PPP1 Lectures

When attending the lectures on PPP1 I found some lectures more useful than others. For example I found the lecture on copyright laws really interesting and useful as I did not know that without a registered art one can copy another's idea, and possible make money from it. This made me begin to think about what I would do if I were and practicing artist and how I would go about copywriting my work. There was also a lecture on presentations and how to give a presentation. I learnt tips such as in order to give a good presentation one must have a title and a bibliography and keep it simple to 10 slides plus 2 ( the title and bibliography slides). I knew some of the information already but it was nice to have it imprinted in me again.
There were also lectures where you would have a visiting artist come and visit and talk about their work. These types of lectures I found very interesting and useful, as it was nice to hear about how someone can kick start their career and make something of it. It was useful to hear about how everything may  not go to plan and how to overcome this. I was also interesting hearing about his work as it was site - specific and we had a site specific project coming up so a lot of valid information could be gained from listening to visiting artists.

The Individual & The Social

With the Individual and the social project, I decided to express myself with photography as my main medium of art practice. I looked at dreams and how they connect with personal memories of places, self and others. I wanted to understand the why we had dreams, and then portray them across as a memory through using photography. I had a photography workshop and this really inspired me to use a camera as i had never really properly used a SLR camera before. I learnt about aperture , shutter speed definition and many other camera settings in the workshop, which I thoroughly enjoyed being part of. I was able to hire out a camera and went about Leeds, to find alphabetical letters that could be found within architecture and buildings, so that I could create words from them.

"F"

"U"

"S"

"E"

In the workshop I also did some shutter speed work, where we worked in groups using the other various photography equipment such as tripods and big lights. I managed to take some good photographs that in that workshop and use them in my project. I wanted to create my dreams through the use of photography, through the use of capturing a single moment on film and then being able to remember it. I managed to create a photograph where all our faces were overlapped creating a dream like image . I feel this image was successful as it was the epitome of my dreams and I wanted the viewer to think when they saw this image combined with the letters in the background creating words, so they subconsciously are being told what to think "Fusion".  

I was also expected in this module to create a presentation on a reading by John Berger. I found I enjoyed being able to present my analysis of his reading, and enjoyed learning about him in the critical studies that we had. I felt the presentation went well, although at first I had nerves. I enjoyed doing it and felt more confident with my presentation skills. 

My aims for the next project would be to plan my time more because if I had had enough time at the end I would of create more words with the photographs.

Collaboration

The collaboration was an interesting thing to be part of. We were in a group of five, and chose to call and dedicate our group work to the "Mind, Body & Soul". This involved brainstorming together at how we were going to incorporate our views on mind body and soul.

To start off we booked out the photography suite, and looked at recording each other whilst analyzing one another's body language especially hand movements. We also looked at memories as people often talk about their memories. We offered each person that was being interviewed a box full of objects where they would choose to pick out one of the 6 objects that were in the box. I found it interesting to see who picked what and their reason why. It really set the scene for what was to become of our final piece/work.

We set off in our own different ways, with the starter point of the photography suite work to work from. I channeled my energy into drawing what I heard. This involved drawing the sounds of the groups talking over each other. Where I tried to distinguish each persons voice, that was heard on the recording, in a single drawing. After looking at my drawings I decided to develop them into prints. Which gave me the freedom to display the flexible material  in whatever shape I wanted to.

When working in a group I enjoyed it at times , for example when we all bounced off each others ideas to make an even better outcome. Sadly at times it was an effort to get everyone to meet up on certain occasions.

Graduate Forum

I attended a graduate forum, which involved listening to a graduate and seeing where they are now at in their career. I found this very interesting, as it gave me something to look forward to in the future career wise ( someone else had made it ). I listened to a graduate talk about his wood carving, which I found very interesting.

In the afternoon we had tutorials with former students, where we could explain our ideas and concepts for a current projects. I found that discussing it with another artist who had already achieved the course that I was on, was a privilege and very useful to hear their views. I talked about my project hearing myself sounds like a professional artist, when talking about my work, was refreshing.

