakes, adorned with an excessive amount of decoration.

This seems to me to have similarities to the work of Weiwei, where he plays on the idea of 'made in china', as though his seeds look identical, they are all handmade and therefore are not. Nothing is really ever identical, yet we try to make series' of identical things.

Gormley's work too, although each figure is different, their identities are lots in the vast sea of figures. This makes me think of the way cupcakes have become popular and everyone has to have them. By following the trend, everyone becomes the same. Their identities lost.

My cupcakes will be like a sea of people who are all indulging in the same thing, whilst also being almost perfectly identical revered objects.

Experiment #1 (Collaboration with Tessa Gray)

2011-10-29T16:44:00.001+01:00

We did an experiment last Tuesday. We left the above cakes unattended in the Foyer at our University to see what would happen. We filmed and observed from above.

Still #1

Still #2

The experiment worked well. The cakes were eventually taken but it took a long time for the first one to be taken. I think because when one was taken, it was easier for other people to justify taking one themselves as they knew someone else had done it.

We also found that many people were not morally opposed to taking something which was not theirs, but were afraid of getting caught, some people almost took cakes, only to be reprimanded by their peers.

We are hoping to complete similar experiments in the future, however for now I will be looking into ways to display and present the work.

Pipilotti Rist: Eyeball Massage

2011-10-25T13:09:00.001+01:00

On Saturday I went to the Hayward to see the work of Pipilotte Rist. She was not an artist I had heard of until a couple of weeks ago, when I saw her work on the Timeout London website. Later that week, both a friend and a tutor recommended I go to see the show, so I did.
Rist is a video artist and has an interesting and unique way of displaying her videos. As with Making a Scene, although I enjoyed the work, I was more intrigued by the methods of installation that she has used for her videos. Some you had to lay down to see, some you had to sit for and others were tiny videos on the floor which you had to kneel down at to best appreciate.

I had a lightbulb moment when I realised that a good way to display Tess and I's current video work would be to show the video on the floor looking down, rather than on the wall, as when videoing, we were looking down.

Rist also displayed her videos in other unique ways, such as installing them inside other objects or projecting them onto different materials and surfaces.

I really enjoyed the work itself too, it was happy work, celebratory and I felt as though I had entered another world or a dreamland. The way in which she used video and editing to project her themes were rough and exciting.

I would really recommend anyone to see her show. It's really been very useful for my work and I can't wait to experiment with different techniques now, when installing my own videos.

Making A Scene

2011-10-24T13:30:00.000+01:00

So I recently went to see the Making A Scene exhibition at the Southampton City Art gallery. The piece I was most interested in was Gillian Wearing's video; Dancing in Peckham (1994) - Still above.

Basically it was a performance in which the artist herself danced as if in a nightclub, but in a shopping centre.

The work was interesting, especially Wearing's video, which, like the work of Tess and I, is cheeky and makes a comment about social etiquette, she is behaving in a way which is unexpected in the location that she is in, breaking the rules.

What I really got from the exhibition though, was the way in which the work was presented. It was large scale, so Wearing was almost life size. Also the benches for viewing the work were placed at the back of the room and there was a walk through for people to go from the entrance hall of the Museum, to the rest of the exhibition. So people wandered back and forth through the room in which the video was showing. I thought this was beautifully reflective of the video itself and the way in which whilst she was dancing, people wandered past.

It really made me think about the way in which we document and display our work, particularly video evidence from a performance.

Studio

2011-10-13T13:27:00.002+01:00

Had a bad day today, not feeling to great, just one of those days, I have been over exhausting myself with late nights and early mornings, but I took a picture of some of the work I did yesterday and signed up for a workshop on Wednesday - Wet Darkroom, which I am looking forward to. I have a tutorial tomorrow and there is a guest artist lecture so I will relax today and get on with it all tomorrow. This weekend I am going to Southampton City Art Gallery to see a video by Gillian Wearing, so I'm excited for that.

Next week I need to:

- Make Canvases
- Continue with Gum Arabic transfers.
- Clay coins?
- Purchase Icing piping bags
- Scan Negatives
- Develop films

Gerhard Richter: Panorama

2011-10-10T16:56:00.003+01:00

On Saturday I went to see Gerhard Richter: Panorama at the Tate Modern.
I have to say, it was one of the most interesting exhibitions of painting I have ever seen, Richter really tests the medium of paint, from painting freely and abstractly to painting highly detailed photographic imitations, like that above.

Richter uses photographs to paint from, but unlike many other artists, he paints them as photographs, keeping the focusing point of the original focus. This works well as it draws your focus to the main subject within the painting, however you can tell it was painted from a photograph. Richter likes to use photography in his work, painting over photographs as well as painting from them.

I think the fact that some of the paintings were from photographs creates more of a narrative, it makes them fact and it makes them a memory, a static slice of a life. He is looking at his personal history and choosing significant moments from it to paint. Because of this some of his work can be compared to that of Emin, whose work is hugely biographical. The difference is that Emin's work is about herself and is hugely open, whereas Richters work is more private, like stolen moments we never seem to get to know the whole story.

I enjoyed the show but I wish I could have seen more of the process of his work, where everything came from. I guess that's the danger of seeing an art exhibition as an artist, you really want to get inside their mind and find out what their process is.

This summer I was distracted.

2011-10-06T11:09:00.002+01:00

I flittered about, working, reading books, seeing a couple of gallery shows.

Now I have to decide what I want to do with my practice, my artwork and my career. I am actually not going to think about the career for a bit. It will distract me.

So, thinking about my practice. I want my work to be personal, but I also want it to be about other people, people in general. I don't want it to be about the masses though. I think what I want is for it to be about people, personally. I want it to be about social etiquette, rudeness, pushing the boundaries of human behaviour, but also about people's personal struggles in life.

I think I want to basically marry up my performance work with Tess with my work in general. I want it all to be about humanity. What I really want to do is look at things somewhat psychologically. I often remember things or use things that I've learned from my psychology A Level and recently I've been reading Love's executioner by Irvin D. Yalom which has brought a lot of it back.

Ach, I don't know what to do. I think I'll start by looking at artists who looked at human behaviour and emotion.

Lisa Golightly

2011-09-27T22:27:00.002+01:00

I recently stumbled upon some work by Artist; Lisa Golightly. Her recent series, 'The Floodline' ecperiments with acrylic paint, cold press watercolour paper and fabric dye.

I really like the freedom in the work. It seems very organic to me, like vast landscapes or ariel views.

LOVE IS WHAT YOU WANT (Tracey Emin at the Hayward)

2011-08-22T15:30:00.003+01:00

Yesterday I went to see Tracey Emin's exhibition at the Hayward. It was amazing.
I was very drawn to how personal her work is and I have always identified with her in that respect, but I don't think, before seeing this exhibit, I realised just how personal it was. Diary entries became works of art, videos showed her interviewing her mother or telling personal life stories.

I was left pretty shocked by one of the videos (about one of her abortions) and still have not got my head around how I feel about it. Prehaps it was meant to shock, but it seemed so honest. Afterwards the word which came to my mind for how i felt was traumatized. But that is too strong a word, as what Emin went through was real trauma.

