How long is a piece of string? ...Not as long as Arwenack Avenue, it turns out

This afternoon I walked the length of Arwenack with a roll of yarn, unravelling it as I walked. My aim with this activity was three-fold. I wanted to walk the length of the space in a different mind set, viewing it from the perspective of a maker, instead of usually when I am catching a train or thinking about other things. I think you see different things when you approach them with different reasons, so the string was a tangible connection to this alternate way of thinking, keeping a focus on the work and my knowledge of the place. I have walked around with artworks before and photographed them in different places so I was aware that I might feel self conscious, but I think this feeling stopped me from focusing on the street and making observations. I also felt that I rushed the process, conscious of not keeping the others waiting; I needed to spend more time thinking and walking, and learning about the surroundings. Perhaps next time I will go alone, or be more selfish.

It is interesting to observe how memories can be built up around a site. For me, and perhaps some people who walked past, Arwenack will now be 'where that length of string was unravelled'. I really enjoy how art can do that, adding to the identity of a place through experiences and encounters. I looked back as I unravelled the yarn and really liked how the line of string became a 'drawing in space', suspended with tension above the ground. Tension and the weight of the string being held off the ground over such a long distance might be quite an interesting idea to investigate, especially as rope relies on tension to maintain its form and purpose. Maybe the tension could activate a process, unravelling or twisting...

In my first tutorial with Jonty, he mentioned Conrad Shawcross' 2010 installation 'The Nervous System (Inverted)', a complex rope making machine that was suspended above the ground as it spun lengths of coloured cord together. It was suggested that I have a go at making a machine that spins rope that I might position in Arwenack Avenue so that the action is referential to the space and its history. This seems quite removed from my ordinary way of working; I think it would make for an interesting work that recalls the old processes, but I'm not sure if kinetic works are where my interests lie.

My second aim was to come away with something connected to the place; a piece of yarn the length of Arwenack Avenue, from which I might subsequently make a work. I like the idea of a conceptual connection between two unrelated things, similar to Cornelia Parker's wedding ring 'drawings' with wire the length of a living room. However, The length of yarn I had was not long enough to complete the walk, about 20m short. This also hindered by third objective, to measure the street for future reference.

In future I think I might plan beforehand what I am going to do in more detail, so that I am more likely to get what I want out of the experiment... perhaps taking more than one length of string, and taking my time about it. When the string had run out, I wasn't really sure what to do next. I started reeling it back up, but then let it drag along the floor. The yarn started to pull leaves and twigs with it, tangling and looping. Now I have a great length of unravelled yarn, which I am not sure has any value to me. In this case the experience was helpful in coming up with ideas but the physical outcome was not a success.

First Year Exhibition - Final Piece (written in June)

Making the work for the exhibition was an exciting process because of the time constraint I was under. I really enjoy working to a deadline, and find it helpful in order to come to a conclusion. The repeated, modular forms that I work with mean that I can keep on going, so it is necessary for me to limit myself with time. I gave myself three days before the piece had to be installed and spent every hour possible making.

I have always considered the making process to be a part of the work, and the most enjoyable element. I pushed myself to get more done; 10 more, 5 more, 1 more, before stopping. As it is inspired by living things, the process of its growth was to me very important. I made and added as many cells as I could, before unfolding it and seeing how much bigger it had become; it was therefore as if it really was multiplying each time I spread it out.

Recently I heard someone talk about "art as meditation", and it is something I have always felt unconsciously when I subject myself to periods of making. I love how actions can become mechanic, carried out without thinking, as the mind is elsewhere. I would be very interested to research what happens to the brain in a state of meditation and the use of art in this way.

Although I did not reach my target to use ten rolls of sellotape (I managed only eight), I was pleased with the effort I had put into the work. I love the feeling of stretching myself to the limit of my patience and ability. Really, that is for me what making is about.

