Tutorial Feedback

A recent one-on-one tutorial alerted me to the fact that I need to be thinking more critically about my work; in my head I know that it is the study of ‘deep-time’/geological time that drove me to begin looking at rocks, but the natural associations and ‘beauty’ of the objects I have gathered are potentially distracting from this theme. I need to introduce, or at least experiment with, devices that will bring these ideas to the fore when someone beholds my work.

A good way to start thinking about this may be to simply ask myself questions and attempt to answer them. As part of my self-evaluation from last term I established that I am proactive at asking myself questions, but don’t usually put so much work into answering them, hence the push for both questions and answers here:

What do I want my work to show/what do I see it as being about?

• time – geological time embedded/encoded in rocks
• the storage of information by the land (possibly slightly moved away from now)
• ideas of containment – what’s inside, the space within, potentially by extension what an object has been through – the soul of an object?

The problem:

• the ‘beauty’ of my objects is distracting from messages/I haven’t included enough to direct attention to the particular time aspect – just because that’s what I see/think of when I look at a rock, doesn’t mean that’s what everyone does
• there is definitely an element of exploration of organic shapes/materials that is evident through what I’ve collected and made (esp ceramics) but can this be made/does it need to be made into anything more than just visual?

Solutions/experiments going forwards:

• include other material with clearer time connotations – maybe by making fake rocks that look really similar, there is more of a draw to time as that is the key difference between the two?? again not particularly explicit but don’t wanna go too far in the explicit direction? would be good to research simulacrum – Sherrie Levine
• could direct attention through subtler means such as title of a piece? or the writing that would usually accompany a piece in a gallery?
• time-based media?! the problem here is that I don’t feel particularly attracted to the digital side of things as physical material holds a lot more meaning and significance for me, it is far more interesting than seeing the same thing through the glossy, impersonal surface of a screen. however, it is potentially a waste to not even explore the media as there are such evident links between the media and my subject matter, and as so much of my practice is about collections/gatherings, a film could always be displayed in conjunction with other objects. could be interesting to play around with projection, especially onto the rocks
• the clay drying is an interesting change over time, watching the cracks appear – still not 100% sure what the cracking implies but it is definitely interesting – like the hatching of a rock, maybe could have many containing different items
• if an environmental point wanted to be made then plastic/litter would be good to include but don’t know if it’s overdone/overused? but then it does make the point clear? are there any other materials that could be interesting to unveil in this way? possibly could go on a walk and pick up everything within e.g. 1m^2 and use this, would explore the stories behind the objects in terms of how they all came to be in one place at one time, how their separate paths all crossed.
• a practical solution is just to make more, go to the studio more. maybe at a weekend use one of the installation rooms to play around with arrangement and display as the studio is often quieter then. email dan and ask about long timelapses for the clay drying
• actually find a day to go to casting and just make some more fake rocks. while casting keep an eye out for any points in the process that can be manipulated for other effects/think about what else can be made. maybe make a series of identical rocks/serial number stamped rocks
• could do a piece similar to Gormley’s one apple but with varying size of the same type of rock – this would direct attention towards time perhaps?
• actually look back through journal at ideas you’ve had: write on rocks (made in china), somehow making rocks ‘flow’ as an access point to deep time/how they once were (could use sand for this as it is rock but can flow), storytelling as a medium, bend/fold/cut paper rocks, incorporating water like leaving an artwork to the rain, do an installation like the rock circles, but that can be walked between, polystyrene (? also clay?) with rocks sitting on and sculpted around them, paint a single layer of acrylic over a rock (a plasticcy paint to comment on man’s stamp on the geological record), cut a cast rock in half and have emerging from a surface/table top (could have a series at different heights) etc
• generally the idea of things flowing/movement – Andy Goldsworthy on how the landscape flows around large rocks as rocks are a stopping point in time. although don’t want to get mixed messages with look how old these rocks are and using them as an ‘access point’, but would probably work for both – the roll of paper could be good for this: place paper on floor (in installation room?) and rocks on paper, then lines (or something else?) moving past
• water is also a surprisingly good access point to deep time – it works with the flowing too – could start to look at introducing the two/interactions between them. be careful that water isn’t obviously old so again this would be something that attention would have to be drawn to. could start by filming the interactions between rocks and water and then stitching the film together – potentially quite a nice access/start point to working with video.
• Katie Paterson as an artist – looks at similar themes?
• there’s a lot of interesting connotations around wrapping as looked at slightly in portable garden. potentially not necessary to explore right now but good future potential here.
• continue to learn about different rocks because then when two are placed next to each other you know the difference more critically/can read them. but also understand that the viewer might not understand the difference like this.

As it stands I feel as though the takeaway points are to just generally push myself to make more by spending more time in the studios and making use of the workshops/technicians where needed. Thinking critically is a difficult one as sometimes if done too prematurely can lead to overthinking something to the point where it becomes hard to start something. Therefore I think I need to just try and start several of the ideas listed above and then perhaps come back for another more in-depth critical reflection responding to these concerns.