My favourite pieces were the paintings, which were just beautiful and also seemed very natural and emotive. I had thought, previous to going to the show, that I would enjoy the light works the most, however the paintings were fabulous.

I did see some of the most prolific pieces from Emin's career, such as her quilts, and whilst I enjoyed these, they were not the highlight of the exhibition for me. I think I was so blown away by the painting and the video work that they paled in comparison. They were however, part of her early work and it seems as though she has matured enormously over the course of her career.

I am very inspired now and feel very much like painting. I also think I should incorporate writing into my work more, which is a feeling I have had for a while now.

I am still processing how I feel with regards to the abortion video, I don't think I have ever seen anything which has made me feel so uncomfortable, yet intensely interested. I feel morbidly fascinated with the subject, but at the same time horrified.

I went to the exhibit with Tess, you can read her review here:

http://rational-romanticist.blogspot.com/2011/08/tracy-emin-love-is-what-you-want.html

More resin experimentation

2011-08-02T17:53:00.002+01:00

Made these on Saturday, they are similar to the ones I did last semester in University, only this time I used a better mold, which was much better as It did not need any vaseline and so the whole process was a lot cleaner. Also the surface is a lot smoother.

Not really sure where I'm going with this yet but It gave me some interesting ideas, so the next time I do it I will explore those and then write more about it.

At the moment I am skirting around ideas of preservation and burial.

Also this summer:

I have been working on some polaroids of a form of body documentation, shall we say. There are not enough for it to be a finished series yet, but I will post when there are.

Currently reading:

Rachel Hannah - A room Swept White
Nicole Krauss - The History of Love
Kevin Fanning - How I learned to Love you from so Far Away
(The last two are particularly good and I definitely recommend them, the first is for book club)

Some more pictures from Winchester School of Art Degree Show 2011

2011-07-29T17:12:00.008+01:00

These are a few more pictures I took of the Fine Art section of this years degree show. All digital photos.

Jane Price

Jane Emberson

Andrea Willette

Rebecca Jane Smith

These are some of my favourite pieces. I can't wait for my degree show and to see what everyone I know well comes up with.

Bruise I

2011-07-22T18:00:00.000+01:00

Some Summery photos

2011-07-21T19:01:00.003+01:00

Took these on a walk about a month ago. I have not taken nearly enough pictures this summer. Still, plenty of time left though and I have more plans for pictures and creative projects over the next couple of months.

Winchester School of Art Degree Show 2011

2011-07-21T18:19:00.003+01:00

I didn't take a lot of pictures this year, but I did enjoy looking around the show.

There was one piece that I liked more than any other, I took a few pictures of it and thought I would share them.

I realised that I really like looking round art shows by myself. I can take my time to look at the things that really interest me and can walk by the things that I don't like or appreciate.

I don't think I've ever been to a show where I loved every piece of work, but sometimes I find I can appreciate the skill involved, even if the theme doesn't interest me. Of course, the best pieces are the ones which surprise me, ones where the technique is good, and the execution is immaculate, the themes interest me and I want to keep looking.

Anyway so this was my favourite piece.

Work by Elle Ford (elleford1@gmail.com) Her website does not appear to be up yet.

Photos are analogue and taken with cross processed slide film (Provia 100f) on a Pentax Spotmatic. I find Provia to be pretty unpredictable when cross processing and the hues can be anything from greens to complete redscale.

Heatwave

2011-06-27T23:05:00.003+01:00

Been thinking about what to do over the summer and have a couple of ideas floating around.

1) Self Portraits
I want to look at self portraits. Photographic mainly. I figure if i take enough one of them will be good and I can learn more about photography along the way.

This is a self portrait by Diane Arbus and is one of my favourite photographs:

2) Secret Paintings
I have plans for some oil paintings involving the human body, but they will be slightly different to the last painting I did, more my usual styles and themes.

3) Secret Photos.
I have been working on a series of Black and White photos. Sadly I wont be able to develop these until October. However, this does give me plenty of time to work on the series. The theme is consumerism.

I will have some new photographs developed soon. Maybe early next week?

I am also reading a lot at the moment. Just read The Collector by John Fowles and am going to read The Magus now, also by Fowles.

Painting

2011-06-14T19:54:00.002+01:00

Decided to do some painting last night. Quite enjoyed it but I definitely feel like I should be working bigger than this.

I love oil paint, I love the texture, the way it looks, the way it can be worked into. I should really make sure I keep up painting so that I can improve.

Potential project

2011-05-31T19:15:00.003+01:00

One project I have been working on is a little personal interest photography project. I seem to live on one of the busiest streets in Winchester. I have never in my life lived on such a busy road before and it seems like something unusual is always happening here. So of course I have been documenting it. I think i'll call it 'From my window' or something like that. It's ongoing but here are a couple of images I've managed to get over the last few months.

Kind of inspired by photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia who's work I saw at the 'Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera' exhibition at the Tate Modern.

Summer is here

2011-05-31T19:08:00.002+01:00

So summer has come and along with the BBQs and the fun has come uncertainty. What do I do next. I need some focus, all I have done so far is take pictures, bake and write poetry. Oh and go to work and read books of course.

I do have a couple of ideas floating around though.

I also have vague plans surrounding getting my work exhibited which I really need to solidify soon.

Hopefully when I have my summer job(s?) sorted I can work around them to get some creativity out.

2011-05-28T14:44:00.000+01:00

I am stiff.
Unmoving.
Trapped in a chrysalis. New formed wings beating against the same restraints.
Waiting, waiting.
Blind and yet, I see colours.

My body full of energy waits here. I am lonely. I am cold. I want to touch but I cannot feel.
All I trust, familiar.
And yet I fear the loss of it.

I am trapped. The chrysalis my mind.

Fat Bitch, Greedy Bastard.

2011-05-19T15:47:00.003+01:00

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So today we gave away cakes (I say we, I mean me, Tess and Sara, our little art collective). 100 cakes to be precise. Looking again at the etiquette of giving and things being free. This time, more people were suspicious. Maybe due to our performance at Women's day, or maybe just because there seemed to be no occasion for the cakes to be free. Everyone took though, some people took more than one, which basically reiterated the point.

We put flags in our cakes with the flavour on one side and an insult on the other, many noticed but some didn't.

I have also been doing a fair amount of drypoint printing, including experimenting with multiple plates or using the same plate twice. Here are a couple from Tuesday.

Am very pleased with the way my work has been going all in all.

Dead flowers

2011-05-10T15:56:00.005+01:00

Here is some of the work i've been doing with flowers

These are simply pressed, framed flowers. The idea was to frame them like a family portrait would be framed. As we keep photographs to remember people, or a lock of hair, I have preserved these flowers in similar way.

The top image of the above two is lots of flower residues from pressing flowers. I liked the idea of the traces they left behind. Transient proof of their existence and death. Like tiny obituary's or tombstones.

The bottom image is the same technique but on a much larger scale. I pressed a complete bunch of flowers in a press.

I really like this work and where it's been going. I am also working on a drypoint print related to this work.

My women's roles work is coming along well too, I am currently planning a performance and doing research for it.