I found a spot in the studio quickly. There was an interesting link between the other works in the room, a painting with visual references to microscopic cells and a sculptural piece made of plants which recalled ideas of place and the environment. My piece seemed to echo elements of each. I've never really considered the curation of an exhibition before but it really interested me how works can draw out meaning from and respond to each other in unexpected ways. Perhaps next year I will try and be more involved in the show so that I can have a go curating.

I tried out different compositions on the floor but was disappointed in how small my piece looked from that angle and how insipid it appeared against the grey. The work looked a lot smaller in the studio than it had in my living room, where I had thought it a reasonable size. I feel scale is something I really need to address in the future as I often underestimate how big the work needs to be to sit in the space... I know I am always told to be more ambitious with scale (so this is an example to remember).

There was strong sunlight coming through the window when I was setting up my work, and I wanted to see the sellotape in the sun so I draped it over the windowsill. It was beautiful there, the sun illuminating all the dirt and detritus inside the cells. I also loved how it now became part of the space, not a sculpture to be viewed and paced around, but a more unexpected encounter to be peered at and investigated. The curator's also really like the position and how it appeared to be a growth on the wall... adding another level of meaning to the work and the title.

This is one of the very few times that I have been really pleased with a final work. I liked my foundation final piece but I feel this one had so much more meaning and depth and integrity. This is the first piece of work I have made that means something, instead of being about the aesthetic properties. There are layers of meaning in the materials, the form, the location, display and in the title. I received some really positive feedback from a lot of people (people I've never really spoken to! ...that meant a lot). Everyone seemed really curious about it, they didn't know what it was at first sight, which I think is one of its greatest achievements... I really love how it affected how the viewer was standing, it enticed them in, made them crouch down to peer in and look more closely. I also heard such contrasting and visceral reactions: That's so cool! Euugh! Oh wow! That's gross...

One of my favourite things about the work is how it is both beautiful and disgusting, attractive and repellent. I feel I have really succeeded in capturing the 'phobic' qualities which affect me with certain things and which provoke such a response from the viewer.

Times and Places to Start

I came back from Summer with a rough idea of what I wanted to investigate in my work; Arwenack Avenue, its forgotten history as a ropewalk, the old process of rope-making. Discoveries into things I don't know and things which interest me.

Arwenack has been on my mind for a while as I read about its history in my Foundation year and took my work there to photograph with rope making in mind.

I have walked up and down Arwenack so many times. I am familiar with its location, where it leads from and to, roughly how long it will take me to walk it. I could give a description of it, observing the rows of trees on either side, their green leaves which look beautiful under the street lamps at night, and fall to seal the pathway in Autumn, the wooden benches slimy and rotting, the width of the tarmac which allows two couples to pass by each other but not much more. I know all this but not its history, its process, how it came to be... by whom were the trees planted, when was the tarmac laid and by what was the width determined? My description of the place could grow more and more detailed if I looked closer, discovering the patterns on the bark, the angles of the branches, the fissures where water collects when it rains, but I wonder what level of detail I would need to learn about its past. Does anything physical remain that speaks of its history, or is it only through knowledge, memory, books, that Arwenack can be awarded a more complete identity?

This line of thought runs with my fascination for how humans exist and operate without knowing how or why. We are born with bodies that function, but without knowledge of their structure and workings. We have a heart but, independently, we would not know it; the murmur in our chests would be just that, with no account of its cause. In many ways, our own insides are as much a mystery to us as anything else we are not able to see or experience, and understand. This level of ignorance regarding the human body is unimaginable due to knowledge instilled in us from birth (indeed, the heart is checked in the very first moments of life). Before written information, the heart must have been known through centuries of killing animals and experiencing the dead. It is curious that knowledge of the heart must have come from examining the inanimate article.

The idea of skin and surface is interesting in both matters, as it is all that can be observed in the present moment. Arwenack can be seen, and touched (and smelt, heard, tasted), but the only things evident to these senses will be of the physical form, surfaces, immediate, accessible. Likewise, the outer skin is all that can be truly known, and sensed about the body, without acquired knowledge. I am keen to combine the physical, tangible aspects of Arwenack with the 'unknown' context and history, exploring the relationship between both.

