paddle

solute summoning /  by Justin Harrison

Made in planning for the show. The format is wrong - I won’t have the space to fit this exact drawing, but I hope to make something close. There has become a deep satisfaction in the repetitive marks and fro what the summon. A variant of the paddle but more evolved, I could almost draw these all day, completely indulgent but who know what it would inspire.

I just don’t have the time in the day to make everything I would like, there’s the rub, to be selective in what I pursue, what feels most potent and alive?

This form that is suggested by the multiple marks is almost incidental but yet equal, the coming together of elementals, community expression. the larger form is empty yet present because of the others. The paddle form is modified - as I mentioned earlier evolving, to move not upon water but upon other. ‘To move upon other’ - I like that.

In the liminal, in passage, what has been ‘known’ is now fragemented, solute. I return to ideas of decomposition, autolysis, not as an end but as a translation of materials, of passing.

 

Follow on from post: 'It seemed like a good idea at the time' /  by Justin Harrison

There are a few experiments that I’d like to follow up on, from the past year. One of which is the mud paddle drawn on a tree. It’s been busy season and hopefully I’m moving into one where I can give a little more time to expanding upon my practice and research, and upon previous experiments. A season of development following on from season of generation.

If the Liminal is generative then ideally following is growth and development. Perhaps a sign that one is exiting the liminal.

The drawings are sketches that I am keen to collate as I tend to deposit them all over the place and loose the thread of my thinking.

I’m still interested in boundaries and borders and translation which carries us across. Another form of transformation from change.

These drawings I plan to make at my next opportunity. Another chance to spend time in the woods. The rhythmic lines articulating an absence. Clay taken from the nearby earth. A passing. A passage. An emptying? And then what comes to rightfully occupy?

Why the tree? Because it feels like. partnership. There may be other reasons but I’ll figure those in the making.

Also could I cast the whole trunk of the tree?

Something about these drawing as I look at them feels like a form of positive agency, ’ assistance in the liminal’. For what guidance do we have in disruption?

Foot note could I use an icing bag to apply the lines? Must visit a cook shop… or can I make a heavy duty one out of waxed cotton and thread?

Can that become a part of the work?

///

On another note.

A key element to this course is finding rhythms of researching and making to support and augment our practice. Initially I had understood this to be a regular repetitive rhythm, however I am now beginning to realise that it’s much more complex, that the rhythm is ‘seasonal’ and follows a more organic structure. Perhaps closer to the rhythmic cycle of of a bear, hibernate when it’s cold, eat fish when they are in season, eat berries when they are not, rest when your tired, fight when under threat.

“Biological rhythms, such as rhythms in activity and body temperature, are usually highly synchronized and entrained by environmental conditions, such as photoperiod. However, how the expression of these rhythms changes during hibernation, when the perception of environmental cues is limited, has not yet been fully understood for all hibernators, especially in the wild. The brown bear (Ursus arctos) in Scandinavia lives in a highly seasonal environment and adapts to harsh winter conditions by exhibiting hibernation, characterized by reduced metabolism and activity. In this study, we aimed to explore the expression of biological rhythms in activity, body temperature and heart rate of free-ranging brown bears over the annual cycle, including active, hibernation and the transition states around den entry and exit. We found that rhythms in physiology and activity are mostly synchronized and entrained by the light-dark cycle during the bears’ active state with predominantly diel and ultradian rhythms for body temperature, activity and heart rate. However, during hibernation, rhythms in body temperature and heart rate were considerably slowed down to infradian rhythms, influenced by the amount of snow in the denning area, whereas rhythms in activity remained diel. Rhythms in the transition states when bears prepared for entering or coming out of hibernation state displayed a combination of infradian and diel rhythms, indicating the preparation of the body for the change in environmental conditions.” https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2022.785706/full

Diel Rythmn: involving a 24-hour period that usually includes a day and the adjoining night.

Day and night. Night and day.

Ultradian rhythms: are your body's biological cycles that take place within 24 hours, which can include everything from a human heartbeat, to blinking, to digestion. While the more commonly known term “circadian rhythm” occurs over a 24-hour period, ultradian rhythms are shorter and are repeated during that time.

///Shopping notes

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Drawer Paddle - Ritualised tools of passage /  by Justin Harrison

Completed recently is the paddle cut from the front of a chest of drawers. I chose to leave in key details as I wanted to maintain elements of it’s history. The key hole and holes from where the handles were once fixed and the dark varnish.

I like the way it sits when folded back on itself, again a sense of animation, movement, something animalistic. I like how the gesture is minimal but also suggestive of presence. It leads away from the notion of a paddle that works, that is ‘fit for purpose’ and is becoming.

There is a passage to be made through. Through uncertainty, through mystery, through the unknown.

It does feel incomplete - that it need s something to pull the narrative through. When I say narrative I don’t need an explicit story more something of the mystery to continue on. I need to think about whom these paddles belong to and why.

 

Jointed Paddle - Ritualised tool of Passage /  by Justin Harrison

It’s take all summer and I was supposed to be working on fast pieces. But I had this paddle planned for a time since I cut a joint in a section of thick Holly wood. This is the progression from the initial idea. It’s just so hard cutting and drilling Holly. It’s a defiant material and somehow I like it’s resistance.