25,387,425,356 things

2011-05-04T17:59:00.004+01:00

University is back, Easter break is over. :)
I feel like there are many many things to do.

Tess and I still have many photos to edit for Women's day and I am furiously writing for the zine we are creating.

I have been baking too, in the name of art! Creating recipes and photographing them. I have been researching the Women's Institute and am planning to research the history of Women's roles.

I have also been in the studio a fair amount these last 2 days. Today I pressed flowers but on a large scale. My prints are currently drying and I will get them and photograph them tomorrow.

I have more etchings planned too. Basically a lot to do.

First year show 2011 - Winchester school of Art

2011-03-29T22:36:00.005+01:00

I remember this time last year, the chaos, the confusion, the desperation to show the rest of the school our work properly for the first time. Nowadays it feels like we have exhibitions every other week. Our first one meant a lot to us though.

So today I went to see what this years' first years had to offer.

The refreshments were an interesting choice. Cider and Black, didn't see that one coming.
The work was really good, generally a really high standard and not a clip frame in sight.

Here are my favourites:

I snapped the pictures quickly on my phone as I didn't have a camera with me, but you get the idea. I don't have the names of the students who did the work, as there weren't many namecards, but if you know any of the names, do tell me.

The two last images reminded me of my work from my first year show, which is perhaps why I liked them.

I admired one of the students' dedication to the tealight industry.
But seriously, the dominos and tealights piece was my favourite. It referred to the conflict in Korea with the dots on the dominos relating to the number of dead. I liked the way the dominos looked like soldiers graves that I've seen in France. It was inspring to see something so ambitious and well thought out from a first show.

The first image is of paintings of the human body. I couldn't quite work out if they were paintings or impressions, either way they were very beautiful up close. They were the first piece I noticed when entering the exhibition. Hopefully I can go back and get a better picture.

All in all, it was great to see such a range of beautiful work without even the need to travel to London.

Some prints for a commission.

2011-03-22T19:03:00.002Z

I really enjoyed the process of doing these and it gave me an idea for some more work. :)

2011-03-15T16:57:00.001Z

In a decaying society, art, if it is truthful, must also reflect decay. And unless it wants to break faith with its social function, art must show the world as changeable. And help to change it.

- Ernst Fischer

Drypoints for world book day

2011-03-08T14:37:00.002Z

A video I took in the summer.

2011-03-01T14:38:00.002Z

Looking back, I found this video I took in late summer on a train, I often take photos and videos on the train, I like the way that the countryside blurs past us.

I also took the above photograph in the summer. I like the effects created.

It is brilliant the way that now, we can fit so much into our lives due to being able to travel, in a faster and easier way. We can see so much. We do so much to try to save time now. We are afraid we will not fit everything in.

What's going on in my studio right now?

2011-02-28T19:37:00.005Z

Plans are underway.
More resin casting. Flower pressing. Watercolour, Oils.

A small amount of progress

2011-02-28T00:13:00.003Z

This evening I played around with some resin. Made these little things.

They are dead/dying flowers set into resin.

I have been thinking recently about the symbolism of flowers and the emotions that people attach to them. I find it kind of poetic the way they are left on graves to die.

Anyway so this was just a quick experimental idea. I have made 4 this evening.

Going to draw some flowers now and try to find some inspiration.

What comes next?

2011-02-21T17:52:00.003Z

So i've been pretty unsure of where to take things now. I want to continue to look into the transient nature of life but want to take this a little bit away from myself and show it in a way that it means something to other people and others can read different things in my work.

I played around with watercolours last night, trying to come up with something. Above is just a scrap, just a start of something maybe. I need to think, to read, to experiment.

Am planning to work further with flowers too, looking at the life, death and decay of the living, I am looking of ways to preserve things in different states.

I will see what happens..

Is this blog even about Art any more?

2011-02-05T10:27:00.002Z

I need to figure out what to do this semester. Basically I need to stop skirting around with the artwork but also make it so it's able to relate more to others.
I also need to do more quick work.

Doing some workshops next week so shall definitely see what comes of them.

Have some ideas surrounding memory, loss, nostalgia. Just not sure how to play them out at all right now.

Letter

2011-02-01T22:14:00.000Z

So I think I am ready to share something that was meant for only me. This is a letter my Dad wrote to me to read after he died. I may not have followed a lot of the advice in it, but it is still good advice and means a lot to me. I don't know where, at 17, my Dad pictured I would be at 23 years old. He probably thought I would have finished my degree and maybe met someone, settled down. Things don't always work out that way. It's weird to think, what advice would I give someone If I knew I were to die?

Dear Laura
Don't be too sad.
I will still be around for you, you may not see me but I will be there.
I just wanted to write you a few lines for you to read over again when you miss me.

I wanted you to know you are the most wonderful daughter a Dad could have and one day you will make a wonderful wife and mother, but don't forget I chose carefully, don't rush into anything darling.

I hope you have at least a couple of children and when you do i'm sure they will be as wonderful as you.
Don't forget to work hard and get a good job. Don't do a job if you don't enjoy it, money isn't everything. I would like you to have your own business one day or become an artist or an archaeologist. Something you can enjoy as well as earn money at. I know you are clever enough. I hope you take a bit after your dad.

One good hobby I can recommend is collecting old books. Read as much as you can, reading has always helped me, you can never have enough general knowledge. It helps with work, don't let those old books get thrown out, read as much as you can.

Stay close to Lewis for me, don't fall out, if one of you moves away, stay in touch (don't drift apart), take care of each other.

Don't forget, if you have any problems come talk to me at Knapwell, that's why I wanted a quiet place where you can go for a walk and visit me.

Please go and see Alyson now and again and keep an eye on her for me. If you make her your friend I am sure she will give you some good advice if you want someone outside the family to talk to.

Also, try to stay in touch with my family, they're not all bad, though some are a bit dodgy. I must admit, Lucy is a good person to talk to also and Karen and don't forget some of your cousins. Keep as many aunts and uncles and good friends as you can and don't forget Noreen if she is still around. If she is not, take her some flowers now and again and my mum.

Don't forget your mum, look after her, i still think a lot of her, she's a good mother to you.

Don't forget to try to be independent though, you must not rely on others, get yourself a car as soon as possible, save money and get a house as soon as possible even if you are not married, it's the best investment you can get. Don't get more than one credit card at a time.

Don't forget: if you want to get away, come to Knapwell, Sit and read to me, a good old Bernard Cornwall, The Winter King is a good one, you must read it one day.

I do hope you enjoy the things I have had fun doing over the years, festivals, camping are great fun and of course the music.

I strongly recommend you explore this country before you go abroad, it's wonderful. Try the Lake District and Devon, Cornwall, Yorkshire and West Scotland, and don't forget Dorset and the New Forest.

DO NOT go out with men alone on the first date. Keep your mobile phone with you and check in with your mother often as you can. Keep a rape alarm handy and learn self defense. Again, don't forget talk to Alyson if you want advice. I know I do go on about her, but you know why. But she will be good to talk to. Romantic stuff, you know. Although, i'm sure you will be okay with boys.

