http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 Manchester Metroplitan University Wed, 09 Jul 2008 16:56:56 +0100 a-n rss generator a-n The Artists Information Company and contributors edit@a-n.co.uk technical@a-n.co.uk http://sites.a-n.co.uk/img/logo.gif http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 I am now in the last stages of the run up to our Degree Show, which opens on Friday 13th June. I hope that isn't a bad omen !  The project I am working on started with a film that I love - Powell & Pressburger's 'I Know Where I'm Going'. What fascinates me about the film is that it addresses ideas of fate - whether our lives have meaning. Do the things that happen to us happen for a reason or are they just random and chaotic ? Do we have any control over our lives or are our choices an illusion ? The film is shot through with references to myth and stories - it is as though the central characters are having to play out the stories that they tell - again this goes back to the question of whether they have any free will. Of course they themselves are only creations in a story too. This interest in narrative led me to make a series of books - or at least to embark on this - each of which will represent one of the characters in the film and contain all the words spoken by that character. Each book is intended to reflect some aspect of the person. I am also bringing in imagery which is personal to me - drawn from the landscape around me. The making process is very slow though - and intensive. The first book that is nearly complete is a circular book - Torquil, the hero figure, represents a force of chaos in the film, the person who disrupts the heroine's plans. Central to the film is a whirlpool and he is the living embodiment of that. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 Over the last day or so I have been working on various pages of the next book; in the film, Joan is relentlessly pursuing her goal - she's on a journey up to the Western Isles. She constantly refers to a timetable and everything goes smoothly until the last stage, when a storm blows up. She can't get over to the island - her ultimate destination. At this point in the film everything starts to break down - the timetable is whipped out of her hand by the wind. I'm exploring ways of physically taking apart the narrative, destroying the script. There is order - disorder - then a re-ordering. She goes through a sort of therapeutic process; everything is broken down, stripped away so that she can know herself better. At the end order is re-established but its different. The visual imagery I have in my head is pieces of text flowing out of the book - another key moment in the film takes place by a waterfall. So I'm working on sample pages - using thread and stitch and glue to give this sense of the story breaking apart. Fragments of words. Its beginning to be a bit of a worry that I'm going through all this at what feels like rather a late stage......... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 We had a group meeting on Friday - a bit of a shock really. I work a lot at home on my own which I really prefer, but it feels a bit like a tidal wave of things thrown at us when I go into college. The good news - or at least surprising news - is that our degree show is being extended. Its apparently now going to run from 13th June right up to the 26th. A good job that the postcards that we organised ages ago still havn’t gone to the printers. My only difficulty with the length of the degree show is that we are supposed to be there 10 - 6 and I can’t leave my dog that long - it’ll require a bit of juggling. Other news is more tutorials and talks - which will be useful as they are focussing on getting our portfolios ready. These sit in our space and accompany the exhibition. Its just that it does feel a bit like more distraction when I’m struggling actually to make the work. I breathed a huge sigh of relief this year when the Dissertation was out of the way (12,000 words on ‘The Artist in Wartime - propaganda, censorship and the visual arts in Britain in the Second World War’) then we had to do presentations to some of the first and second years about our working practice, as well as continually keeping a journal. All of this does sometimes feel like it gets in the way of just working. The date for submitting the journal has also now been brought forward, which for those of us who aren’t that good at doing it regularly is a bit of a nightmare.  This journal is something that we’ve done every year of the course - its a record of your work, a place for critical reflection on what you are doing, ‘contextualising’ being the key term. Its a task I find really difficult - I was told in first year that mine was too personal and I think that feedback has just made me clam up ever since. What is art if not personal ? I also find that the fact that we have to separate the journal out doesn’t sit naturally with me. I keep a sketchbook all the time and thats the place where I write, draw, think...... Separating my drawing and my writing isn’t the way I will work when I’m free of the course requirements.  