Different focus for Arab Spring

I went back through my notes and also reviewed some of the books I have in the house .... I returned to the idea of mosaics and small pieces making up the whole (as in a quilt or wall hanging).  This felt much more like me and my practice.  On Saturday I went with a friend to the Sewing exhibition at NEC - this is always inspirational with some beautiful pieces on show (not quite as good as the Quilt Show in August but who's complaining?) - as I walked round it occurred to me that I could make a quilt with hundreds (!) of small pieces of Arab-like fabrics, of my photographs applied to see-through materials (another theme) and emblematic of many small actions coming together in a ground-swell of activity against the repressive regimes of Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

I thought of using black - white - red with touches of green but felt that this was too 'arty' and self-conscious. 

The colours of the countryside are reds, ochres, sand, beige, taupes etc with hints of blue sky and blue sea so I am focussing on those.

I went around the show and bought some appropriate materials including fabric, threads etc and spent today (after dropping in my Professional Practice Road Map on time into Uni) making up squares.

Originally I thought of something quite small like 1 inch then a square based on 140 cm (140 characters in a Tweet).  I have resolved this into a square of 70 cm - this will enable me to manipulate the fabrics in an interesting way and mean that there is something for the viewer to 'read'.

I feel that this is much more what I want to do ...

Where I am ...

I'd focussed on the heads and just couldn't see where the fabric would fit in .... I felt that I had gone down a blind alley:

In this I'd also been thinking about what Sean O'Keffe said last week "I wonder that you don't continue the fabric elements".

I said that I felt I was going wrong to Stuart and said I wanted to refocus my efforts.

This I promised to do for the tutorial on 27 March.

Arab Spring

I've been quite busy since my last Blog - went to Amersham to see friends, went up to London to see Picasso exhibition; talk on Turner then Turner/Claude exhibition.  Beautiful paintings.  Worked all weekend towards my tutorial on Tues 20 March producing :

Having a problem uploading photographs so will go onto the next Post

Jaume Plensa (b. Barcelona 1955)

I reviewed a book called The Crown Fountain by Hatje Cantz (this photo is from the internet):

This quote is p.196 and had some ressonance for me:  ".... the enigmatic Sphinx at Gaza.  Is Plensa playing these ancient guardians at their own game?  .... especially in the female faces there is a benevolent maternalism with all its caring and protective associations.  The slow smile that falls so benignly upon us.  What are so many of those deities if not a personification of the mother figure that echoes in our own psyches?

Arab Spring

I painted my 'heads' as if they were football tribes:

I used acrylic paint and painted them as Tunisia, Libya and Egypt using the national colours.  These were the notes that I made as I was painting them.  Tribal - women concealed - makeup - back to historical imagery (Cyrene statues) - totem - women unheard - football images - handpainted = made themselves - polystyrene - rock like when painted - the Egyptian one's nose was slightly damage and reminded me of the Sphinx (enigmatic). 

I was doing this work at uni so then had a tutorial (AND my last two modules marks had been 'found').

Notes are:  "Pay close attention to the contextual references you have.  The use of molded polystyrene clashes with the desire to have something that is handmade - unique.  Think carefully about the form this work will take.  By next week we would like to see a version of this work that uses something other than polystyrene heads and some alternative forms of paint application".

Consequently I have produced a number of versions using Mod Roc (the first one completely collapsed) -

The first one was directly over the existing polystyrene 'shape' while the second was using a balloon as a forme.

I have also been playing around with the existing heads :

The scarf is one that I bought in Tunisia.

This one has candle wax applied.  Thoughts are fire, melting of hope etc.

I thought that this was an interesting picture - of Syria from The Week 16 March 2012.  Of course the paint also acts as camouflage.

More work to do .... 

Arab Spring

I went back to my photo of the three heads and started to source similar locally. 

I tried a web search then found a place in Birmingham but they weren't what I wanted.  I then went to the market and found these second-hand ones:

I quite like the idea that they have had a 'life' of their own.  There are a number of ways I could go - use them as a metaphor for each of the three countries - Tunisia, Libya and Egypt and overpaint the heads with the colours of each of these countries.  That would be Tunisia - Red and White; Libya - Green and Egypt - Red, White and Black. 

I have been to Barry's Fabrics in Digbeth and brought some pure white silk fabric.  This is because I tried to source Hajabs in a suitable fabric and found it quite difficult.  I am planning to look at my photographs again and make a montage of images which would be applied to the fabric.  I would then oversew and embroider.

I am quite happy with the idea of continuing to produce work in fabric ... this is likely to be my 'practice' going forward.  This combined with print and painting.

Negotiated Project - previous work and a brainstorm!

I have had an epiphany!  Reviewing my work for my updated website and the Road Map for my Professional Practice has made me realise that I return to textiles for my projects over and over again.