Anyway
1.) Choose your friends carefully
2.) Be Independent
3.) Get a good job, one you enjoy
4.) Read good books
5.) Be careful, don't trust strange men
6.) Take no risks with your life
7.) Look after your mum and brothers
8.) Don't forget me altogether
9.) Hang on to good friends, they disappear as you get older and you wont meet many good ones.
10.) Stay cool, if you can not solve a problem then get away from it. Life is too short to delay, move on.

Well I hope this will help, I am very proud of you and love you very much. I'll be watching over you wherever you are.
Bring me some flowers now and again, violets, snowdrops, ivy, you know, all the wild things. You can plant them, they will look nice. (Not bloody daffodils though)

Anyway, don't forget me. Look after yourself, and above all enjoy your life. I will love you forever. God bless you darling, with all my love,

Dad xxxxxxx

'Blue' by Derek Jarman

2011-02-01T15:22:00.002Z

So on the theme of mortality.. i today found out about this video by artist Derek Jarman...

This is just the last part of the film.

The video ends with the words (at about 7.20 mins in):

Our name will be forgotten in time,
No one will remember our work
Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud
And be scattered like
Mist that is chased by the
Rays of the sun
For our time is the passing of a shadow
And our lives will run like
Sparks through the stubble. I place a delphinium, Blue, upon your grave

Jarman was dying when he made this film and it almost seems to me that unless you were dying yourself, you could not write such poignant words. People have often attempted to discuss my Dad's death with me and at first I could not discuss it at all, but now I still find it hard to discuss with people who have not experienced similar.

Amsterdam Trip and Tate Britain Archives.

2011-01-30T21:56:00.002Z

I haven't been making physical work for the past couple of weeks, whilst assessment has been happening in University I have been to Amsterdam and also taken a trip to the archives and print room at the Tate Britain.

The photograph above is by W. Eugene Smith. I saw it at the FOAM museum in Amsterdam. It was my favourite piece that I saw whilst there. Not only did it evoke emotion in me the instant I looked at it, but I went back to see it again.

The photograph is of a doctor following the loss of a mother and child at childbirth.

I plan to write more soon about the other artwork I saw in Amsterdam and also about the Tate Britain archives.

I have to say, I have no idea what I am going to do work wise when i go back to university, but I have several trains of thought to follow. The last two weeks have been very inspiring.

Death Mask Video

2011-01-14T18:04:00.004Z

Here is the video footage I took of my death mask melting. This was the first mask I made and was made from natural wax. I suspended it over a candle and filmed the process of it melting. I then removed the sound and sped up the footage by x800 so that the video is no longer an hour long, just a few minutes. The video is not very good quality, not helped by the low lighting, but you can see the mask start to drip and then the mouth melt away. The concept of this was the death mask idea but with the idea that the mask represents a person's body, which is slowly dying.

I was thinking of expanding this, to have many death masks, which would all have different height candles, this would show that people degrade at varying rates. I have so far made 3 new death masks.

Small Installation. Flowers.

2011-01-14T17:15:00.003Z

Looking back over my blog the other day I came up with an idea. Seeing the pictures by Ellen Rogers made me think about the use of symbols, such as flowers, to communicate meaning. Flowers are often associated with death, left at roadsides, given at funerals etc.

It was only a few months ago that i threw away a couple of disintegrating flowers that I had from a funeral 5 years ago. I still have all of the cards people left though and am considering doing something with them.

After thinking this I decided to set about creating some photographs of my death masks with symbols to communicate further the idea of death, make it more theatrical. I have had a couple of crit-groups where they have told me to use more theatre and drama so I don't know how it took so long to sink in.

So i took these and I really like how they turned out. I used an Olympus Trip 35 to take them and I used film from a company called Revolog, which produces special effect films. This film is the 'color' film. I then edited the pictures in photoshop to make them clearer. I really like the whole concept and the way they turned out.

Death Masks

2011-01-12T17:44:00.000Z

Joseph Mallord William Turner
attributed to Thomas Woolner
1851
George Moore
by L. Godon
1933

Sir Isaac Newton
possibly after John Michael Rysbrack
after 1727

Sir Thomas Lawrence
by Unknown artist
1830

Oliver Cromwell
by Unknown artist
possibly late 17th century

Here are some pictures of death masks from the National Portrait Gallery. I plan to go and see them in the assessment period, along with the famous one at the st.johns hospital of the girl from the river seine.

All Images are © National Portrait Gallery, London

Snow.

2011-01-12T00:51:00.000Z

We had a lot of snow down in Winchester shortly before Christmas. I took some photos on my Yashica FX-3. Not part of my main artistic practice, but I like to take photos often as that way I can practice and pick up skills to help my artwork.

Nick Reynolds - Death mask artist

2011-01-11T23:00:00.002Z

Death Mask Art
Uploaded by Stuffem. - Explore more music videos.

Found this interesting video about a musician who also makes death masks. I find it interesting that he mentions the aspect of not having photographs when death masks were used, however he is still drawn to make them now.

2011-01-11T21:59:00.001Z

The stories we tell ourselves to get over things can have nothing to do with what really happened. - Walid Raad

I thought this quote was a good one, I am currently writing an essay on the artwork of Walid Raad and I saw this quote and thought it fit into my practice, especially with the personal context of death and loss.

Perfect binding

2011-01-07T14:56:00.000Z

Before Christmas I did a book binding workshop in 'Perfect Binding' with Artist Denise Hawrysio.

I made my book from a chapter in a book called "National Index of Parish Registers II by D.J. Steel"

The idea was to choose some material that was very focused on Tradition and ceremony surrounding burial, so that i could make a book to fit in with my practice.

I now plan to work into this book. I would like to incorporate the personal material that I wrote a couple of blog posts ago regarding my personal experience with death and burial.

I first thought of writing over the records, as a way to juxtaposition the very formal parish records with my own personal experience. However, when i trialed this, the personal, written text was hard to read, so I need to consider whether this is good or bad. I think part of my work is about me being ready to understand and accept everything and therefore perhaps I should make my text readable, if i am ready to share it.

I have quite a few end pages in the book, so the text could go there.

I really like book binding and want to do more books next semester.

Sorry about the pictures, they're not that good but my scanner is still broken.

Manual Death mask installation pictures

2010-12-28T16:09:00.000Z

I forgot to add these to the blog back when I got them developed. They are the analogue shots from my Installation. Even though I could clearly do better and am not well practiced at analogue photography in the dark, I do like the quality that these have. The grainy, blurry nature of them makes them look almost like film stills. I experimented with different shutter speeds for the first 4, from 1 second up to 10 or 20 seconds. I prefer the darker ones. I think they look more theatrical. I quite like the last, it's like the aftermath, after the show.

Marlene Dumas.

2010-12-13T20:38:00.000Z

Lucy, 2004

Stern 2004

Here are two pictures by Marlene Dumas, she creates paintings from found objects, other art or photographs. 'Lucy' was inspired by Caravaggio's painting 'The Burial of Saint Lucy' (1608). As legend has it, Saint Lucy, the patron saint of light and seeing, was blinded before her decapitation.

