Thoughts over the Christmas holiday

Despite popular opinion I have been keeping my mind pretty active over this festive time. Before we finished for Christmas we were told about a kite flying trip to Glossop in March. This involved creating my own kite or flying machine(!) Considering my obsession with all things winged (flies and wasps excluded), this may turn out to be my best project so far.... I have been considering different kite designs in which i could incorporate wings/feathers. I particularly like the myth of Daedalus and Iccarus, who made wings out of feathers and wax to escape imprisonment. Perhaps this could be a possible design idea.

Other thoughts have been on my next project, largely involving myths and legends. I find the stories intriguing and exciting as the creatures evolve in your mind as you read them. I would perhaps like to create my own versions of these creatures using altered books and altered photography etc.

Notes on the 12th of December seminar

David Levi Strauss, Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and politics, Aperture, 2003, pp. 3-11 and 182-185.

"Salgado is too busy with the compositional aspects of his pictures and with the finding the "grace" and "beauty" in the twisted forms of his anguished subjects. And this beautification of tragedy results in pictures that ultimately reinforce our passivity toward the experience the reveal. To aestheticize tragedy is the fastest way to anaesthetize the feelings of those who are whitnessing it. Beauty is a call to admiration, not action." p.5

Maybe beautifying an image makes it easier to view- therefore making more people look and "take action". If the image wasn't beautified, it would be difficult to look at.
In some cases, beautifying images of suffering may be a political statement in itself. For example, Shakespeare wrote plays for the royalty of his time. His plays sometimes depicting the strength and power of a king, the evilness or weakness of the enemies and therefore infuencing the viewing public. Shakespeare's plays also show the inevitable tragedy of the protaganist in a Romantic way, similarly the photograph "Mali" 1985 by Salgado (above) shows a beautifully haunting image of a refugee who is clearly suffering.

Can beautified art be objective?

Do we have the right to view others' suffering?

Seminar and reading 12th December

There was something about this reading that I grasped (for once), and I felt I had personally hit the nail on the head in my understanding and questioning of the text. I was very invigorated and enlightened when I left the seminar, good way to finish for Christmas.
I'll write more when I've got my notes to hand!

My Project- Cafe Culture

I am working on a project based on Manchester cafe culture. I began by going into places like Starbucks and Cafe Nero and also independent places like Cup and Odder bar. I took photos and drew sketches of the people i saw and also wrote down my feelings about them and what the atmosphere was like.
I want to show a similar emotion as the Parisian cafe painters, only using modern Manchester cafe imagery:- smokers stood outside the doors, people having meetings, reading alone, on laptops etc- through painting and collage.

I have been collecting paper cups from the cafes I visit, and changing their exteriors, documenting my cafe images and personal feelings onto them using painting, pen drawings, collage, screenprinting and letterpress. This is now creating a collection.
I now want to create collaged backgrounds onto which i can screenprint black line drawings and then letterpress words and phrases onto it which describe the atmosphere and so on.

Showing Feeling

Reading: Bruce Cole, "Space and Colour as Emotion" The Informed Eye, 1999, Chicago: Ivan R. Dee Publishing, pp. 167-173

This reading was from the lecture on the 31st October with Michael Howard.
To summarise, the text was about how painters show emotion and feeling through the way they use colour and space in their images. Cole bases his text on the Parisian cafe painters such as Manet, Van Gogh, Gaugin, etc and talks about how their use of colour and composition evoke emotion in the viewer or represent the artists personal feelings and emotions.

It was not so much the concept of the text that inspered my current project but the choice of artists. I like the idea of the "cafe Culture" and the contrasts between now and then. this is what i want to portray in my work.

Image: Degas "Glass of Absinthe" 1876

Liverpool trip 28th October

After spending the day stabbing a map of Liverpool with a very angry finger and going in the wrong direction, we got on the coach and went to Crosby beach. I haven't been so inspired by a place in a long time. Aside from Gormley's "Another Place" I was, as ever, enthralled by the wind turbines that emerged from the land and sea, and the abundance of shells (which I collected in my scarf).
Even though a coach load of art students had swarmed the beach, the atmosphere was serene and ethereal. I felt that i was subconsiously looking out at the horizon, following the stare of Gormley's men. I tried to capture the atmosphere and feelings i had in the photographs i took.

What's happened so far

Against my better judgement i have set up my own blog. its somewhat later than planned but better late than never.

With regards to the term so far i will sum it up as briefly as possible; Our first group project was the Event Project. each group was given a particular event to re-create in the studio in the form of a stall. Our event was "fireworks without fire". For this we covered our space completely with white paper and stuck drawing pins to the walls. we then filled balloons with paint, glitter and powder so that when they were thrown aginst the walls they would pop and splatter like fireworks.
We won. Big time.

The next project was Crazy Golf. Each group was given a specification that their hole had to do. Ours was "up and over". Due to the nature of our design i would rather not go into it. The picture will explain.

The final group project was Sweded Movies. Each croup was given free rein on what film they wanted to swede. Ever the ambitious ones, our group decided to swede 7 films. Using vegetables as characters. We used stop motion to create our footage, the outcome looked amateur due to the timescale but it was funny all the same, and even funnier to make. this was by far the best group project.