Meeting with LUCY COX

Lucy.Cox@UWE.ac.uk

Friday October 30th 2015
10am

I had a meeting with Lucy Cox, Senior Careers Advisor at UWE. I was and am concerned about my direction for the 'Developing Practice' Module and wanted her professional opinion. I have been looking at:

Project Based Opportunities
Interpretation Roles
Workshop Facilitation
Volunteering - Healthcare, Education

All of the above have the potential to be researched and explored within my existing role as teacher and artist. However, as my current projection and print work is progressing I feel that the 'educator' aspect may now not be applicable.
However, below is the result of the meeting we had on Friday 30th October where we discussed where I am now and where I may choose to end up next term with a series of relevant contacts (linking to my current role) to email if appropriate in the future.
Lucy was extremely helpful, supportive and encouraging and with this in mind assuaged some of my anxiety about this section of the MA print course.




Hi Clare,

It was good to talk to you yesterday.
We discussed some ideas for your professional practice module for your MA Print course.
You said you are interested in  working in workshop facilitation – for arts based practice. Drawing and painting type activities – but potentially incorporating simple print techniques too.

You are a secondary school teacher with good experience teaching to large groups and working with a wide variety of people .
You have a particular eagerness to work with disadvantaged groups or those who really need or deserve the experience of creative activities.
You are interested in volunteering to build experience and contacts in this area. You are keen to know what internal support is available for you in this area.

Below are the suggested contacts that we discussed.

Feel free to contact me to follow up on any of these strands once you have made contact with them.

Best wishes,

Lucy


UWE Volunteering
Contact Sally Greenwood  or Jenny Idle within the UWE Volunteers team to ask if they still have any room for an experienced facilitator on their Creative Club. Also highlight your main interests and see if there are any new workshops they could forge for you, with Charities of groups
Sally.Greenwood@uwe.ac.uk
Jenny.Idle@uwe.ac.uk

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UWE Enterprise
http://www1.uwe.ac.uk/students/careersandemployability/enterpriseandself-employment.aspx
Book an appointment or email the team to ask for advice on how to start a venture for an arts based practitioner who wants to deliver workshops or training to groups – perhaps Staff development days, school groups, disadvantaged groups... They are running a drop in session on Thursday 29th October in the large open space between the Canteen and SU bar. You could talk to one of their advisers there.
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North Bristol Health Trust
Contact Ruth Sidgwick Ruth.Sidgwick@nbt.nhs.uk  – contact Ruth and explain your  desire for working in Arts facilitation. Feel free to say I shared her details with you.
She may run some arts workshops with patients/staff that you coudl deliver – start the discussion.
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Art + Power
www.artandpower.org.uk/
Art + Power is a charitable registered society under the Co-operative and Community Benefit ...
Centre Gate, Colston Avenue, Avon, Bristol BS1 4TR, United Kingdom
+44 117 317 8099

PROJECTIONS, PATTERN & PRINT

Photographic Studio Sessions

Let me give you a glimpse inside my head...think Martha Graham dancing with Gary Hume and Mat Collishaw hovering above Jean Christo. This was the inspiration and strange starting point for a series of large scale projections which I hoped I could use in print or painted form or a combination of both.

Therefore, it was with the taste of fear in my mouth and wearing my creative 'grown up' face that I booked a photography studio with George, who is a consummate photographic professional. Seductively scary. This included organising a maelstrom of technical ephemera - projector, SLR camera, tripod, hard drives and clamps for 9.30am Thursday 19th November. 

I hired Rhyannan my life model, elfin and lithe, who was as excited as I was by the prospect of being bandaged in spandex, covered in bubble wrap and possibly rolled down the stairs in F block. I had, in preparation, photographed a series of my own eclectic organic and figurative images created using a variety of media - acrylic paint, pastel silkscreen, lino cut and photographic - to use as large scale patterns. I needed to produce as much pattern variety as possible, having no idea how the final projected images would look. 

The original idea in my head was to use the human body as my canvas in order to mirror my own figurative work (both drawn and printed) by projecting an eclectic range of 'pattern' onto a variety of visual surfaces including flesh ie. different textiles - spandex, silk, net, gauze to create alternative 'skins' and replicate the nature of the human form. Using metres of semi transparent white pearlescent spandex as my 'projection screen' I photographed Rhyannan in a series of poses whilst projecting onto her body and onto the fabric. The final photographic images highlight the curves, bumps and familiar features of the human form melded with strange, uneven distortion caused by the tension in the fabric.  