I find these paintings interesting. the dead are not normally painted in this style, it is almost like a portrait. When i have finished my death mask series I would like to look into introducing painting into my practice and like the idea of using secondary sources.

I am frustrated. I am a frustrated artist?

2010-12-13T02:38:00.003Z

My scanner is broken and I have several draft entries for this blog ready to go but can't scan anything. I will have to try to use a scanner at uni tomorrow.

Above is an image from a large format photography workshop I did in the summer, I still don't have the negs back from the workshop, when I do get them I will post more about it. I am still struggling to get permission to use the Universities' large format camera, however I have booked out a Mimaya medium format camera this week and will be using it on Wednesday for a little photographic mission at the seaside. I am off to beachy head to have a look around as kind of a side project on Suicide sites in the UK. I want to understand why people take their lives and why they choose these places.

So hopefully the end of this week will yield more results than the last week.

Ellen Rogers.

2010-12-10T07:33:00.003Z

Ellen Rogers is a photographer based in London. I have admired her work for a while but recently saw a couple of photographs that seemed really relevant to my practice.

Ellen Rogers uses entirely analogue photographic techniques.

I like these photographs because I like the drama of them, the theatrical aspect of death.
The body is lain out, surrounded by flowers, the flowers are a symbol. They say "she is not simply sleeping".

The things I haven't told you.

2010-12-10T07:17:00.001Z

A friend at school's Dad had cancer too, when he died she said 'you will know when he is dying, you will feel it'. But it came as a complete shock to me.

My Dad died on June 30th 2005, over 5 years ago. It was a Thursday.

I remember that he was in the hospital on the Monday. Possibly the Tuesday too. They then moved him to the hospice. I abused the visiting hours on Monday night at the hospital. I remember a nurse telling me I shouldn't stay, he is not going to die now. This may have helped to lead to my later confusion.
I stayed there all night, in the early hours of the morning I witnessed what someone with a lot of liquid morphine in their system is like.

I guess I now finally see that they must have known he was dying. They must have moved him to the hospice to fulfill his wishes of not dying in hospital.
I was 17. I didn't know what was going on. No one told me and my rational brain told me that a hospice is less serious than a hospital.. maybe he was getting better, surviving against all odds. I was kidding myself and I know it now.

My aunt told me that Wednesday night, she said 'I think the might die soon now' and I was thinking ...what, they say he's dying all the time. How does she know?

My Dad was becoming pretty incoherent. I didn't understand why. I was frustrated for him. He would try to tell me things but not able to speak properly. I didn't know it at the time but they had pumped a lot of drugs into him at that point. No one tells you anything when you are 17.

They asked if we wanted to have his last rights read. I said no, I was scared of how he might feel, lying there, unable to communicate correctly, seeing someone perform the last rights. It was my decision and i'll never know if i made the right one.

I stayed with him for a lot of the evening. I went to sleep on an armchair in a very 70s looking room next to his bedroom. At 3am I was woken, possibly by a cousin. I'm not sure.

That was when I had to go and say goodbye.
Part of me suspects he was already dead at that moment.
But I said goodbye. I love you.

The hospice asked if I wanted councilling. I said no. I would be fine. I think i had some councilling at college in the end but it's hard to remember because everything went downhill at college pretty soon after that.

At 9am Thursday morning I went in and quit my part time job.

The next couple of weeks I don't remember much.

I went to see the body. Lain out in a coffin in a semi darkened room. Theatrical. It was like a library. You couldn't speak. My mum went with me. I don't think my brother wanted to come. I didn't know if I wanted to go and I still don't know to this day whether it was good for me to go or not.

I was told by people that a person who dies with an illness like cancer looks better when they die, like when the stress leaves their face, the skin looks better. Or something. Whatever.

From what I saw people just don't look the same when they're dead. He looked like he did when alive, just way too still.

I didn't cry then.

The funeral was a strange one. He was cremated and then later the ashes were buried.
At the funeral they played Moth by Jethro Tull. Lots of people cried. I didn't cry. I got a picture of him and put it at the front.

Lots of people asked me if I wanted to say something at the funeral, they asked my brother too. I said no. What could i possibly come up with that would sum up his life?
I'm pretty sure some of my cousins spoke and the vicar talked about what a wonderful person he was, but i don't think it counts because you don't speak ill of the dead and i'm pretty sure they say that everyone is nice at their funeral.

The actual burial of the ashes was a while later i seem to remember. We had to wait for a vicar that my Dad had specified to get back from a trip to Africa.
He was a nice vicar.

My dad is buried at a little churchyard in a village where he grew up. The twelfth century church sits on the edge of a woods where he used to take us to walk. All i remember at the burial is that my granddad put the first dirt on the pot to fill in the hole. He is quite old and not very mobile and it made me sad to think of a child dying before a parent.

We scratched his name into the wall by his grave so we didn't forget where it was.

He didn't have a gravestone for a few years. I think he got one about 2 years ago. Me and my brother couldn't afford to get him one. In the end the family got together and bought him one. He had 3 brothers and 2 sisters.

I saw the grave for the first time this summer.

The churchyard where he is buried is a bit out of the way for someone who doesn't drive. I guess people offered to drive me a few times but I didn't want to be there with other people. I was afraid that at some point I would cry.

I don't know what I expected when I saw the grave stone? Some kind of epiphany? All of my questions about death to have been answered? In truth I just looked at it for a while whilst the people with me stood back and let me have space. Then I left. Maybe it would have been different to be there alone.

Nowadays I am used to him not being here. I hope though that one day i'll stop having dreams where there's a chance I can save him but am too late.

2010-11-25T20:29:00.002Z

Should really do some more landscape photography soon, I miss the solitude and the calming effect.

This photo is by Rodric Breeze, it was on the BBC news website today and was taken in Yorkshire. I miss Yorkshire and the trips to York I used to take when I was 15/16.

Faliures and experimentations

2010-11-25T17:11:00.003Z

So i tried a new technique yesterday, a Gum Arabic transfer technique. I had tried it previously at a workshop I was helping out at.

Previously I had used a photocopy of a book cover and transferred that on to paper.

This time I used a photocopy of a photograph I had taken, however it completely failed, you can just barely see what I was trying to transfer.

I think the mistake I made was using a low contrast image. The images I had chosen were meant to be low contrast as that adds to their atmosphere. Jeff (print technician) made the point though, that when transferred, they will still have an unusual quality to them, so i can use high contrast images, then when they are transferred they will take on a new, equally creepy quality.

So I am now scanning my images and editing them in Photoshop, ready for another try.

Just another artist, trying to find the meaning of life..

2010-11-22T19:10:00.002Z

Well I got my feedback from university and am feeling okay about it. This term has been very up and down so it's good all factors taken into account and I think that so far I have made some confident pieces of work and have a lot of directions to advance in.

I am going to note down here the key points in my feedback, so that I can refer back to them when needed.

1. I need to do more research, I need to write about my influences.
2. I need to do more reading, the texts for visual culture should be helpful for this, I would also like to read more English Literature and more texts relating to my practice.
3. I need to stop second guessing myself. I need to stop over thinking things.
4. Use this blog more.

