bundle
Imaginary Bundle 3: Ink on paper, 520mm x 380mm
I like it and then I don’t. I tried really hard to keep the elements uniform, but then they’d escape me and my regime. I am a failed dictator in a very small world. I wanted order and perfection but got rebellion.
Showing whatever I am doing is important. But how else can I continue to show my work and escape the limitations of the formal gallery and the clouded water of social media?
Feels good to complete but feels incomplete///
I’m dubious of making the same work over and over again. Is it really valid? I know many artists will make a series of similar drawings exploring a theme, but somehow I feel uncomfortable to be making the same or similar drawing. I guess I am keen to see development and progression and if I am honest… then I don’t see any.
However there is a meditation in drawing that permits me to explore and think. Ideas are generate whilst drawing and it doesn’t seem to matter what the drawing is necessarily . I heard a curator say that ‘abstract art can get to heart of things’, and perhaps thats enough.
I’m also reading ‘Why we believe what we believe” by Andrew Newberg, I’m looking for an understanding of the construction of belief. As a neurologist he states that; Spinoza’s idea of intuition correlates with the way our brain creates a holistic image of the world.
“That intuition allows us to comprehend what the senses cannot perceive” and “we can enter into intuitive states through the act of meditation or prayer” and “These processes can enhance our lives by allowing us to circumvent the conceptual errors embedded in logic, reason or personal opinion. Intuition, creativity, and spiritual practice may all provide better means for apprehending reality and truth more accurately”
However I do also realise the inherent dangers of such a statement. Giving intuition the same gravitas as facts is really ‘buttering the eel’. (Made up metaphor). But I do like the idea of making space for intuition.
Out on location in woods. Looked for and found a resource of wood to process for ‘bundle 1’.
A number de-limbed branches were on the ground so I took the opportunity.
Again to hold materials in my hands feels good and adjusts the course of my thinking.
I realise that this project is going to take longer and more energy. The holly doesn’t give up its bark easily and is a stick wood to work with when green but pleasingly dense and heavy, and to process a number of large poles will take some time in addition to resourcing them.
I stripped one shirt Barton and left a little bark which gave a texture that spoke differently to what I expected.
I was short of time and didn’t get to burn the wood or test it against copper. However I processed a pile of wood and worked up a sweat despite the cold. I want to capture the whiteness of the wood Before it greys. The contrast to be pronounced when I burn one end.
Staining paper to in preparation for drawing letting the inks ‘bleed out’, possibley another form of dismantling my work.
Research: artists, context and connecting theory.
During making I also recorded the sound of me working - I thought of my friend who I’m collaborating, with who’s first instinct is a musician, I figured it would be fun and provocative to make a recording of the sounds of me working on the sculpture for our collaboration and send it to him instead of pictures///