Skin was another concept which I had in mind to investigate over the Summer. I was thinking about how humans regenerate cell by cell. I have managed to acquire a shed snake skin, which I might look to as an aesthetic consideration for a piece. I love its paper-like translucency and fragility, both suggestive of it being a remnant, a leftover, not the whole. I have been looking up videos of snake's shedding their skin and researching the biological process which occurs in snake's as well as humans.

I discovered that "humans lose 35 000 skin cells an hour", which is equally horrifying and fascinating. It is both these things because it happens without us even noticing, hearing the statistic makes us imagine it. It also amused me how no website could agree on this statistic, each offering a different number with vast variation... it is such an incredibly rough estimate, is there any point in coming up with a number? I think facts and statistics could be a really interesting thing to look into, how they affect the imagination and their use in our understanding of the world.

Beach Trip

I had a few comments about my large sellotape structure saying that it looked like coral so I decided to photograph it on the beach to test out the resemblance and see whether it suited that environment. I was also keen to photograph it outside to see how it worked with light, and made sure it was sunny before taking it to be photographed.

I was really happy with one shot, where I thought the structure looked right in that setting, as if it was a coral or plant that had grown on the rocks and had been exposed by the receding tide. The work draped over the rocked so that it moulded to that specific location and looked natural. I thought the light also worked very well in that situation, illuminating the plastic and reflecting off its surface. The colours seem to work well with the rocks and the sky, the yellow of the sellotape echoing the yellow of the rockpool plants.

 

Although I thought some of the photos showed the maquette working well, in others I thought it looked quite out of place and at odds with the environment, too bright and bold. I also photographed one of my new maquettes with the inverted adhesive, positioning it in crevices and entangled in seaweed. I thought this version looked more fitting in the place because of its more natural, less uniform structure.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Habitats for the Environment

My latest tutorial was extremely useful and I am now a lot more certain of how I want to pursue the project. We were talking about my sellotape prints of lichen and rust, and how they were 'Noticing the Unseen', which I proposed to do at the beginning of the project. The prints are a documentation of the 'stuff', the material residue of a place that can't be seen or is not acknowledged. I explained my ideas about how the sellotape takes in the environment around it, through being adhesive and transparent. Talking through these ideas in a conversation made me think of combining the two together, so that I might make clusters of sellotape which contain the essence of different environments. I really like the thought of the cells being a habitat for these things, which distorts the normal establishment of things. for We also spoke about how my work has a definite aesthetic to it, that of decay and imperfection and perhaps I might want to explore looking at how fruit or plants structurally decompose.

I have started to develop the idea of the sellotape habitats, experimenting with different compositions, positioning the adhesive on the outside instead of inside of the cells. Reversing the adhesive side changes how the cells stick together so that they form more organic shapes than the previous maquettes. I am really drawn to these shapes, they remind me of bubbles fitting together, or proper microscopic cells multiplying.

My aim now is to create little clusters of these, collecting surfaces from different places that I encounter. To start with I am going to make a few maquettes that represent the environments in a more straightforward way to get a feel for how they will work. I have decided upon: home, beach, Woodlane Gardens, and street for my first experiments.
                                                    

Dustpan Drawings

I started making lists of ideas about what objects I could wrap sellotape around that would have some link to the way in which I was using them. I thought about things associated with collecting the dust and dirt of an environment such as vacuum cleaners, brooms, mops, dustpans, brushes, feather dusters etc. I thought abut wrapping sellotape around the handle of a broom or metal nozzle of a hoover, and letting that dictate the size of the cells; I like the idea of the work having many levels and layers of meanings, each part of the process contributing its own connotations. I was thinking  a lot about the Cornelia Parker while I was listing these ideas, how the objects she uses always have a great significance that relate back to the work, such as her 'Wedding Ring Drawing' which was drawn into the length of the average living room (there is also the play on the word 'draw' in the action and the outcome).