Suicide

2010-11-18T13:30:00.002Z

I found this video really interesting, It's a short documentry, made by Vice Magazine about Aokigahara forest in Japan, which is a popular destination for suicide attempts.

It really makes you contemplate not only why people commit suicide but why do people choose the same place that so many others have chosen before them? Is it a final attempt to connect with society?

In the video the most interesting things he says are that people kill themselves because they can't adapt to society or feel they can't. He also says that the way we live in society today has become more complicated, face to face communication used to be vital but now we can live our lives being online all day. However the thuth of the matter is; we still need to see each others' faces, read their expressions, hear their voices, to co-exist.

What i also find interesting, is that people supposedly kill themselves because they feel they are outcasts, yet even in death we treat them as outcasts. In history they have been buried differently, away from the rest of society. Here in Aokigahara they lay in the woods for months (the woods are only swept for bodies once a year), sometimes they might never be discovered. It is a very different death.

Protest!

2010-11-15T23:44:00.003Z

I did a little photojournalism on Wednesday last week. I went to the protest against the rise in tuition fees. I was only at the peaceful part, not at the Millbank centre, however I still like the shots I got on the day.

It's very different being in a protest and walking than seeing it on the news. I didn't even realise how big the protest was until I saw it afterwards.

A few nature shots..

2010-11-15T23:26:00.002Z

I have always been interested in nature, flora that is. Not so interested in animals. But the plant world, the way that nature seems to slowly and silently grow around us and is so unbelievably beautiful.

Ever since I moved to Hampshire I have noticed the differences with the nature here and the nature of where I am from, the Fenland. We have smaller trees there, less mushrooms, no ferns. Everything is flat. I'm fond of that, because it's familiar. I know it well.

Everything down here seems so big and vibrant, not spindly little hedgerows or trees standing alone in fields and wastelands. Everything here is so.. proud.

Anyway, here are a few shots from Micheldever woods, which is a local woodland I have wanted to see ever since I moved here. It's definitely mushroom season.

I liked how these came out. I used my Yashica FX-3 which is my favourite SLR, of the 5 or so I own. It was the cheapest too and is starting to fall apart. But it takes beautiful shots, with amazing radial blur.

Installation

2010-11-13T13:24:00.002Z

The video I tried to take of this didn't really work. I need to learn to use video better. I think I may have a small amount of usable footage but not much.

These are the digital pictures of the work, they were challenging for me to take, only because I am not used to taking pictures in the dark, so I was quite experimental with the settings I used etc.

The first picture shows how the installation looks in the light and the second shows it with some light, the 3rd and 4th pictures show it in complete darkness.

I am still waiting for manual pictures, no idea how they will come out.

I plan to do further research into death masks and will be visiting London later this week to go and see a famous one.

I am really interested in the idea of remembering someone, perhaps we do not make death masks now because we have photographs as a way to remember people, in a way death masks were not so strange.

2010-11-09T17:41:00.003Z

Been very busy, really getting into my work now. Sadly we have a week off coming up next week, right when i was getting going and producing a lot of work.

I am going to Manchester in my week off to see a show by the illustrator of 'The Moomins' and to see a show that one of my lecturers is in. Other than that i don't know what i'll do.

I have been working on making 'death masks'. I plan to do a more thorough post about them soon when i have set up an installation, but for now here are some quick phone snaps of where I am at with the work.

First wax face attempt.

I am currently preparing to make a rubber mould so that i can produce several of the wax faces.

Another process I had the chance to work with is Gum Arabic transfer. I had a quick go with a photocopy from the cover of a library book but will be learning the process properly with the help from the print technician in a couple of weeks time.
I hope to make some ghostly gravestone images using the process.

2010-10-30T10:21:00.002+01:00

I haven't posted in a while because I haven't really been doing a lot. Went through a bit of a transitional point in life in the last couple of weeks and had to deal with some things, kind of meant I didn't feel like doing anything artistic. I was busy sorting out my life.

However, today is a new day. Here are a couple of pictures of my studio. As you can see I have a few bits and bobs on the wall.
I have been reading "The English way of death" by Julian Litten, which has been giving me some ideas of where to take the project.
I have also been reading some texts on the nature of photography for our print seminars. I have been really lucky lately in that the last two seminars have been on photography.

My plan for next week is to make a death mask. Death masks were mentioned in our Visual culture lecture last week and in The English way of Death and the print lecture text. It's a sign.

I know i'm not dead but i can play dead. A death mask is a wax or plaster cast made of a person’s face following death. I will write more about them when I have made one.

Also noticing that the campus / university is really beautiful at this time of year. Gold and green and covered in leaves. Makes me want to go there.

Graves, Royston

2010-10-09T16:37:00.001+01:00

Graves, Royston, originally uploaded by Laura E Gardner.

Finally developed a few more of the grave pictures. I took this one in Royston. I liked these ones, they were kind of dark and mysterious. Black and white definitely can change the mood and tone of a picture completely.

I'm going to be mostly taking pictures in black and white this semester as i have access to the dark room. I also want to fully master black and white film. I have some cool ideas for techniques i want to try out in the darkroom over the coming months.

Platinum and Palladium printing

2010-10-01T22:15:00.002+01:00

On Wednesday I took a workshop, near Cambridge, in Platinum and Palladium printing.
It was really informative and some of the techniques shown such as digital negative making are also used in other types of Alternative printing processes, which is a useful crossover.

I chose negatives that I am already using for my project, so that I could see the difference with them printed differently.

I really like the effects of platinum printing, my final images were so clear and beautiful and platinum prints have a great tonal range.

I definitely think that this series looks better as a platinum print series. The images look more cold, melancholy and lonely.

I am planning to look into other alternative printing processes too, I will look at cyanotypes next, just need to gather a few things.

But I want to do everything..

2010-09-28T16:21:00.002+01:00

The problem with me is that I want to do everything. I've been thinking about it more and more.
I was impressed with myself when I managed to focus on one medium, mostly. Photography is what I want to do. Knowing that doesn't help though. There are hundreds of different cameras, hundreds of different photographic practices and many kinds of film. How do I narrow down what I do?
Then there are themes, I stick to a theme for a while, evolve it and then start something completely different.

I have no focus.

other people seem to have work that leads from one theme to another, flowing naturally, with perfect progression. Their work recognisable due to having their own style. Often they use the same medium and the same techniques.

I don't want to limit myself, but maybe in order to control my concepts, I need to stick to one format and one camera and truely master that before exploring other options.

I think when uni starts up I will spend some time working in black and white 35mm, on one camera and try to fully master that so that the work becomes entirely about the concept, not the format.

In other news though, tomorrow I am doing a workshop in Platinum and Palladium printing. So that will be an interesting technique to master, even if I am without focus.

Rotting

2010-09-23T16:01:00.002+01:00

I found these great youtube videos which really fascinate my curiosity regarding decay. It seems really final, the way when something dies, it rots and ends up folding in on itself.

Theres been this dead hedgehog on my way to work for the last couple of weeks, I saw it whole, then rotting, then maggoty, then finally when i walked past a couple of days ago it had almost completely disappeared. It was just a stain on the ground. How heartbreaking is that? We all have so little time.