Going into college too reminded me how much we are crammed in to the available space - we’re struggling for room; yet apparently we are lucky in that we still each have a dedicated workspace. Its all under threat. Such a shame as having a decent space is just vital especially for most students who are living in shared houses or university accommodation.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 My practical work has been going very slowly over the last few days, I feel. The second book has developed a life of its own and is demanding much more work than I’d expected. Does a piece ever feel finished ?  I don’t think so - it all feels like work in progress. What I’m finding now too is that its a process of letting go of some things - letting the book take shape and not forcing too many things into it. I had anticipated including some of the imagery I’d been working with - but it just doesn’t seem to need that. Simply bringing in colour seems to have done what I wanted.  I had a useful tutorial which really confirmed what I’d been thinking. I am going to miss having this kind of support. I’m in a small group of four people and have been with them for the whole of this project (and others). We have a couple of hours a week with our tutor and often go for lunch afterwards and continue the discussion. Its a really helpful forum for making me think about what I’m doing - to challenge it. We often find ourselves at similar places - this week I think we all felt a bit tentative. The fact of there being a degree show - an end point - hanging over us I think has the effect of making us feel that we need to stay safe with what we are doing. Which kind of kills the work because you stop experimenting. Or you try to force it into a shape that it doesn’t want to take. I have to embark on the next book now - and I really don’t have much of a feel for it. I need to go back to the words of the character and see what that throws up. I also think - scary as it seems - that I need to take a bit of a break from making and stir up some ideas. I think I’m going to make a flying visit to London - to the Blood on Paper exhibition at the V & A.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 I thought it would be interesting to discuss the work of some of my fellow students. It gives me an opportunity to talk to them in a bit more depth than there is often time to do and also shows the diversity of this course. Cathy Rounthwaite (e-mail : cathyrounthwaite@hotmail.com) is doing interesting things with bones. Beginning with an engagement with folklore and tradition – a historical perspective on man’s interaction with the landscape, she has been exploring the ways in which so-called ‘traditional’ rituals such as morris dancing or the ‘Hoodening Horse’ (a ritual involving a wooden horse’s head) have been resurrected and reconstructed. These dances, rituals, songs are performed now by moderns for moderns, but, crucially perhaps, without an understanding of their original context and meanings. The rituals no longer have the power, or the place in our lives that they did.  We do not now negotiate with nature in the same way  - attempting to placate it with our observances and offerings. Cathy has examined these areas in her recent work, observing, organising and filming performances including an enjoyable maypole dance in which several of our year participated. For her degree show she has pursued this interest, turning to working with animal bones.  These carry a real force, a kind of talismanic power as well as being beautiful and ambiguous objects. By transforming them both in substance and contextually Cathy is exploring the interplay between the object and its environment. They become something other – what are they ? Bone or cast ? Plastic or plaster ?  They are beautiful but grotesque – we recognise the origins of these strange assemblages and are made uneasy by that recognition, by objects divorced from their original context and their very function. This ‘decontextualisation’ is at the heart of what Cathy is addressing. In a sense too she is literally showing us the bones of the rituals – meaning stripped away so all we have left is the structure. But they do retain a gloss both literally and metaphorically – an aesthetic quality which has a power of its own.  Inevitably too they carry intimations of mortality – we are ultimately a collection of bones.  Do we identify with them ? What do they say about ourselves and our own place in the world ?  So I think Cathy’s work is full of interest and raises lots of fascinating questions – its thoroughly intriguing. She is working now on constructing and assembling her pieces; their form and placing will be really important so that’s something she is resolving in the run up to the degree show.