Wanna

Above are some of the notes and scribblings I made in some of my 2014 notebooks. I like them. They all conjour up really strong images in my head of freshness, rejuvination and devotion to effort.

And below... Is recent stuff i've been up to in the studio, with a wee explanation beneath in the form of my notebook scans. 

I've started to try painting. I've been terrified of painting for years because it seems to be this revered and distinguished club of artistry, that is so aloof and ungraspable... almost because it's the most obvious medium... it's the first conscious art we do as kids... and now the critics and high-art pros have tried to raise it to some unattainable level. Paintings seem to be read into far more than the artist ever intended, which is fine. But it'd be good to just be able to attribute the intention of a painting to wanting to realise something important in your head.

Some painters that I love are in a sense illustrators too. They do representational paintings, loaded with pictoral references and signifiers. They seem to exist within a context outside that of just critical art... which I much prefer than art which is only preoccupied with itself. So a few painters I really love for this reason are: Peter Doig, Hernan Bas, Elizabeth Peyton, Lauren Cohen, Marlene Dumas and Felice Zhukov.

A girl in a black hoody and a silk neck scarf, standing possibly in front of a dinosaur - up close so the scales fill the frame:
A small image.
An member of the audience at the Outback Cinema in the Swaglands. Finally here.

based on RCA 2014 Sculpture grad Katrin Hanusch - she just doesn't look like what I expected. I ought to know this by now!
The RCA website belittled me a but much, and her artist profile photo on there reminded me of me, and me wanting to be a cowgirl in the Outback. Not sure why. But a relief!

artwork by my small friend Remi, which looks like my painting above.

Serious Bay-style flirting from Ricky and Brax

Elizabeth Peyton in a great colour combination

More scrawlings on how I want to materialise the Swaglands into being....

I had a lot of colourful thoughts today, literally. I was at the Marlene Dumas show at the Tate Modern  this morning, and it's colours and painty marks seeped into my brain so effectively and I got obsessed and can't stop think about colours and how they mobilise meaning (she said something to this effect) and how they locate you geographically and emotionally in an instant (i say this). I forget why i'm drawn to certain colour combinations, and why I also distrust certain tones and certain colour combinations in some contexts. The wrong colour or tone combination with a certain subject matter/topic could go so wrong: like if you end up using cheap A4 pastel photo-copy paper to talk about racial issues... Or something like that.

So i need to consider my colour choices more carefully.

pink studio

onion skins and pink spray paint...

I've been going back through one of my 2014 notebooks and writing things up properly. Here is one wee bit:

In response to artist Sarah West’s piece (in the Pump House Gallery’s open call show ‘Thetrouble with painting today’) called Remnantsof Them, I decided to consider exactly why and how I’ve made some of my artworks. I will look back on my work and consider:

-       choice of imagery

-       medium

-       process / medium application

-       layers

-       contrast in mediums

-       time lapse / temporally based

The first piece I examined was one I call by a few different names, which include ‘Souvenirs of Them’, ‘Hot town, summer in the city”, and ‘Hair wash’.

I made this in three main stages across the summer. I supposed it’s a true story the show a bit of a struggle I had with art itself as a stand-alone concept. Here are the three stages:

1.     Onion skin dyed fabric

A delightful excitement and adventure with a physical and organic process. Playing with colour manipulation and using my personal philosophies of resourcefulness and eco-conscious creation.

2.     White mono-printed lines

I made these when I felt barred me in. I was desperate to get away from the assault of the city in summer time; the fumes and anxiety. These lines look weak, but they an attempt at freshness with their whiteness. Didn’t have energy for much else. I kept pairing this square of fabric with other colours that made me feel good. I didn’t have so much faith in the ambiguity of communication I kept seeing in the form and matter of art in contemporary exhibitions.

3.     Pink spray paint border

I added this part when I had been back at home in the country for a month or so. This was giving into intuition entirely; letting loose and learning to adventure.

I set myself a singular framework: to be bold and to focus and to trust my visual instinct. This pink frame symbolizes that, but with its soft edge it cushions any blows. It even felt like a summery city kind of colour; a bit sickly and a bit cool: it was a kind of appreciation and admiration of London from afar.

I sometimes called it Hair wash, because I became obsessed with washing my hair (and the idea of washing hair) in order to feel fresher in London. It reminded me of being in Bosnia and Croatia the summer before, and dipping my head in the river to keep cool. 
So when I got hot and stressed by the claustrophobia and pollution in summertime London, the idea of washing my hair kept my brain cool and my eyes fresh, and my skin didn't felt pressured.
I felt like I could rinse bad toxins out of myself through my hair, and twist and squeeze them away.

(also - it's a rectangle, just smaller than A3 sort of size. this is mainly cos i was being resourceful with my dye samples and tests - i love all the scraps of colours i have and this was a nice size - sort of works as a little flag to wave, or placemat size: like it's something to show your mood and emotion with but also a practical surface)

In making this and reflecting on it I suppose I learned not to give into rushing: any kind of rushing! In the city and in my head! It’s bad for your soul.

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Also - a photo of me in the studio by my pal and studio buddy Hermione

Excuse the melange

This post is likely going to be quite a melange of images; been looking back on some summer photos. First of all, I am most pleased to offer up this small piece: An interview with MEEEEE on Soapbox Press - you heard it here first!

And below are details of my finished coat, which I wore for a special and relevant occasion. I'm really pleased with it and I think the person I made it for would've liked it too :)

This is a shelving unit I made with Papa in the summer out of some old scaffolding planks and and old wooden ladder. I love it! 

And below; i finally made screen-printed labels for my Swag clothes.

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This is an idea I have in relation to a festival art-piece i'm going to pitch, but it sounded rhythmic when I said it, so I painted a wee sketch of the idea.

Tsonga; the kitten with a Norwegian accent, hunting

These are some photos I took in our garden at home in the summer, just while I was exploring with Tsonga and Clarrie. They are in a file I named 'LEAFY PILLOW FOOT' - I think i wanted to collage them all up and made them into a massive beanbag/duvet and pillow set.

I think they're quite visceral; they really make me able to feel my skin and my feet and water and slimy lilypads and dusty soil. They seemed all the more relevant today after I read this article by Jane Riddiford who runs Global Generation in King's Cross - a sustainable skip-garden and kitchen.

I just really like how it focuses on people being aware of being aware, and that they can use their bodies to be aware of the world.

I learned something great this afternoon on True Icon...
In Massachusetts a small miracle is happening: a new, small-scale, clothing production studio has set up... and is environmentally ethical in it's practice! They also make small runs for new starting designers who want to know they are having their clothes made in a sustainable way.

This hasn't been much of an option before; the small runs, the ethics, the affordability, the non-shady practice all combined. You might get one... without the others. 

But this place looks great, it's called Good Clothing Company :) Hopefully one day they might like a dye master to dye the fabrics with natural pigments.

And this vid is a bit more about them and their cause:

Good Clothing Company from John Gamache on Vimeo.