Short series

2010-09-14T21:52:00.002+01:00

Despite being advised by a friend not to continue with this series after the first photo, i did. It is a short series which really comments on the cycle of life, only choosing to photograph animals rather than humans because humans hide their dead so well.

What i was trying to communicate here was that death is a part of life and is always around us. When we start to look we can see it everywhere.

I am not particularly saddened by the death of animals, but human death i find disturbing. I have seen a dead human body once only and it did not look natural, like these animal deaths do.

I plan to advance this by looking more closely at decay.

Sally Mann & Wolfgang Tillmans

2010-09-10T22:08:00.006+01:00

Beware, the second image in this post may make you feel uncomfortable.

Today I went to see two photographic exhibitions. I think I'm starting to give up pretending to care about other forms of art. Photographs are it, they're the one, they record every detail. They keep this moment and the nostalgic person in me treasures them. I think that part of having a bad memory is trying to make sure you never forget anything. And maybe part of feeling awkward in life is wanting to remember every single perfect moment.

I went to see an exhibition by Sally Mann (The photographer's gallery - Until September 19th), a photographer who I have liked since college, although i only recently discovered the techniques she uses and the methods possible to achieve so much clarity and detail.

I really like the way she captures moments of her children interacting with nature, doing what they wanted to do naturally, without having reached the moments in childhood where you begin to feel self conscious or worry about what you should or shouldn't do.

I loved this picture in particular, the way her daughter seems so oblivious to the camera and so peaceful in the open air. The focus is on the rocks, I somehow find photos more interesting when the focus is not in the obvious place.

I also feel that the fact that all of the photographs are in black and white makes them seem more timeless and altogether more about the moment, not the setting.

The exhibition was split into three parts; Family, Land and What Remains.

I found the 'What remains' part of the exhibition to be really unsettling. I read the warning before i entered the room, it was a theme i was very interested in. But still, seeing that level of detail in pictures of the human body decaying... for someone who fears death, I was a bit taken aback. And yet if the opportunity came up, I would take those photographs.

The photographs were of course both beautiful and timeless, the bodies looked as if they were trapped within different stages of decay. I sometimes think that humans are so afraid of death, we act like it's not going to happen, we say 'live for now' but are too afraid to actually do it. We bury our dead, we don't leave them to decay like this and therefore don't really see this, maybe this doesn't help us to accept that this is what will happen to us.

Next I went to see Wolfgang Tillmans (Serpentine Gallery - Until September 19th)

I wasn't sure what to expect for this one, and at first I wasn't impressed, all of the photographs were good, some were exceptional, but it seemed like there was no theme, they were like a mish-mash of snapshots. A picture of a runner next to a picture of boxes of eggs, an abstract photo next to a picture of the back of someones head.

There were a couple of things that ran through the exhibition though, a good eye for colour and what seemed like a fascination with light.

My favourite pictures were these:

They had that mystical feeling, that quality that you get from some art, the feeling when you don't know how it was done.

I went away thinking they looked like Cy Twomblys, if he were a photographer. I also thought they looked a bit like blood in water.

Altogether i thought both exhibitions were good and they gave me inspiration and ideas for my own artistic practice.

Edit: Decided this was too wordy so took out the press releases.

(All photographs are from the exhibition guides for the shows.)

Only one image

2010-09-06T23:51:00.004+01:00

I took this a couple of weeks ago, It's the only grave image that I've taken that is personal to me.

I think this may just be one image that says everything to me and yet nothing to someone who has no explanation of it. Is it still art? I don't know if it matters when the lines between art and life blur. I almost feel that to say this was art would be to cheapen it.

I get a little heart tug, a strange feeling in my stomach, every time I look at this. At the same time I want to be strong and unfeeling as i am perceived to be and maybe as I am in many ways. However this may be the one thing that makes me have a reaction. One I don't want and feel guilty for not wanting.

Death is one of the only constants in life and yet it is one of the hardest consequences of life to accept, it is all around us and yet we are desensitized to it.

I don't know where i will go from here. Maybe I will avoid this photo for months, push it to the back of my mind and yet search for an answer of where i can go with this next. Maybe i will take the opposite route and stick it somewhere i can see it every day and torture myself with it, see if I can figure it out that way.

2010-08-20T21:03:00.002+01:00

Here are a couple of images that i have taken this summer that i like. I will add them to my sketchbook although i'm not really sure where I'm going with it all. I think I know why I'm doing this, photographing graves. I was doing it last year and I wasn't ready to think about it. Now I feel like I should be ready but I'm still not ready to talk about it. i don't know if I ever will be, this is my therepy.

But what am i going to do with it? Just keep photographing graves obsessively?

I thought that seeing his grave would cure me, but it didn't. I still can't really talk about it.

What is this????

2010-08-13T19:52:00.002+01:00

A NEW instant camera from Polaroid??

Yes.

Someone decided they made a bad decision?

So now we have Polaroid in competition with The Impossible Project? Hmm very interesting. And then there's the fuji instant camera. To be honest, this new polaroid camera looks a lot like a rip off of the fujifilm one.

I kind of want one, only because polaroids film has a lot better, more stable chemistry than The Impossible project. I don't think i'll be buying one just yet though. I just bought an instant fujifilm back for my Diana F+ so I can't justify more instant film purchases and I also don't trust Polaroid not to discontinue it. It may be too little too late.

It's an interesting development though. Clearly instant film is NOT DEAD!

2010-08-12T22:47:00.001+01:00

A few more sketchbook pages. :)

2010-08-10T23:22:00.003+01:00

A couple more images from the textures work I was doing at the start of the summer. I would like to continue by doing some texture pieces, however i want to do them on wood or something solid so I haven't got around to it yet. I will by the end of the summer. I want to see where it goes.

I think that paint layers/ poster layers etc are representative of time and that when they are dilapidated it shows time passed. When things are repainted and repainted and peeling it's like layers of time, falling away.

2010-08-10T23:06:00.003+01:00

Summer work...

Well I don't think I've done that much really. I've been working a lot, no excuse really.
I have been thinking a lot, which may be a hindrance as well as I help as I keep thinking about whether what I am thinking about is art and second guessing everything I think of doing. Ugh. What is art indeed?

I've also been thinking about death and decay and how death is all around us, animals and people are dying, the once modern structures we built are decaying.

Here are a few pictures from my sketchbook.

Will post more in a bit about what I have been doing and my plans :)

Winchester school of art Degree show. PART 2

2010-06-20T23:46:00.006+01:00

Here is the second part of my post about the WSA degree show.

First is photographer Brooke Harwood. Brooke's work is all about the atmosphere to me, their photos are perfectly lit and a real showcase in how to light a photograph. The subjects are widely varied, from Southampton's red light district to pleasant whimsical photographs of the sky, i think she's one to watch.

Next is Edward Lawrenson. His paintings were amazing. I was curious to see them even when they were wrapped in bubble wrap and waiting to go onto the wall during set up. The way he paints is really unique.

Slight side point: He went to Cambridge regional college, which was where I did my National Diploma so I have an extra willingness for him to do well.