I also thought about how I could make some drawings out of the subtle things in the environment which I am aiming to collect on the sellotape. Combining my two lists, I decided I was going to make drawings from the bristles of a dustpan brush belonging to my house. I found this a really interesting idea because of how the brush has collected fragments of its environment on its surface over several years, even before we lived there. The brush is a product of the people who have lived in the house: changed by their use of it, covered with the remnants of their life, their actions/activities as well as their bodies, skin cells and hair. I like how each bristle is different, split, discoloured and weighted with dust to different extents. I began separating the brush into individual bristles and laying them out in rows to exaggerate this difference. Once again I was thinking about how this manner of working has scientific connotations in its process, the dissection and examination; the way in which attention is given to a mundane object also reminds me of Martin Creed's use of blu-tac, cardboard etc.

 

 

 

I decided to display the bristles in a line running the length of my studio space. For a future work it might be interesting to have them running the circumference of a room, in which the dust has been collected, a product of the environment that it marks.

This work led me to consider using household dust to make prints with sellotape; I like the idea of collecting prints from lichen, which show growth, and then the dust and flaking paint prints to show decay. It would be interesting to note whether there is much of a difference in the aesthetic of these two opposing states.

I have made some further drawings using household dust collected from our vacuum cleaner. I thought about the snail trails on the roof of the bike shed, which gave me my initial ideas about observing the subtleties of the environment. I copied these patterns, spreading glue in trails on paper and covering them in dust. I find the drawings interesting because of their significance, how dust is the remnants of an environment and of its inhabitants. I thought about Colin Renfrew's book 'Figuring It Out', where he described Richard Long's marks in the land as a legacy of his existence in that space, a sign saying 'I was here'; to me the snail trails communicate a similar thing, although an unintended intervention, they disclose a past presence, the relic of a life, just like the dust.

 

There is something a little repulsive about these, how when you look closely you can see hairs and bits of fluff and dirt which are normally discarded. The same applies for snail trails too, as they can be very beautiful but nevertheless are often viewed with disgust.



Developing Ideas (20/04/2014)

On my return from the holidays I was looking for a starting point to reactivate my practice following my indecision over how to develop the project. I decided to focus on the scale of my sellotape 'cells', and have spent several days building it up in a large interlocking structure. I always really enjoy challenging myself in this way; it is a very repetitive process but watching the 'material' grow is really satisfying. I started to set myself targets, taking records of the time it took me to produce each cell and competing against myself. I also used a tally chart of the cells I had made as a motivator and set myself a minimum number to do in a day. I had no ultimate goal, deciding to work on it until I decided what I should do next.

It was fascinating to observe how the structure changes as it expands and has more weight. One thing I am really drawn to about the result of my making is the way it moves, it folds over in layers in a really fluid manner as if an underwater plant.

 

I also really love the way the structure takes in sunlight, catching and reflecting the light within the cells. This started to make me think about how it takes in the environment; not only how things stick to it physically because of the adhesive material, but how it captures the available light and seems to hold it in the cells, again like a plant or living creature collecting nutrients from its surroundings.

 

 

 

The process of making this piece was intense as I worked on it all day in the studio and took it home with me. This also enabled me to view it in different environments, against the white of the studio, in the sunlight as I carried it home and in a domestic setting. I photographed the work in our living room and observed how it took on quite a sinister feel, juxtaposed with familiar household furniture. In our house we have a lot of damp and mold and I found myself viewing it with this information in mind, thinking of it as a growth, a bacteria, something negative and harmful.

 

 

I would love to be able to do a stop-motion animation of the structure slithering over the sofas. I feel these shots together illustrate the way it moves quite well because of how it curves over the arm with ease.

 

 Yesterday I had an opportunity to use a projector so I experimented briefly with making shadows with the sellotape cells and trialing the transparency of the material. The structure looked really, really beautiful with such direct light and produced some very interesting shadows, which varied in focus on the different heights of the cells. It might be interesting to take this further and consider how light could be used for an installation.