The resulting figurative projection work, where I took inspiration from the photographs of Vadim Stein and the wrapped sculptural forms of Jean Christo but in miniature, looked truly amazing. Rhyannan's strikingly beautiful sculptural form and intuitive modelling enhanced the 'humanity' of each projection and the vibrance of the colour from each pattern when projected onto pale and transparent planes (skin, silk etc) became even more intense. There is an abstract beauty to each image and when dissected (using a viewfinder) I have been able to produce a myriad of alternative figurative shapes for further projection or print (see a selection below).

I have no idea of the direction for this "body" of work (..see what I did there?) but this could be the start of something big, although Im going to need a much bigger projector and fuck loads more bubble wrap.

UWE MINIATURE PRINT COMPETITION 

" You can't spend the rest of your life crying. It annoys people in the movies " Oscar Madison - The Odd Couple

5th November 2015

OMG! My work won the UWE miniature print poster and e-card design competition.
I never come first, even at birth my twin sister squeezed past me, therefore was I so excited for this piece to have been chosen.

The idea originated from a series of Ektachrome and Kodachrome holiday slides circa 1961 which I scanned and digitally manipulated in photoshop and indesign. Firstly converting it into a combination of a layered colour halftone keeping a section of the original and then saving the images as artwork (pdf format and jpeg). The final image has also been replicated as a four colour separation silkscreen print minus the type which is much more textural. 

I absolutely love the vibrancy of Kodachrome colour; the unreality of it, like an ice lolly bursting with E numbers or a postcard of Weston super mare from the 1970s (the green too green, the yellow like egg yolk... to perfect to be real) and the dot structure of the digital halftone - with the moire effect enhancing the textural quality of each print.

I have been inspired by this media and by the idea of pre-printed material from the 20th century, particularly from the 1960s and 70s, which is evocative of home, childhood; nostalgic reminiscences using both film and photographic imagery. I am in the process of producing a series of A5 'retro' four colour silkscreen mini-prints taken from moving, photographic and slide image formats with reference to 'family' and 'found'.

 

Movie still taken from 'The Odd Couple' 1968
director Gene Saks based on the 1965 play by Neil Simon

UWE MINIPRINT DISPLAY

ARNOLFINI BOOKSHOP

3rd December 2015

Delineating the linear
27th October 2015

I am a piece of meat - we are all lumps of meat. God forbid I am those 2 rashers of bacon or a single sausage! My childhood mealtimes and illicit sarnies make the man (or woman in my case) ... Bowel cancer here I come.  Digression complete, perhaps picture yourself sandwiched between transparent plastic sheets which compress your flesh and suffocate, packaged and processed like a chicken. 

Take a look at 'Shrink' the work of Belgian artist Lawrence Malstaf. 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LrkjOpe16TM, perhaps you could be immortalised in metal - the work of the Korean artist and sculptor Seung MO Park illustrates this: http://www.seungmopark.com

Or perhaps you become smothered in fabric, breathing it in, so the textile becomes as a second skin; the curves and structure of your body masked in a maelstrom of limbs and nipples, as with the beautiful photographs of Ukranian photographer Vadim Stein  https://500px.com/stein

Using my own life studies and drawing inspiration from these artists, my thought processes concerning the figurative and linear are, I believe, an attempt to 'make flesh', to translate my life drawings into a more three dimensional format using a combination of methods I can control ie. Silkscreen and Linocuts, combined with those processes I find challenging and unknown, ie. Large scale Projections and textile hangings. 

 

METAMORPHOSIS

19th October 2015

"The naked body is frequently the physical terrain artists traverse in the face of inner turmoil, guilt or anger. How can an artist represent loneliness, love, sexual yearning, wrath and shame? Drawing from the self or life model, from reproduction or the imagination, has provided artists with the freedom to explore such emotions and anxieties". 
Quote by Kate Macfarlane 'A wild presence' from 'The Nakeds'.