This is a series of ballet dresses based on the theme of air.  I've used different processes - knitting, dressmaking, wire production then altered the images with inks, clay and paint.

This one is Chaos - based on chaos theory - others included Falling Man based on a photograph (another theme of mine) of 09/11.  My main final piece on this was influenced by Niki de Saint Phalle.

The following piece was produced as a response to a sculpture from 6100BC I photographed in Jordan.  I wanted to portray the passage of time so I manipulated fabric as cracks and marks and then constructed and handsewed a traditional Gaza dress.

Another fabric piece was this cloak made with affixed photographs to celebrate my mother's life - the 'ruination' comes from the effects of dementia.

Although most of my project work based around the Holocaust was manipulated books - I did also produce the following handmade book which celebrated the life of a Hungarian woman whose photograph I had seen at Auschwitz-Berkenau.

I have also produced mono-prints of textiles whilst working on other projects:

My last year's piece was a psychogeographical hanging and prints based around my family's closed shop in Leamington Spa.

This sort-of leads me to think that (despite what the tutors at BCU feel about textiles) I should stick to my laurels and work on a textile piece for my finals. 

Consequently that decision has made my life a lot clearer.

Arab Spring

Today I have been trying out different ideas so that I can have some feedback from uni colleagues when I go in next week.

This one is the trip record as a roll of information echoing Jack Kerouac's On the Road.

Playing about with tracing the map route ... for further reference.

This is a collage using my own photographs with maps and other objects.  The green line is the route - Green is the colour of Islam - but I think it is too thick.

I thought that this afternoon I would look at computer-based 'stuff' eg manipulating the photo of the three headscarf dummies.   And, of course, the never-ending elements of professional practice - three year 'road-map' (nearly finished) with appropriate research; CV (done but I think I will do an art one too); website (done but needs updating and I now have the photographs to do that); artist's statement - to do but it shouldn't take too long.

Negotiated Project and Professional Practice

I went into Uni yesterday for a meeting on the Final Show and discovered that there was no record of my marks for last year logged against my record.  Ho hum!  I sent off my Assessment Records so that the 'powers-that-be' can make sure that I can actually finish this year.

The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman

As I woke at 4.00 am (not a good time), I read the catalogue of the Grayson Perry exhibition.  Just an amazing book and a great reminder of an outstanding exhibition.  However ... however, it started a number of different thoughts in my mind.

The first one is:

This was part of Grayson's Maps section.  He writes "We trust maps.  Maps are meant to be a trustworthy diagram of reality.  All maps, though, contain some very human bias.  They can emphasize desirable features and leave out the undesirable.  I like maps of feelings, beliefs and the irrational; they use our trust of maps to persuade us that there might be some truth in their beauty".  The map is an Egyptian woman's headscarf - printed silk 80 x16 cm from 1963/4 - part of the British Museum's collection.

This gave me a bit of a jot and I wondered if I should go the route of producing scarves expressing the Arab Spring and going back to my own image from Tripoli.

I could use some practice heads from the hairdressers and work up the different scarves.  The only issue is : the tutors' dislike of textiles but, at this point in my degree - is this an issue?  It would also help with the problems of not having a technician in the Print Rooms due to illness.

Next bit from the catalogue:

I was describing this to my son in Australia who works in the marine industry as I found it so amazing.  It is a Sailing Chart from the Marshall Islands made of cane and fibre shell in the late 1800s.   You take it on your canoe and use it against the stars to navigate between islands which (I assume) are shown as the small shells within the structure.

Going back to the Hamish Fulton at the IKON, I was reviewing the catalogue for Walking in Relation to Everything and came across this "painted wooden object (with pencil text)" made as a portable A4 size aide memoire of walks in Nepal in 2008.

Now I'm confused ... but I'm going to look at the headscarves as I'm really not happy with the map/book idea.

IKON EXHIBITION

I went to the IKON gallery in Birmingham yesterday to see the Hamish Fulton Walking in Relation to Everything from which these photographs are taken.  I thought that they referenced John Baldessari's work from the 1960s which I had seen in Barcelona a couple of years ago.  I had thought that they might be useful for my project ... not sure now.

However, I thought that some of Sarah Browne's pieces in How to Use Fool's Gold were quite interesting:

Here the map of France has been totally cut out of the composition.

I have spent a good part of today scanning and preparing images for my website.

Arab Spring scroll

I've been working on some different formats for the scroll for the Arab Spring project:

I'm using a till roll and adding writing, diagrams, maps and a 'travel line'.  I quite like this idea but am not really convinced.

I then thought of producing the parallel Arab Spring timeline (which I am referencing from the Guardian website Guardian : Arab Spring: an interactive timeline) and my own timeline as text attached to the roll.

I then went to a written option:

This seems too much like previous work done ... so I've gone back to square one on this option at the moment.