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 I think we are all getting quite nervous now. I have been struggling with my third book and it just has not been working. I realised in the process that I don’t actually like the character and find her quite intimidating - which I think partly explains some of my difficulty. Its also that pressure of having to produce something which is making me leap at solutions too quickly without experimenting sufficiently. I’ve now made three versions and I’m not happy with any of them. So I’ve decided to leave it for the present and and move on to another one entirely. It did do me a lot of good taking a brief break and going to the V & A for their ‘Blood on Paper’ Exhibition. I found it interesting and infuriating in equal measure. Infuriating because I don’t really think it lived up to the tag-line - ‘the art of the book’. Much on show really felt to me that it was only incidentally in the book form and it was often not really clear that the artist had actually been concerned with the fact the work would be in a book. Perhaps it was just that I was expecting it to be much more about that. Anyway I found some things on display really fantastic - Anselm Kiefer’s huge lead pages ‘The Secret Life of Plants’ were massive and evocative. I loved the way the lead wrinkled at the edges. I was also really struck by Cal Guo-Qiang’s ‘Danger Book - suicide fireworks’. In these he draws with flammable material and incorporates gunpowder; the book is then rigged so that the act of opening it will cause it to explode. A thoroughly satisfying concept. I love the idea that books are dangerous - words can change the world so books are burnt and banned and here the book is literally dangerous. Plus it tempts you - if you had one of them would you risk it bursting into flame in order to look at it ?  Perhaps more useful to me though was the exhibition upstairs called ‘Certain Trees’ which focussed on a loose grouping of artists and poets who were and are involved in making and publishing books - influenced in many cases by Ian Hamilton Finlay. This was much more what I think of as artists books - books where the form and content are inextricably bound up together. I stayed on for the evening session - Friday Late - and went to a poetry reading which I thoroughly enjoyed, taking the opportunity to do a bit of sketching while I was there. People were invited to take a book and customise it over the evening - then participate in a sort of book exchange. I’m rather uncomfortable with the notion of altering existing books, so drew in mine - I felt it was adding to it rather than destroying. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 This is another post about a fellow student -Lisa Smith (smiffymax@hotmail.co.uk; smiffymax.wordpress.com). Again despite being on an Embroidery course Lisa’s work doesn’t focus on this but primarily involves drawing and weaving. She is producing wearable sculptures - objects that are both beautiful and useful. She constructs her pieces from handwoven fabrics but they are as much about the form as the surface texture and colour.  Drawing underpins her practice - in a sort of symbiotic process she draws, makes, and then re-draws and re-makes, each step building on the last. This creates an ongoing dialogue between her drawings and her objects. The increasingly large scale drawings depict huge knotted, twisted forms in space - and in turn influence the next form that she makes. She sees weave as a continuation of drawing - that there is no distinction between these processes.  Her mark-making on paper explores form and texture and these same explorations occur as she weaves. Through a process of manipulating and sampling and drawing from these her pieces have evolved into functional sculptures. I think this is really what matters to her - a piece that can be worn around the wrist is as much a piece of sculpture as a piece in a gallery. Why should the context change the value that we ascribe to something ? As with many of us, her Dissertation subject has become unexpectedly relevant - she focussed on Japanese makers, in particular the Mingei philosophy of finding beauty in the everyday. Her work now seems to me to embody that very philosophy.  Its really important too that her pieces are small - to be worn around the wrist or the neck - so that the wearer can focus on the cloth. Again this is another question of value - we are so used to being surrounded by cheap textiles that we don’t often pay attention to cloth as an object in itself. In turning her beautiful handwoven fabric into items which have that connotation of precious jewellery - this forces us to reconsider and appreciate the material. They stand off the body, retaining their own form, sitting in space in the same way as the forms in her drawings do.  She is now working with multiples - finding ways of working with similar forms to be worn round the neck, working with different combinations of twists and knots and fastenings.... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 Well - another week has zipped past. We’ve now been told that our degree show is not being extended and we will close on Sunday 22nd June. Bit of a sigh of relief really. Its been quite hard to focus lately with the weather being so great - I can’t wait till I can just go out and lie on the grass and read the pile of books I’ve got stacked up ready for some free time. But I’m not complaining at all about working hard - I’m still enjoying it hugely. I feel like I’ve got through the block I had - I’ve just moved on and am doing other books with a view to coming back to the one I’ve found so difficult. I’ve made one whose inspiration was the staginess of the character in the film - I’ve always found him a real old ham of an actor. I also had in my head the Pollock’s toy theatre I had as a kid - I loved cutting out all the scenery flats and layering them up in different compositions.  