Paddle

Studio notes Brittle Paddle by Justin Harrison


I’ve been in the studio a couple of times in the past week and have been trying to push through some of the ideas that are accumulating. Make lots.

The paddle as a motif and a series is a current preoccupation although I do wonder if it would benefit from abstracting more.

One ‘physical sketch’ came about by just having materials around and placing them together, I saw a relationship between them, brittle and splintered fencing panels)that I currently have ‘in stock’ around the studio) in various shades and tone, gave themselves to a loose form of a paddle - not exact just essences - I liked the departure form a formal representation.

(As a foot not to self the wire brush works really well at selectively removing layers and tones, it enables me to ‘draw’ upon the sculpture).

The paddle feels like it wants be a lot more than a signifier of of a navigational tool. making a series of them in drawing and making gives me time and space to contemplate it’s role which also ties into my research paper. Examining liminal spaces there function and characteristics.

I’m making work a lot looser and rougher than before, I’ve left the craft behind for ‘more production’ I think the work is benefitting from it. Before I erred on the side of craft, which slowed me down and I think sometimes was a cover for a lacking in m conceptual underpinning. That if it was pretty enough I could be forgiven for not really being able to describe what was happening.

All is left clamped up and gluing again, (with a cheeky addition copper that asked if it could be included).

I need to make some room - have a clear up there’s a lot on my workbench still…


 

Paddle by Justin Harrison


The artist's activity is one of compulsive repetition, not under the law of a market as a narcissist among narcissists, but to envelop in the work the generative force of the world. Qua other. Plastic pills https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H13Unfk6UHs

It kinda gets obsessive, I try my hardest to make the marks consistent and always the same. It doesn’t work. But then I like that game.

The paddle feels somehow ‘held’ or suspended, and that if the marks were to disperse… so would the paddle.

Presence and place. Spectres manifested by the community.

For me the paddle has becoming a symbol of navigation and empowerment, a tool of implementing change. There is a deep desire to craft my own paddles in found wood, wrap them in leather and photograph them in place. But I have a lot of things pressing for my attention and it begins to block me.

I’m struggling to focus my attention, between thinking about my research paper, drawing, making. There’s a back log of work bits of sculpture I feel I need to finish to move on. Then there’s all the stick’s I’ve been obsessing over. I feel there should be a thread I can pull which will draw it all together. I also wonder about all the photography and writing that’s appeared in my Blog. (Although not for a while).

Somewhere there is a narrative in what I’m doing but it seems to elude me for now.