It feels good to work at a larger scale and I’m keen to find a better way of displaying it and perhaps contextualising it. I do wonder about the previous discussions on animation and film. How would this lend it’s self to being filmed? Could a short looped film of it in the forest with a liminal persona?

There’s a lot I like about this, the surface with some under bark left for texture, the pegs holding it together are kinda cool, brought cut and also from nearby Holly, a little like tuning pegs, I enjoy their prominence - somehow they add something more to the piece. I like the way the blade moves the animation that comes through the articulation. Again it asks to be animated, but how and why?

I do imagine a multiple sectioned paddle spiralling round with a figure in the centre. Or could it abstract more, and focus on essences?

 

Studio 22 Oct /  by Justin Harrison

It was quiet a feverish time in the studio today, I’m trying to make everything that is in my head, it seems the simplest response. I’m stressed because I want to be making MA worthy work again. I’m carrying the voices of imagined peers and imagined criticisms. ‘Everyone disapproves of my use of time and resources’. The power of our imaginations - I’m using my powers for evil not good. SO my response is to try and just make everything that I currently have in my head, just dump it all out because at least I am being productive and hopefully I can free up my thinking into more productive paths.

I managed to finish the last joint on the draw paddle, it still pains me that they are not well executed. I hate that the cuts are tatty - it really bothers me …like alot…it needles away inside my head. But I just don’t have the time to be fussy right now, I need to make everything that I am seeing, feeling. I am also hoping that out of this pushh will come work that really interests me. I am getting a little bored of just making paddles they aren’t talking enough for my liking.

I make a number of hasty pieces putting ,materials together to ask what they might say. I fabricate another peg, this is a self indulgent exercise as I get some kind of pleasure from making them, I like putting the leather and the wood togeher. It does leave the question to what purpose, what are their purpose? What do they hold? But then that’s maybe useful, pegs are my markers, simple and impermanent the temporarily can hold onto something or mark it’s place.

I’ve also had two lumps of tarmac sitting around the studio, that I’ve not known what to do, but today they got bound up in some leather I had left on my bench to provoke something to be made. Again led by the materials I tried to find something that they were happy with. It’s become some sort of sling or hammer, again I bashed it out, no measuring or marking. Photographing it on the old wood felt right, the placement and reference to an older history. I like the idea if ignoring chronological time. Anachrony. Derrida’s hauntology comes into play. I like that the sculpture has history in it’s materials. It’s lived two lives already;

Life 1. The Raw Material, the evolution/ life span of the wood, leather and tar, is one life time that has passed.

Life 2. The Given Purpose, The draws, the pavement, the garment. The material exists in an assigned purpose.

Now it exists in a third and yet still retains the previous histories, lives, they are still present and palpable.

I’m close to finishing the Holly Jointed Paddle, I just need to peg the blade sections. I drill the wood and have already bunted on bit and broken another. The holly is tough, I respect it for that, it again gives character to my materials for me and it’s important that I listen to them. Also in looking through my sketch book I notice a detail I had forgotten to add. I must upload my drawings as they carry important details and noters that I often forget and I don’t often look back through and read everything.


 

Passing Through /  by Justin Harrison

Hmmmm - it’s ok but the scale change pulls me out of the work. They need to be closer in scale. I wonder where this can go. It feels interesting like it could go further. Well first of all I need to really identify why the paddle? Why it features so much in my recent work. There doesn’t need to be a direct leading narrative -but I want the work to travel further.

I guess it’s good to experiment. I also wonder what would happen if I were to work larger. Film a drawing and let it unfold as a Gif. There’s a drawing I want to make on a tree. It could be interesting to document as it progresses.

 

Passage /  by Justin Harrison

There is something about this that I like, I’m not sure how I feel about reducing my drawings to a gif. But then I’m not sure it’s reduced them, it’s done something else for me. I wonder where I could take it, and what it means right now.

I think there is an element of strangeness that I like, the transitioning the movement that is somehow honest, it’s not trying to be an animation with a distinct narrative. It’s a broken moment, a haunting, ‘time is out of joint’.

I’m now obsessing which can be a good and a bad thing. The paddle is now a key object, I’m making them in my studio and in my drawings. The tool for navigation, immediate and resides in our hands, yet partners with a craft of some description.

I’ve been listening to Anish Kapoor interviews and reading text as research for my paper - and them there was a brief discussion about making a series of the same object or work can up, and I found it encouraging, to explore an idea - open it up and out. I think I worry that I am just repeating iterations endlessly and that there is no value to it. I am annoined that I feel like I need permission.

The drawings are strangely pleasing for me, I’m connecting with the way the ink bleeds out to granular and the empty negative that it creates.

This particular media I’m using was ironically made by Stuart Smeple in a reaction to Kappor’s Vantablack, it has a quality in its miss use that I especially like. When diluted it has a granular property that separates out into delicious bands of gradients, leaving small tidal marks and tracks. Something deeper in me connects to specific marks, moments. Yet it leaves this gritty feel, like BhaBha’s scalar interstices, the bundle divisable. Collective moments spread across time inconsistently. The bleeding through, the threshold melts, margins fade.