So another one nearly finished. We were provisionally allocated our degree show spaces today as well - I am quite happy with mine, although I don’t think (famous last words) that its going to be so difficult to show my work. Plinths plinths plinths I should imagine.  Everything is very tightly controlled - we’ve been told in very definite terms that this is a curated show and we have to conform. So no props, no colour - the walls have to be white. Even our portfolios have to look the same. We’ve also had a thorough briefing on presentation and mounting of work. So many rules......I realise that actually the only way actually to shock a tutor is to window mount a piece of textiles and put it behind glass. Oh how tempting. Even when we have installed our work - it appears that this won’t be the end of things and we might be required to go back in after its assessed and move it for the degree show itself. Well, I’m trying not to think about all that now and just get on with the next book. And my journal...and portfolio...oh, and update my website (www.sarahmorpeth.com) ...and worry about what I’m going to do next........ Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 I wanted to write about Lesley Alexander’s work (lesleyalex2@mac.com; www.web.mac.com/lesleyalex2) which is in some ways perhaps what one might expect from a textiles based course in that a large part of it involves stitch - but I think it very much sits in a fine art context as abstract art. Her pieces are preoccupied with colour and texture - indeed saturated with a depth of colour that draws the viewer in. Perhaps unfashionably, they are also executed with great skill. Her project this year began with her interest in marginal spaces, in disregarded areas of neglected urban wasteland. Lesley explodes the conventional notion of the picturesque by meticulously observing these places, according them the same kind of status and value as the traditional picturesque landscape that is frequently found on tourist postcards. She produced a series of minutely observed pencil drawings of these urban wastelands, finding aesthetic qualities in peeling, rusting, decayed surfaces, examining and recording the process of decay in an industrial, man-made setting. As part of this observational approach she also worked with stitch, using this as a medium for the same investigation of decay. Again, as with many of my contemporaries, Lesley is another artist who sees drawing as a process that goes beyond pencil on paper and into stitch, taking the view that that making marks and creating surfaces with a needle is an extension of drawing.  Lesley has also been interested for a long time in quilts – but with a keen sense of challenging that conventional form with its associations of domesticity and comfort. Bringing into this her textile work with its urban, industrial imagery challenges the viewer to question the purpose and function of a quilt as well as its usual association with typical ‘feminine’ imagery.  Her focus has shifted lately into colour – she has been moving away from detailed representational work and increasingly towards the observation of surface and colour, abstracting and extracting that colour and texture. Her pieces now are huge and layered, with pared back colour and intensely worked surfaces. From her observation of a tiny area of texture she creates an often huge piece, referencing its origin not only in colour but in scale - despite its size its surface is made up of thousands of tiny elements of stitch. These pieces record and reflect aspects of the wastelands that are their origin, but in their rich and textured surfaces demonstrate that there is beauty even in decay and neglect.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 We’ve had the last studio meeting ever. Hooray !  No break with tradition - it started over half an hour late. Its also becoming increasingly clear that although I was hoping for a bit of a break once our work was installed and was being assessed - there is going to be a vast amount of waiting around in case we are needed by external examiners etc. This will be rather challenging for me since I have very little patience and can’t bear wasting time. I had to do jury service last summer and it drove me mad. I had to be there  from 9.30 and had to sit around till about 3 every day for 8 days - to be called on my second last day for a trial that collapsed after a few hours. I sat in a hot room grimly knitting and felt like one of the tricoteurs at the base of the guillotine. I'm also rather dismayed to find out that our results will be available part way through the show - that's going to be a fun day for us all. I've managed for most of the time not really to think about this and I know that its not terribly relevant to anything. Its just that a bad mark is a bit confidence-destroying. Still, the books are nearly done - I had a good discussion with my tutor about bindings and she’s steered me away from naffness.  