ARTISTS TALKING

# 12 [18 November 2008]

Ok! So a slight delay... but its here. A collection of documentation photographs from my performance piece in the one of the smaller installation rooms last week. 

The practice went well, i've spoken to our helpful video technicians about recording straight onto my external hard-drive in order to have a continuous video stream for around 3 hours. 

I stopped the performance once the DV tapes had run out. So after 50mins i quickly got out of the freezing cold bath water i had been sitting in. Unfortunately, due to health and safety, i couldnt have an electric heater in the room with a bath tub full of water... hmmm wonder why. 

Being blindfolded while creating a sculpture taken directly from the touch of my own torso was an interesting experience. At first i was nervous, and a little disorientated. But soon i became engulfed with the exploration of my person.

Im still deciding on wether or not to have the two projections, one next to the bath and one over it. Or just the one projecting over the water and clay structure. The latter was wonderful to watch. As my projected self lent forward to move the clay around i could see my projected arm moving over the actual clay structure - as if to still be moving layers from it. 

I clay structure rather than sculpture because as the week continued the clay (which was a very smooth clay) had started to dilute into the bath water creating a murky mess of what it once was.

I hope you enjoy the photos. 

P.S

I managed to do a cast of the space between my hands. I was rather pleased with the results, even if there was some cracking. Tomorrow i will take some photos before the big crit and hopefully be able to upload them soon. Im working 8 hours tomorrow night, so i doubt they will be uploaded before Wednesday evening. 

# 11 [16 November 2008]

After a few cups of tea and a large homemade cake *thanks Andrew* i feel a lot calmer.

Now the challenge is FOCUS! Which ive worked on today, spent the afternoon writing and re-writing artist statements and i seem to be trying to say too much. So i moved onto building up an artist CV. Now, these are 'interesting' and i hate them even more than a normal CV. I look at the cold harsh listing of exhibitions infront of me on plain paper. I see the lack of exhibitions done away from the university. And i feel embarrassed. It makes me not want to submit my work to galleries because they also ask to see my artist CV. I find it an unnerving experience showing my artwork to a person who doesnt know my work and may or may not understand it. Let alone showing them my 'lack of experience'.

So ive decided to try and apply to a few exhibitions and galleries in the surrounding area. Ahhh! A lot of the deadlines are the beginning of December, time limits! Ahhh!

So tomorrow im planning on an early start, go in and catch a lecturer and see if they can give my artist CV and one or two of my applications a once over. I also want to get into the casting workshop before the masses arrive in the later morning. Im looking at making negative space castings with the body. The idea of intimacy and the space between us. The negative space between two hands holding is my first experiment.

 Lets see what happens.

Time for more cake and tea me thinks. :-)

# 10 [12 November 2008]

Today i recieved a text message blaming me for my ex-boyfriends sucide from a girl that barely knew him.

He died 22 months ago in our home.

I am filled with anger.

Today has been a bad day. I'm sure I do not need to explain why.

I create artwork that is biographical without talking about myself as an individual. The biographical element concentrates on emotion. Emotions which are experienced throughout humanity regardless of gender, culture, age or lifestyle. I believe that in order to express a concept sucessfully, the topic needs to be experienced personally - even if the experience is not fully understood.

I have been working hard. On a personal and artistic level. After a year of not creating or expressing myself through art, i am now treading on delicate ground. My lecturers and technitions are all supportive, but they try to be aware of the artwork im developing. When working so closely to my emotional status there is always a risk of triggering myself to regress to where i once was.

I feel weak, i feel fragile, and yet i feel under a trance of constant rage. The performance piece i had planned for the installation room didnt materialise. I couldn't. Not today.  

Tonight is being spent trying to collect myself, getting ready to enter my installation room with a renewed and fresh mind.

Why do people want to destroy me? I know this may not be the best blog to talk about my personal life in, but i feel like a beaten dog. I wish i could bite her, make her hurt like i am right now.

Ignore it.

Don't respond.

Take the moral high ground.