This is a slightly modified version form my first attempt. I worry that this could mean hours on my computer. Have I really only discovered animation now?

 

Studio Notes - Jointed Paddle /  by Justin Harrison

Previously I had cut a joint into a length of Holly. It had a resonance that I especially liked. So now I am embarking on making a full length paddle form. I don’t need it to perform or look exactly like a paddle but take essential qualities from one.

I find all the wood I use fallen and never cut it from a live tree. It’s left behind too. The branch is particularly straight but I suspect it could be interesting if it had a noticeable bend in it. But for now I just want to get this made and se what it says to me.

I need to cut two fairly good joints and I also wonder if its possible to make a ‘universal joint.’

The blade of the paddle is forming but I’m not entirely convinced I like it just yet, however I think it’s best to just let it evolve for now.

Another thought is if I could find a dead standing tree and put a joint into one of it’s larger branches…

 

Jointed Paddle /  by Justin Harrison

This was supposed to be another quick sketch. But took two visits to the studio later…. A thought had popped into my mind a while ago to try this. I had drawn it at some point in my sketch book and at that stage it was just a thought, but as I started to make it - I got more into it. It felt good to make, the process was satisfying and the aesthetics of the bark abruptly ending against the white wood in roughly hewn construction, had an essence to them that felt right.

As it progressed I really wanted to get it made.. finished. I realised that if I could make it work then it could become more. The paddles I’ve been drawing (a tool for navigating) could speak more by adding articulated joints then let the work create it’s own dialogue and become more active.

Adding the joint also animates the work, something I’ve been feeing was missing for me and especially in regards to sculpture. I envy animation and film - the work occupies space and tie and I desire some of this ‘life’ for my work.

As a foot note UVR has made one specific piece of work that is animated ‘Mama your legs’ A curious mechanical creation that thumps out it’s broken cadence with great lumps of wood into stoic vessels.

On completion of this small sketch I’ve continued to feel excited. It has a feel and a presence to it that speaks - I like it when my work speaks back.

I have limited time for this course but I would like to try and make some large jointed paddles in variants. Drawing wil be a good way to test out various ideas before I committ to making. And also as a meditation on the work, what is it about the materials and making that is working , articulating for me.

I do wonder what level of finish to bring to the work, currently I’m learning to not be so preoccupied with excellence/ high finish. I can refine that later, right now it’s more important to see the work manifested and to make as much as possible- to experiment.

There is also something about the crude fashioning that I like, it’s part of its language. An honesty.

I do want to collect some second had wood to make a jointed paddle, which has to do with the provenance of the material, that it has a history and has already gone through one process and purposing. An old door or chest of draws crafted into navigation tools. Already having had one life it feels haunted, saturated with history and presence of agent or agents.

I also stared an offset paddle from an old draw front, I cut it purposely to leave the key hole and other details, and echo or ghost of its history.

The joints also ties to a preoccupation I’ve started upon in my research paper about Derrida’s Hauntology. Where he focussed on Shakespeares Hamlet. Hamlet declares time is ‘out of joint’ and he laments the incompleteness of his situation.

Transformation rarely is the straightforward process we hope it will be. For me large disjointed paddles crude and cumbersome, overly complicated won’t really work. Very little help for the situation for physical navigation. Yet they have presence, and somehow purpose.

 

Making stuff /  by Justin Harrison

I glue some more battons together in the stack as it felt too light weight not enough presence, fiddle with a clamping system and revert back to string wrapping.

Then I turn my attention to the base plate - Ive been sanding it and start thinking about just the transformation the material from rough to finished - am I adding value or meaning? Can I also do this with copper too - I still want to draw on it. (I also realise I should have dipped it in water to raise the grain before adding some oil - but I got too excited by the material wanting to see its grain)

Still not sure about the direction of the sculpture stuff it seems too tight and controlled and unimaginative. I don’t feel excited about it. But I need to push on and make not worry.

I move on to a funny little piece started last time I was in the studio the tin batton pieces I’m following the idea that at times it’s good just to make and not overthink but let the art evolve. I’m undecided what exactly its about other than ‘an article’. A collection of physical sketches. I keep on rearranging it and get tired and just make a decision and glue it.

Ursula Von Rydingsvard has a collection of pieces called ‘little nothings’ a collection of smaller less self-conscious pieces. this seems like a helpful technique and I’m trying to fill my bench with quicker pieces whilst I settle with my practice.

Then because it’s been on my mind and in my drawings for a while I cut out a paddle from a fence panel. It’s crude, quick and dirty. But then. I am trying to make quick pieces too and to do it to my satisfaction would realistically take weeks. There is something satisfying seeing it in the physical, it represents something but needs to go under more transformation.

When mounting the paddle quickly on the wall to view it I place the ‘article’ next to it and something small happens that I like. A relationship strikes up between the two pieces it’s small and quiet but present non the less. I leave up and arrange the there current pieces to see them together.

There are various thoughts around the purpose of the paddle that I’m beginning to explore in sketchbooks also relating to the vertical poles.