Place is Security, Space is Freedom (60 seconds, March 2020)

Unravel (paper and cotton yarns) 2020

‘Place is security, space is freedom’ (Yi-Fu 2014:3)

My first piece (for the current Studio21 project Addressing Space) is very much about addressing space and how we experience being in space through our bodies, through our senses.  The feeling of expansion, of release, of being part of something bigger than ourselves, similar to the feeling those of us lucky enough to get out for our once a day exercise can enjoy.

Space is more abstract than place.  Place is home, somewhere we experience and know in a very different way, more intimiately, in more detail.  I may use local materials in this piece.

My research will include Yi-Fu Tuan’s Space and Place, Lucy R Lippard’s The Lure of the Local and Pallasmaa’s The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses.

As I read, research and begin work on my second piece, I have no doubt that this will also lead to some changes in my first piece.  This is part of my working practice, nothing is set in stone.  I enjoy having the opportunity to go back and to make adjustments as my thinking evolves.

Yi-Fu T (2014) Space and Place Minnesota: Minneapolis

Developing the right vocabulary

Nothing stays the same (metal and yarn)

I have the pleasure of belonging to Studio21 a textile based exhibiting group.  Members meet every month to share work in progress and to offer each other support and informal crits. We have recently introduced the ’60 second pitch’.  At each meeting, every member has 60 seconds (or less) to tell the group about something related to our art practice, something we are hoping to do or to explain an idea we have had since the previous meeting.  This could be triggered by something we have read, heard, by the work we are making or anything at all that has led to a thought which connects, however nebulously at this stage, to our practice.  If we are excited, puzzled or intrigued, we have the opportunity to share it with the group.

The idea behind this is to help each one of us to clarify our thinking and to find the necessary words to explain our work and to learn about each other’s work in a non-threatening and non-judgemental way.  Having to say something aloud, and to explain an idea to others, helps us to clarify our thinking and to acquire the relevant vocabulary.

I have found this exercise very useful. To be restricted to a minute or less leaves no opportunity for digression or diversion.  I am forced to sift through bubbling, unformed thoughts to pare down thoughts and to focus on the exercise.  I begin by putting words and phrases down on paper as they occur to me.  The next stage is to search for connections and to bring order to the list.  Some ideas are discarded, others parked for further examination at a later date.  The sifting and questioning process allows me to refine my thoughts and I begin to formulate the final text.

The final stage is to read through the text aloud and to make sure I can deliver the final draft in 60 seconds or less.

Is it finished? A one day two person show

Nexus, mixed media, 2019

Is it finished?

Most artists have been confronted with the question: When do you consider a work to be finished? Marcel Duchamp proposed that “the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualification and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.” (Schwabsky 2016:ix) This idea was usually paraphrased as “the viewers complete the work.”

Material experience connects us to our fellow human beings.  An object embodies stories and carries not only the memories of its own history, but may offer a refraction of the viewer’s life story.  ‘Objects inscribe the memory of previous generations’. (Smith quoted in Adamson 2018, 108)  Objects ground us in our everyday lives and act as reminders of our shared humanity.  Material awareness reminds us that the physical world is as networked and interconnected as is the digital world. 

Nexus (detail) 2019

 Artists Consuelo Simpson and Celeste C. da Luz bring together a mixed media show to challenge the idea through using a variety of medium and objects. Consuelo’s work Nexus evokes the interconnections of objects and histories.  Objects held within the meshwork invite the viewer to animate the piece.

Seeing her work as a dialogue, Celeste provides an opportunity for both works to communicate and react with each other. Both works aim to go beyond the recognisable connotation of the material itself through the viewer’s imagination and personal experience.

Untitled, Celeste da Luz, 2019

References

Adamson, G. (2018) Fewer Better Things. New York, London, Oxford, New Delhi, Sydney: Bloomsbury

Bennett, J. (2010) Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. Durham: Duke University Press.

Schwabsky, B. (2016) The Perpetual Guest. New York: Verso.

Instant Sketchbook

I spent a lovely day at West Dean with Annabel Tilley who introduced students to a wonderfully quick way of producing sketchbooks.  Collage, drawing and painting.  I would highly recommend the course, happening again in May 2017.