This week:
- I glazed the most recent batch of ceramics and took them to be fired
- made another batch of ceramics – unfortunately as I’m away next week they won’t be able to be taken for firing until the week after
- continued with the 1m square drawing – one side is now complete but the other still has a fair way to go
- I made a new ‘thing’ drawing but this time more specifically water related (more below)
- continued the hunt for cabinets – we have a potential cabinet in the works, as well as some to try out in-situe this week
- Izzy and I had a joint tutorial which has led me to think a little more about alternative modes of exhibition that perhaps aren’t as explicitly museum-y (more below)
- Izzy and I have also continued work on our joint book
- continued working with CAST – this week we took the young people to Porthmeor studios to work with Naomi Frears
Looking forward to next week, I can see it’s going to be pretty hectic as I will be away for a good 3-4 days of the week. I’m wondering if it may therefore be beneficial to shift the focus of this week slightly towards reading and research – something that can be done a little more on-the-move, and that I’ve perhaps been failing to do as much of recently. That being said, I do think it’s important to keep the making going where possible: there’s some bits I need to gather/make for the book; it would be good to keep going with the large drawing, and also I’d like to draw up some plans for making plinths. However, perhaps limiting my to-do list to these three things for the week may be beneficial in allowing some space to open up for a little more research.
The tutorial with Gillian was helpful in opening up my thinking in terms of presentation of the work, not just practically but also conceptually. It was particularly helpful to consider if the museum cabinet style of presentation is a little route-one, and if there could be ways to allude to this a little more subtly. I also have also been re-considering the style of presentation I used at the opening Goldfish Bowl show where I drew directly onto the plinth – could I do this again? Maybe using the same marks as I am in my drawings, directing attention to the materiality and thingness of the plinth? Or would this detract from the work? It would perhaps be beneficial to make a plinth and test this out. I think it could potentially be useful in moving away from the resolved-ness that a museum display implies. Having a display that seems as though it is still forming, is unsettled in some way, could be really exciting.
Below are the rest of the notes I took from the tutorial:
The other main piece I completed this week was a watery ‘thing’ drawing. I have as yet only completed one of these but I would be interested in making more, on the one hand to start to echo my earlier thing drawings a little, but also so I can experiment again with soaking them in water etc; I am unsure if the water soaking will work with these ones as I would like the drawing itself to be fairly readable so I don’t want the warping to detract from this too much. The idea behind this drawing was to explore depicting water a bit more tangibly. So far water is alluded to in a lot of the processes that have formed my work, but in depicting it directly it brings it a little more to the foreground. I was trying to also bring out a self-contained thingness to it by depicting it as a bounded mass, verging on abstract, again to echo my previous drawings. I think this has worked to some extent but potentially could be brought out a little more, although I am currently unsure exactly how. Perhaps it just needs to be a little more exaggerated – the shapes pushed further, the mark-making textures heightened?
So, a to-do list for next week:
- continue with large 1m square drawing
- gather/make bits for the book
- draw up some measurements for a plinth
- research – taxonomy and thingness
(to-do the week after/overflow: take ceramics to be fired/pick up last batch, more water drawings, quote drawing, start making plinth)
Anna Harris 