It is not fair.

It's not fair!

It's not fucking fair!!!!

I'd love to create an artistic masterpiece, telling her and the whole world exactly what she is in my eyes.

But art isn't there for revenge... or is it?!....

grrrrr....

# 9 [8 November 2008]

Write up from a diary entry on 06/11/08.

I've never really appreciated the experience of a Rothko painting, until today.

My partner has an interest in abstract expressionism, the last romantic movement (as he tells me). To have him there while viewing the Rothkos for the first time had an effect on the emotional and spiritual experience. Simply because he stood there, almost watching the paintings, so i decided to stand there with him. Never have i had a reason to devote such lengths of time to a Rothko painting.

The painting moves, something so solid and static has an energy. The 2D element does not stop Rothkos paintings from having an unlimited amount of depths. The layers dance with one another, depending on how you visually explore areas of the vast colour fields.

I entered room three of "Rothko: The Late Series" exhibition to find myself surrounded by a series of paintings executed for The Four Seasons. I was told it was the first time this collection of murals were exhibited together in the one room. They benefited from one another, emitting an atmosphere which appears to be somber at first glace. Standing as close as the Tate Modern would let me, my vision was engulfed by colour. The mood did not stay somber for long. I watched the colour field of paint, thinking that they would fail, that i would leave their prescene uninspired and still very much uninterested...

...I now consider Rothkos work to be time-based, they need your time. I gave time and was rewarded with a dance, a dance of colours, shades, tones. Shapes emerged and submerged into one another. The sequence of experiences were mine, the paths my eyes chose were what i like to consider unique. If i remember back to a lecture mentioning Rothko and other Abstract Expressionists, i remember the idea of "the universal". Does this mean that my vision was encouraged to follow a certain path and that my experience was universal? Or the fact that once given time the universal aspect of our "collective unconscious" will interact with the painting in the same way ie. to experience the visual movement and depth within the physically 2D artwork?

I wouldnt normally use the word because i feel like i don't fully understand it, but sublime is definetly on the edge of my lips. 

# 8 [7 November 2008]

Last night i returned to Swansea from London, and i am still tired!I have so much information and opinions in my head, so many new visual memories and blisters on my feet from pounding the pavements!

I managed to find "A Nice Man with a Van".24 Hour service, local and national,offering student discounts.Bonus.He was willing to pick up the bath tub and deliver it to my university for £25.I am so thrilled that everything has worked out so far for my installation.The process of hiring a van is extremely difficult.I am 21,therefore the majority of companys will not rent to me.The ones that do have a rather high insurance fee.So believe me when i say,i was 100% pleased with my van man.

So at 11am i had a bath tub,yes!I then set on my task to make the bath ready for fiber glass.I needed a water tight bath, unfortunatly the plug and all then fittings were missing, so my answer was to cover the hole with fibre glass and resin.Though maybe it would have been wiser to buy a plug and fittings?

Visually i would have liked some overally polished taps, or extremely rusty ones.But conceptually i currently feel that the lack of plumbing plays a role.At present the concept is winning the race of importance.

Harold helped me in the resin room,he mentioned an "interesting article in a-n magazine this month".Which i immediatly assumed was my blog being quoted.He continued to say that health and safety was not the only issue, but also the ethics.

The ethics!?!

From what i understand there is talk about wether or not students and the university as an institution should be partaking (at any level) in unethical activities.I understand that the UK needs to give generalised rules and regulations to the masses, but seriously?

Unethical art,who is to say what art is unethical?My view point is that art is a part of a conversation, to encourage and develop opinions.If art is to be controllled and directed externally then how can a conversation flow purely,naturally and honestly?

My feeling of being restrained and controlled with what i wanted to do followed me to London.I went to the Tate Britain and paid to see the Cildo Meireles exhibition.I wanted to see "Through 1983-9" a wonderful installation among the many that were present.However, the art work had been altered from what i knew.The floor of broken glass was different.
By chance,I ended up speaking to a gentleman that had worked on the exhibition and asked him why the installation had changed.He was direct and said that it was due to health and safety reasons that the floor had safety glass placed over it for the UK exhibition.Turns out, when "Through" was exhibited back in Brazil they never had health and safety 'problems'.

