uncertainty

This took too long /  by Justin Harrison

This article ahs been on my bench for the longest time, I don’t know quiet why it took so long to make.

I’m really wanting to conclude one or two key pieces as I rapidly draw to a close of the MA. However I’m not sure this is wise as I try to acclimatise to a new way of approaching my work.

I’ve modified it as the details I first drew feel excessive and lack a certain honesty. I’m mindful of the work retaining it’s integrity. I’m mad because I know I can do the stitching better. But overall it’s ok.

I feel the colours the soft dense black of the burnt wood against the burnish copper next to the warm ochre of the leather all coalesce to make something more for me. The item a tool, a ritualised tool with a distinct purpose but obtuse as to what it is. Passaging through uncertainty requires rituals that are ambiguous at best.

I am tempted to fuss with it some more, extend the height of the burn, something about the aesthetics for me isn’t quiet right…

 

Negative Lever /  by Justin Harrison

I’m in the studio processing materials I’ve collected. It’s been a week or so since I was in the forest and all I want to do is amass wood and bits. I think it’s because I am so led by my materials - the feel and presence and history. However I don’t feel comfortable just making cute little bundles. It feels like a ‘get out’ clause - just tie some bit’s together and it will pass as art. I really want more the presence of the artist upon the material leading to its transformation and meaning.

I’m trying to tie up unfinished/explored  ideas, the wood I cut is for bundle and more pegs. I make another peg but split the wood nailing the leather into it, the wood is too thin the black tack butchers into it - clefting the slim peg I had cut - need to get some simmer tacks.

I then clear my bench and take a drawing from the card form I had made some time back from disgarded boxes. it’s been on my wall for a while, because I wasn’t entirely sure why I had made it. But I did feel potential to it and now it may lad to sculptural work.

The paper is so large it takes up all available space in the studio and I have to stand in my bench and the paper to work.

The drawing is interesting- nothing too dramatic but I still like it. I would like to make it in black ink and in negative with a watered black wash. It also occurs to me that it would be interesting to make the form in stacked found wood. And a version in negative in stacked found wood. I still have more fence panels and I imagine stacking and gluing it.

SO maybe potential. But also thinking realistically about where I take this all for the MA show…

And what is this piece about - I’ve called it a Negative Lever. More tools for navigation of uncertainty.