I found the day a real opportunity to get out there as an artist and network with other graduate artists, with and insight into what they are doing. I would suggest improvement in there being more organization was needed , as at times it was hard to find your specific tutorial that you were with, in such a crowded studio. Overall I really enjoyed the day and hope to have more like it in 2nd year.

Material & Process The cube

In this project we were asked to take a 15cm cube and use different materials and try different processes on it to create an end project. We could change the cube completely, moulding it into a completely different shape if we desired.The concept of this project was all about experimenting, with the starting point being a cube.
I initially looked at the cube as being traditionally seen as a mathematical and stern,hard, angular shape. I wanted to try and challenge this whole idea and transform the 15cm cube into something "organic "and "living". My plan was to take and experiment with different materials to transform the cube into a soft, natural and organic living form. I wanted to immediately challenge the idea and concept behind a "traditional" cube. I looked at primarily trying to grow a cube out of cress seeds or grass.Both grow quickly when heat, light and water are present. Growing the cubes proved to be challenging as I found this hard to do within the time period I had, as it was going to take a while for the cubes to grow in time. I tried growing the cubes in the studio , but found that that was not possible with the time scale that I had, also being in a studio environment did not fit well with growing seeds indoors.

 I also considered using natural materials such as, ice, plaster ( hand carved ), copper, wire and wood. At first I froze some ice cubes, and watched them melt; as they melted they turned to liquid, and changed shape. This acknowledgement lead me into wondering "How could I create a cube that could change on it's own?" by shape or growth, ( a natural process). 

I looked at working with copper, and made cube shapes out of copper wire, bending and changing the shape. I found this material expensive to work with and it didn't apply to the idea of "something changing by itself". I then looked at using plaster, as plaster in it's natural form is liquid like and then dries hard. I hand carved the cubes whilst they were drying, which did fit to my original idea. The cubes looked rough edged and "organic looking" once they had dried, which worked well however once they were dry, they were still and object like, so they didn't continue the idea of a cube living and ever changing.

I then decided to look at hand carving some cubes from naturally made materials such as clay and plaster. I found this a great opportunity to get to know the technicians, and experiment with the different materials and processes.

I made some clay cubes. I looked at using different glazes to create a mould effect. This turned out well and the  clay cubes could be stacked on top of each other, turning one sculpture into a different sculpture (ever-changing). 

Overall I want the audience to feel a link or similarity with something that is meant to be object-like ( the cube). If the cube is growing and changing daily, can the audience relate to that or do they find it abnormal that something object-like and still can be ever-changing and have a life of it's own? I feel I challenged the idea and concept behind a "traditional" cube with an artistic and philosophical approach in my art practice. For 2nd year I aim to give myself more time when planning out ideas for the final piece.

Transformations

When doing the transformations brief, it gave me a chance to use workshops such as clay, ceramics, wood, metal and plaster. This was the first brief so it also gave us a chance to get to know everyone else on the course. I ended up doing an oil painting that had developed from initial drawing sketches of the body. I looked at taking my own photos of a body where the flesh was scrunched up, so you couldn't distinguish what the photograph was actually of. I then painted oil on canvas, the cropped photograph. I thought about the use of my colour palette, where the image of the body were not specifically using fleshy colour tones, but instead using rather bright colours, to trick the eye.

When doing my oil painting I found I had a shorter amount of time than I would have liked. So I therefore descaled the initial size of the painting, and painted a much more manageable sized painting, given more time I would of liked to have done the painting larger. I will consider this in 2nd year.

At the start of the year, I wanted to widen my boundaries within my art practice. Being known initially as a "painter",  I wanted to use this year to concentrate on exploring other mediums of art such as photography, ceramics and film based media as well as spending time  getting to know the technicians and tutors.

I learnt many new skills previously undiscovered  such as learning how to use a  SLR digital camera and the important practice of working collaboratively within a group with other artists. I discovered that working collaboratively allowed boundaries to be pushed as ideas were being bounded from artist to artist. Using other mediums allowed me to discover my strengths and weaknesses.I discovered I enjoyed thinking conceptually and I found I learnt a lot about how I work as an artist practitioner.

I loved being given the freedom to use whatever medium that was there to use. I used the various workshops that we had access to, and they were greatly appreciated.I discovered  as I could  better my work by using all the different mediums and techniques.