Thirdly is Graphics student and photographer Daniel Blake. I found his Urban decay photography engaging, maybe because it's an interest of mine. His images were enlightening as well as being perfectly composed. They also had just the right amount of light and colour.

Finally is Sarah Chorlton, I was fascinated by her work, maybe because there were a lot of railway pictures and I am really interested in the railway, it's so mysterious. Her photographs were really fascinating for me.

An image from her tumblr:

Please go and look at the websites of these artists. I'm sure they're all going to do so well.
Good luck to all of this years graduates. It's strange to think that in two years I will be one of them.

Winchester school of art Degree show. PART 1

2010-06-20T22:21:00.010+01:00

Yes I am having to blog about the WSA degree show in separate parts. It was THAT awesome.
I took my camera along but it was out of film so I couldn't take any photos of the show, which was very sad, however I came up with an alternative solution, I took cards from my favourite artists so I could look them up and write about them and blog their cards :)

Up first is Jade Davies.

Jade is a Graphics student, who's work was about mapping human emotion, her website doesn't appear to be up right now so I can't read further into what it was about, but I really enjoyed the visual representation of human emotion.

I also liked the work of Kate/Katherine rogers. There was a really eerie beauty to the hundreds of sewn up flowers in her work. Katherine was a Fine Art student, which means I found it a little more difficult to discern what was going on in her work, graphics students normally tell you what they are putting across, where as fine art is more subjective and harder to read.

Finally, i really liked the work of Graphics student; James D Clark.
His photography reminded me of the traces series of photographs i was doing a couple of months ago. His photography was really exceptional and I enjoyed the themes.

His website is currently live and he has a lot of other interesting work up.

The work that I saw was from the series 'elsewhere'. He says on his website:

So actually his theme was very similar to what I was doing last semester, his exploration was a lot more thorough however. My work was about the transient traces that people leave behind. Here is a comparison of our work:

An image from my series:

An image from his:

I found the whole show very inspiring and will be writing about more of the Art students / emerging british artists in my next blog post.

Next generation Private view

2010-06-16T22:57:00.002+01:00

The next generation at the London Miles Gallery is an exhibition showcasing new artistic talent, there were 12x12 inch artworks displayed from 45 international artists and also a sculptural installation by 'emerging british artists' which I was lucky enough to take part in.

You can see my box on the far left.
See my previous journal entry for more detailed pictures of it.

There was some really astounding artwork at the exhibtion, both in the main exhibition and in the box sculpture. I also met some very interesting and friendly people including a practicing artist who is working in a gallery space in London, I may go and see a private view there. I also met a really friendly photographer who was the event photographer and was telling me about her own work and a man who works within the centre containing the London Miles Gallery, Tess and I were keen to get our artwork into the centre and he had created a very amusing box for the sculpture as well showing the evolution of man - unfortunately I didn't get a picture of it.

All in all I really enjoyed the project and the message it was sending regarding recycling and reusing materials was a very good one!

The London miles gallery are a great place and very friendly towards students and emerging artists.

2010-06-13T13:18:00.000+01:00

Images from a new project;
Dilapidation // Texture

Next generation box project.

2010-06-01T14:19:00.002+01:00

I recently took part in a project for the London Miles Gallery. For the project we had to create a box within the theme "The next generation". My box was a comment on the way that today's generation are so fragile, they are wasting away, making room for a new generation, who will probably be worse.

End of year exhibition

2010-06-01T14:13:00.003+01:00

This was my piece from the end of year exhibition, it was a comment on the fragility of life and the decline and decay of the human body.

Digital pictures of my work by Tessa Gray.

2010-05-09T20:45:00.004+01:00

I met one of the wardens of Winnall Moors today and he showed me this Snow Goose. It's meant to be in Russia but took a wrong turn on it's way back in March and followed some Canada geese back to England.

I also made a portfolio online for all of my university projects over the weekend. Not everything is on it yet. It also has my nature photographs and my portraits on there. The link is: http://lauragardner.carbonmade.com/

2010-04-30T19:36:00.000+01:00

A couple of test polaroids using new film from The Impossible Project.

2010-04-05T15:40:00.001+01:00

New painting in progress.

Been feeling a bit worried lately, depressed about art and the world and myself.

But painting is good.

2010-03-15T23:30:00.000Z

These pictures are my first finished piece for my current project. Obviously, I still have a lot more to do and need to progress the project.

2010-02-28T21:00:00.003Z

Some images that actually have something to do with my project. Currently exploring the idea of death and history and the traces that people leave.

Can't wait to get into the darkroom in a week and really mix things up.

Going to Berlin tonight though for a week. Going to see if I can find a graveyard there to take some photos in.

2010-02-21T00:26:00.002Z

Have done more photography and less actual Fine Art lately. I should really figure out how to combine the two. I should have done a photography degree.

Anyway, am going out tomorrow to do some Fine art photography.

2010-02-18T17:23:00.002Z

Some recently developed 35mm photos. The last was taken in summer and only just developed and the other two are both my friend Tess and were taken on Wednesday.

2010-02-13T23:02:00.001Z

My studio space at Uni.

I'm so unfocused right now. Everything I say in my tutorials comes out wrong and my tutor makes me feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Or what I'm doing isn't right. I just need to get my head in the right space because I know that when I do focus I can do good work.

2010-02-10T20:06:00.002Z

Mostly thinking about history of places and the people in them at the moment, also graves and maps and the paranormal.

Not sure where I'm going with it all yet though.

Here's a picture taken with my Diana.

Fine Art is driving me insane.

2010-02-03T02:28:00.002Z

I never thought university would be so stressful. it always seems like there is so little time to do everything I want to do. Not enough daylight hours.
And i have too many Ideas and too many thoughts and when I concentrate on one for a project, I get bored of it.
There's too much pressure and the thing is I don't even have pressurizing parents or boyfriend. I think I pressure myself to do so well and then I over-think everything. I imagine that the tutors are pressuring me too I think, but really it's just myself, not thinking I've impressed enough, that I've done nothing of worth.
So maybe Fine Art isn't driving me insane, maybe I'm doing it to myself.

And also, whilst I'm ranting, I'm fed up of friends putting pressure on me or telling me off for not doing what they expect me to do. Sometimes I just want to stay in, you know? Or go somewhere alone or not come back to uni halls just because you want me to.

And I think I pressure myself by being too focused on the final outcome of work. on having the perfect creative process.

I'm too stressed right now.

My new plan is to find out how to chill out about my work, or practice.

First Holga pictures.

2010-01-27T22:48:00.002Z

Here are my first Holga pictures, also my first medium format (120) pictures. They took 2 weeks to get back as they had to go to London from Jessops. I was pleased though as I got a few good pictures. I have decided to continue in colour as I think the colour film was more interesting.

My room

2010-01-14T16:36:00.001Z

I have finally made my room homely and nice to work in.
I like to have a lot of pictures as well as tidiness and organization when I'm working.

Here are some pics :)

Phobia continued

2010-01-14T16:34:00.000Z

Another test for final pieces.

Another image from my Lomography Supersampler.

2010-01-08T19:58:00.001Z