I felt so disapointed, I laugh out of disbelief.Maybe its not just in University that my art practice will be limited,maybe the UK is no longer a good venue for Art?Which breaks my heart.

# 7 [1 November 2008]

 On a "field trip" to Oxford and London next week, leaving tuesday 4th arriving back thursday 6th. However i also have an installation room booked for the 10/11/08 to 14/11/08.

The performance piece has been discussed with my lecturers to make sure no health and safety regulations are broken. Last time my room was locked up to prevent a performance piece that would have broken these regulations. Which ended up wasting a lot of time, and as all practicing artists know, time is very precious.

For this site-specific installation i need a bath tub, any size, any shape, any material, any condition (as long as it can still hold water without leaking). I started by ringing around local building contractors, privet builders and plumbers. After a fair few phone calls i felt like i was never going to find my bath tub. Until i recieved a message from a local plumber, "Uplands Plumbing" had checked with their client and had arranged for the bath tub to be left outside for me to collect, free of charge, wonderful!

I really appreciate the help the public offers to me. In the past ive tried to gain access to old unwanted cookers and washing machines. The council were of little use, infact they told me that once items entered the site for disposal they couldnt leave and suggested that i look for one outside of someones home!!! Luckily enough a member of the public saw a poster of mine and contacted me, he was moving and gave me his cooker free of charge.

Anyway, theres a bath tub, in near-new condition, waiting for me outside someones home. Unfortunatly my own car was recently scrapped, and as much as i want a van - i cant afford one. Renting! Everyone has said "why don't you rent a van when you need one rather than spending so much money buying one?" My answer is simply that 'they' will not let me. Even though i have had a clean drivers license for 3 years, im still 'not old enough' to hire a van for 1hour. If only my age wasnt such a burden to me.

Next plan of action is to contact the head of maintainence at the university and ask for him to allocate one of the vans and a driver to my cause. I've spoken to him before in the past and he always seems happy to help, so hopefully this Monday morning i will be on a mission to collect my donated bath tub. Otherwise it will have to wait until the Friday, which would be a week after it was put outside for me. I dont want to push my luck, or to upset the people who have given permission to me. And i definetly dont want to lose the bath tub!

# 6 [22 October 2008]

So yesturday was the first offical Big Crit. The first two presentations. I really love hearing people present their work and ideas, plus i throughly enjoy the discussion. One topic came up which i felt had a connection to my own work (and to artists working with technology all over the world).

The use of technology removes the personal touch of the artist. However i always find statements like this odd; afterall isnt the paint brush a physical form that is not part of our person and therefore the mark isnt personal. Mind you, technology digitalises the interaction and categorises it, in order for the programs to understand. Which would mean there is a limitation for the mark to fit into the categories.

The reason this debate arose: The artist had mentioned that the super-natural and the 'aura' were a key element in his work. Then continued to say he wanted to scan images in, print them onto canvas, re-paint, re-scan, and continue the routine.

Lecturer Sue Williams had said that the mark was no longer personal and felt that the 'aura' wouldnt be expressed within art created through technology.

However i disagree, i feel that the struggle between technology and non-technology would be an interesting one. The idea that by scanning you are forcing something organic and personal (your aura) into the 'machine'. For the image to then be manipulated and produced from the 'machine'. For me the 'machine' can have its own aura, the imperfections when printing, low quality files, damaged or 'lost' fragments of files. Something the artist doesnt have control over, as if collaberating with the 'machine' itself. Ive heard of "The ghost in the machine" and theories surrounding it. I feel its definetly something i need to start reading into.

I cant wait to see how his art develops, personally, i feel the use of technology in his work will create a heightened sense of the personal-aura in contrast with the mechanical-aura.