I have finally resolved Catriona’s book - I’ve moved away from the fabric interiors. Its very simple now - my overwhelming realisation about her being that her character has been so edited that there’s not that much left. So the book has the structure of pages but they are all cut away and the text just appears right in the centre of it. Filleted. I’ve made Robert’s book too - the text of which fades gradually out as the character fades out of the film. I need to spend the next couple of days getting my journal up to scratch - we have to hand them in on Monday morning for feedback. Oh and I managed to get some plinths made - at minimal expense and unbelievably very little effort !  Which is astonishing when I compare it with the effort its taken in the past to get access to any other facilities at the University. I now have three plinths for the princely sum of £3 each. I am going to take a break tonight though and go to a friend’s exhibition - Gill Moore is showing photographs from her recent work ‘The Chorlton Bench Project’ recording and reflecting the importance of green, communal spaces to the local area (www.gillmoorephotography.co.uk). ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 I've been working on my journal for hours - trying to make sure its in a good shape for handing in tomorrow. So I feel a bit dazed !  I also had to write my artists statement which will appear with a horribly cheesy picture of me pretending to be working in the machine room. Oh lord. Anyway this is my statement - as amended by my tutor (although I didn't take on board one change - I've stuck with 'asking' the viewer rather than 'challenging' the viewer. I think the viewer must get ever so tired of being challenged). "These books are a range of responses to a film with which I have been obsessed for years – Powell & Pressburger’s ‘I Know Where I’m Going’. Each piece reflects an aspect of five of the key characters and incorporates their words. In some cases I have been influenced in making the book by something that actually happens to the person within the film; in others it is a response to how the film treats the character, for example, to the editing process or visually to the film making process itself. I am particularly interested in the book structure - in the interdependence of form and content, and in exploring how each can illuminate the other. Books are resonant objects, carrying immediately a range of connotations; they suggest narrative, imply authority and structure. In taking the physical form of the book and breaking it down or changing its shape, I am asking the viewer to consider how that affects the content.  Just as a film can give visual expression to a script, in the same way in my pieces I am exploring ways of endowing words with visual form. I am also interested in how much we overlook the technical aspects of a film, the editing and cutting, the fading in and out of scenes – we are so familiar with the language of film that we accept it automatically and are unaware of these techniques, yet are drawn in and emotionally manipulated by them. In my work I am investigating ways of representing and highlighting such techniques and taking the time to consider their visual impact."    ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 The time is rapidly slipping away...we cleared the studios last week. This is a rather sad picture of all my possessions in a large blue bag. Goodbye to my desk forever !  I've been focussing on getting my portfolio sorted out for the last four days. I really wasn't prepared for how long just mounting stuff takes !  Of course there's lots of bits to finish off, samples to neaten up and also pages to compose really but it is taking such an age. As I'm doing it all on the kitchen table I've used every surface including the hob so am having to subsist on tea and biscuits and oven-ready meals. I can't now see any surfaces at all and the poor dog is constantly covered in bits of masking tape.  I had to take my plinths back in last week for the tutor to approve - and I've left them in the studio with my name written in huge letters across the top. If they've gone walkabout I shall be pretty incandescent. This week is painting the studios so I have to go in tomorrow afternoon for a few hours. One week to go till the deadline !  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 Its taken me an age to get on with writing about other people’s work – too preoccupied with my own !  Anyway this post is about Mary Conway (mc@fairgreen.f9.co.uk; www.maryconway.co.uk). Mary’s work uses historic processes and materials to highlight contemporary concerns about the environment. From a very conceptual beginning, this project has been a process of  giving visual form to these ideas and concerns. She has achieved this through a dual exploration of techniques and materials.   