I read the quote and held those words in my head. We all have skin which we inhabit; flawed, smooth, textured, mapping our emotions, like words on paper. Interpreting the idea of self or the individual using the drawn line, with my life drawing as the starting point, for a personal journey 'under the skin' would be the initial realisation of this concept. 

My sketchbooks and life drawings are haphazard in their compilation, with each study ranging from the massive to the miniature using a variety of media. Spontaneity and fluidity seems to be the thread permeating most of my work.

I have looked at a range of styles which mirror my own and am starting with a range of contemporary and traditional figurative studies which have inspired me. German Expressionism,  Schiele, Heckel, Kokoschka, and latterly artwork involving projections and simplistic video art - Maurice Binder and Robert Brownjohn. It is the combination of light and line and the transparent layering of different media that I am intrigued by. 

Experimenting with the theme of human distortion using my linear approach. I am finding the malleability of the drawn line can be translated not only onto the surface of lino to recreate the chunky, dark Expressionistic style, but also onto fabric and smooth paper using silkscreen and digital textile print.

I have begun with my simple lino cut figures, twisting and mutating. I am hoping that these simple Organic forms will evolve into work more complex, more 'Kafkaesque' once printed on a variety of surfaces and melded together. 

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.” 

Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis

GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM AND ME

"Now I'm getting the word..."

October 11th 2015

 

Despite a positive tutorial, deciding on a print direction or creative path to enhance my own practice has been a challenge. Reminiscent of the psychic Clinton Baptiste from Phoenix Nights  www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIU4-PWRyw4
I have been "getting the word..Angst"...  The series of mixed media organic themed canvasses I began late August 2015, where a heavy linear style caused me to look again at German Expressionism, have yet to be resolved. However, my initial influences: Lyonel Feininger, Erich Henkel and Olga Cechova (see blog October 2014) are becoming the springboard ideologies for a series of initial Linocuts. 

Olga Cechova - Die Weisse Figur

With this in mind, the expressionistic approach within this work could be seen as a presentation of my world from a subjective perspective - any organic or figurative form I reproduce visually, the immediacy or spontaneity of the drawn line, is evocative of my emotional response to that specific subject. 

According to Dr. Mark Bunyan http://artblart.com
Expressionist artists sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality. Therefore the term is sometimes suggestive of Angst.

I think perhaps what I am attempting to evoke is an emotional response in the viewer and a spontaneity to my drawing that is reminiscent of 'life' and energy. Let's see if I can maintain the momentum.

My initial Linocut ideas working from my own life drawings

DEVELOPING PRACTICE

1st October 2015

Today's the day for my Tutorial with the Dream Team - Paul Laidler, Sarah Bodman and Ian Chamberlain, after last week's Developing Practice and Professional Practice introduction. I'm due to discuss my creative direction and also attempt to work out my own 'Developing Practice', which at the moment is limited to a fuck load of life drawing, enormous mixed media flower canvasses and Harold the Helicopter.

As far as I can make out 'Developing Practice' is meant to be a springboard for the 2nd year, looking at the last two modules and seek out areas of affinity with one's own practice and links to developing this. Making mistakes is almost mandatory which is a good thing as I am awash with self doubt. Tutorial sessions, therefore are vital as is challenging yourself to try a myriad of new ways of working.

My Tutorial time was 10.45am. Waiting outside the door I glimpsed Chris Watkins (as tall as a willow and brighter than a brain pie), who had brought his life's work with him, snowdrifts of work, or so it appeared.  I had nothing to 'bring to the table' except myself. However, there was no need to fear, Sarah (enigmatic and objective) and Ian (old blue eyes) were as comforting and supportive as a hug and Paul said very little but looked impressive. 

I have been working on large scale canvasses with a newspaper collage twist, to try to incorporate print. Sarah asked the question "Why"? It has made me feel it's ok to make work using whatever medium I choose and then decide what to do with it.  A relief and not just in the printing sense. Ian suggested having a look at 'The Big Draw' and so I have contacted Lucy Cox Senior Careers Advisor to arrange the possibility of voluntary work in this area. I know I am an energetic and imaginative facilitator - I just have no clue what to facilitate now.

Areas could include fabric and textile print which I love and the idea of projections.

Check out: Robert Kaufman, Skinny La Minz, Michael Miller and Blackpop.