# 5 [19 October 2008]

Still needing to write my statement of intent! Its difficult trying to collection all these delicate ideas and place them into a such a solid form. words. Words, for me, get in the way sometimes. But as an Artist, you need to be able to promote, describe, explain and discuss your own and others art. 

After a tutorial with Katrin Webster, Craig Wood and Harold Hope (on separate occasions) i came to the conclusion that i am changing, my experiences and personality are developing, rather noticeably. My work has always had an emotional struggle, a dark tint. I feel that i have a formula that works. I dont feel that im struggling anymore, i feel change, a flow, movement, life and a love for it. 

Utopia, a non-place of perfection. Ive been researching, researching.... and guess what... researching! But i enjoy the process, the avenues to explore, or at least be aware of. I feel its a necessity. However, the skill is knowing where to stop thinking and start doing. If i over think an idea sometimes i feel the physical work doesnt give justice to the theory that goes along side. For me , Art shouldnt be made for the theory, Art is my personal expression of my views, the theory is there to help me express myself successfully to the masses. Or at least thats what im hoping. 

Next week is put aside for me to collect my materials, im going out into the Welsh landscape to collect coal... (fingers crossed that there is some left)

Ive included images from Video Projections i exhibited (in university) last week. 

# 4 [10 October 2008]

Friday morning, ive now taken down and moved out of the installation room. Spending this afternoon making sure its in a good clean condition for the next student.

I didnt manage to partake in the performance orginally planned, however i managed to start "doing". Catrin Webster was talking to us during our Big Crit on Tuesday about constantly creating, documenting, and processing.

So i used the room to practice a way of projecting. By using mirrors and positioning of the projector in a certain way. The outcome was rather good, and the video piece i had produced quickly (just to practice with) actually fit the installation and finished it off nicely. The video needs to be redone, little bits and bobs need to be cleaned up. But it is done. Then because i had the room i decided to start projecting my video pieces and taking images to use in my portfolio.

For me, this is a good start to the year ahead.

Pictures to follow :)

# 3 [7 October 2008]

We had a year meeting this morning, introducing us to "Big Crit" which will take place every tuesday morning from now on.

Each week two students will give a 45 min presentation of their work to the class and a selection of lecturers. We need to treat it as an oppurtunity to prepare and test our skills of presenting our own artwork. Something which we havent really had a chance to do, especially on a scale like this. We spent an hour chatting about what was acceptable and what wasnt, for example: The presentation must take place in that room, we cannot fill the room with the actual artwork, we cant overrun and we need to have time dedicated to questions/debating.

Im pretty excited, i cant wait to get to know the people in my studio through a strong first impression of their artwork. Perfect :) Plus, it will encourage me organise my portfolio, its gotten a little rough around the edges over the last couple of years. (oops).

I also went into my installation room today, well, tried to. The door was locked with a note from my lecturer:

"Hi Erin, I have heard through the grape vine that you intend to undertake a piece of work that we cannot condone and also will not be able to assess. Please come and have a chat, Regards. Harold"

I definetly have a soft spot for my Lecturer Harold, he has been a saviour for me over the last few years and helpped me develop as a person and with my art. There are no words i could put here that would express his wonderful personality. So i went and found him, turns out that health and safety had put a big clamp down on the university. Meaning we were being watched and after lots of joking and chatting i realised that it wasnt just my health and my grade that was on the line - but also Harolds job. That was something that i would never be willing to risk, so i accepted that while in university there are some art practices that would not be condoned.

The performance piece had included, or may have included, a blade... which was intended to cut my skin IF the performance had developed that way. I dont like to plan my pieces from start to finish, just have the options there. But it was a piece of work based on the personal and what we physically have of our body that is purely our own. My thoughts have been in all seriousness that i cannot find an inch of my skin that is not seen or touched by another person. Which disturbs me slightly. Anyway, the performance was stopped and i changed it around so that i could continue tomorrow afternoon - the representation of action can be stronger than the actual action.... or so they say. We'll see.