In terms of techniques, she has been working with indigo, a substance which has been and still is used across many cultures. Indigo is a naturally occurring dye, and is a non-polluting sustainable resource. Its most highly developed use now is in areas which are particularly vulnerable to climate change, most usually because of their poverty. Hence its use in her work is significant for all these reasons; each beautifully tied indigo-dyed container begs us to consider its origins. And it is not only the technique but the form of the containers that is important. The shape derives from a Japanese model, originally used by the poor as a way of turning a piece of cloth into a storage bag. It is a form which suggests transience, displacement – the need to take nothing but the most essential items in the quickest way possible.     In terms of materials, she has been using salt, that most basic of substances. A historically precious commodity, it is one that we now take for granted, but it is vital to survival. However, it also suggests the reverse – the evaporation of water and drought.  This expresses one of the key themes of Mary’s work – balance -  for which the salt becomes a metaphor. On one hand it is life-giving – our bodies require it – on the other it is poison, it threatens life.  In looking at the effects of climate change there is imbalance here too, it is the poorest areas of the world that are most affected, precisely those which are most dependent on these basic substances and processes. In dealing with issues around the environment it is difficult to be subtle; it is also extraordinarily hard to make art that has a message but which retains an aesthetic integrity. I think Mary has achieved all of this. These pieces are self-referential, they point to their own process and to their content. They recall in their deep blue the colours of the oceans, but carry in their insides the residue of the seas’ destruction. I think they are a very successful synthesis of the conceptual and the visual, they quietly communicate a subtle message while inviting reflection and consideration.  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 This was the studio last week - all lovely and empty and nearly perfectly white. It feels so spacious and clean. However now its absolutely packed, completely chaotic and I'm not sure how on earth we're all fitting into it !  Its all a bit stressful. I am a very focussed person - a hangover from being a lawyer I think - so find this all rather difficult. Its all a bit out of control. I'm sure its one of those things that comes together in the end but aaaargh ! The bit of wall I had been allocated turned out to be far too far away from where my plinths can be so I've had to get another one made - bless the great people in the workshops for knocking one together for me at very short notice. I havn't seen it yet but they've called it the 'Hilton' - after the notorious new tower block in Manchester. This makes me slightly nervous now as to whether I've ordered it too tall.....but suppose I can lop off a bit. I'm also worried that my little books are going to be completely swamped by the work on the wall beside them - Sam has done some fantastic drawings of animals but they are really enormous & striking and I think might just tower over my tiny pieces in comparison. We'll see. There's scope to move things around before the degree show anyway. Penultimate day tomorrow of installing. Deadline is Wednesday - and we still havn't had our journals back with comments. I think its very unlikely that any of us will have the time at this really late stage to make any significant revisions....I have no idea why this is happening so incredibly close to the deadline. Ours not to reason why....do creativity and organisational ability rarely go together ? ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 What a whirlwind. I put my work up in my allocated space on Friday. It all took so much longer than I thought. Just de-tangling one of the books took me (well my helpful assistant - we are allocated a first year to help) ages. There was one particularly stubborn knot that I spent about about two hours working away at. Obviously I could have taken Alexander's approach and just cut it - but no. An old folk custom to ward off witches was to bury a jar of tangled thread under the threshold. The witch couldn't cross because she would have to stop to untangle the threads. That's me. On Wednesday I was told I would have to move my work - obviously not something you want to hear just a few hours before the assessment deadline; I did think that looking at the work around me my books were a bit lost so I shifted the plinths. I'm so glad they are portable ! It was surprisingly calm in the studios - a sort of controlled panic. There were only a handful of people who were taking things right to the wire. I left about 4 and headed straight out to the fields with a bottle of champagne. Its such a strange feeling to wake up with nothing much to do - the pressure suddenly lifted. I went away for a few days as I knew that if I stayed I'd go doing things like cleaning and tidying and what I really wanted was to do nothing and re-charge my batteries for the degree show run-up. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 Hooray !  Finally its the Private View tonight. What an odd few days it has been. All the rush to get stuff done by the assessment deadline then a lull - then back in - and ..... I've been moved again ! Now I'm beside the fire exit and some enormous drawings of burlesque ladies. However at least I have some white wall behind the books and it creates a bit more of a backdrop. Although I might get in tonight to find that I've been moved again....Its been so great to see everyone's work - I think its a really wide-ranging and eclectic mix of work and shows off the course so well. ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 Well the private view was fun - though not nearly as busy as I thought it would be. We weren't able to ask family or friends - I rather wished I'd smuggled some in but I'm far too law-abiding. Still it was lovely to see everyone's work up and it felt like we had pulled together a really fantastic show. I had a great weekend as several friends came on Saturday and Sunday which really helped to break up the day. Its a very odd thing sitting with your work and explaining it to people - I found myself feeling very distanced from it, as though I was talking about someone else entirely.  There have been some quite fraught moments - some people were not only trying to turn the pages of Joan's book but actually tugging the threads to see how it was made !  I really do need to consider the whole area of books and display - how this can be successfully achieved and how to facilitate interaction with them. Generally the feedback from those seeing the show seemed really positive - people were very interested in the range of work and impressed too by the level of skill on show. I was particularly struck, seeing all the work together, by how much we as a group share - a certain sort of obsession and focus on materials. I wanted to include a couple of pictures of Liz Arkwright's work - she's created what looks like a fantastic coral reef out of all sorts of plastics, bottle tops, dyed cotton wool buds etc. which really seems to me to illustrate that level of obsession and love of materials and colour, but using unexpected media. Its man-made materials creating something growing and organic.I had an exit tutorial today - a useful discussion about what I'm planning to do next. I can't quite believe its coming to an end - this week is whirling past and then it'll all be over.  I have no idea what that's going to feel like. At the moment though I think we are all just beginning to get really nervous about results. Dreading Thursday !  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346 Well its all over now. It doesn’t feel quite real - a thoroughly intense week of talking talking talking......by the end I was mainly babbling. The whole results day was kind of anti-climactic and disappointing - whilst I did well, it wasn’t really really well and there feels something wrong about scoring art anyway - its just that sense of being shut out of an exclusive club when you don’t get the result you’d hoped for. Particularly when I felt that this project had been so much more successful than my previous one this year.  I know that realistically it will never matter again - and on the bright side - I had so much positive feedback about my pieces, and I even sold a few bits of work from my portfolio. I learnt a huge amount - particularly how to engage with people and talk about my work, which is pretty difficult. I also realised that if I carry on with making books I am going to have to keep explaining that they aren’t altered books but constructed books.......that no I havn’t bought them and taken them apart.  I didn’t realise that you have to deal with all sorts of preconceptions.  I was very glad that quite a few people had seen the picture of my work in A-N - I’m sure it helped people come up and talk to me; similarly some of them had read the blog which was really nice and thoroughly encouraging. I’ve come away from the Degree show with a few hopeful leads to follow up - including the Manchester Book Artists Fair this year, and an invitation to participate in a show in London.  I’m now facing the rather unexpected anxiety of whether I can make more pieces - I have suddenly got all scared in case I can’t remember how I did them in the first place ! What if they aren’t as good ?! The only way to deal with this of course is head on. I’m having a short break to go to the ‘Books that Fly’ conference in Brighton which is all about artists’ books and then I shall just get on with making more. Its been thoroughly helpful writing this blog and I’m really grateful to A-N for the opportunity. I have added a couple more images of one of my fellow students’ work - Ruth Bratt -  as I couldn’t resist. Its all about consumerism and excess - a really cheap foam material simply encrusted with decoration. I wish the very best of luck to her and all my year !  ... Thu, 01 Jan 1970 01:00:00 +0100 http://sites.a-n.co.uk/degrees_unedited/projects/single/425346