Day Today #2

Today was the second day of our newspaper headlines project. I wanted to focus on a subject a little more serious than curry, so I managed to pick out one about a man who has been sentenced to death by lethal injection. So yeah, just a bit more serious than curry.

The man is to be excecuted on the 15th of September for murdering his boss. The very short article explains that the man has reached out to President Obama, hoping he will intervene and get his sentence changed.

The death penalty and it's existence in the modern world has been part of heated debates for a long time. It's something I find very interesting. I have in the past talked at length about it, and the part it plays in justice systems around the world. I figured because of my interest in it, that this article would be a good one to work on.

I made a mind map as soon as I had read the article and began jotting down thoughts and feelings that I personally felt about the death penalty.

At this stage all I wanted to do was get as many words down on paper as possible. I tend to scribble down words rather than sentences, this helps me when I refer back to notes later in the development process. I think this is because I attach certain connotations to words whether negative or positive, and the feeling I have in that moment in which I jot them down stays with me and I remember why I wanted to write it in the first place. These singular words usually make their way into sentences in the later stages of the process.

I began thinking about what materials I could use to project my feeling towards the subject.

I love working with typefaces and text on Photoshop, so I used this urge and photographed the image (mugshot) of the man sentenced to death and got it up on the iMac.

Working with text on top of images, I have came to realise how important composition is. I can spend hours on one poster adjusting one single line of text, the kerning, the spacing, point size etc. All the time spent is worth the outcome, usually...

I really enjoyed tackling this subject - albeit individually - and figuring out my own personal views on a subject.

Although, I do realise that these past 2 days and the pieces I have made haven't had much research behind them. This is something I will focus on more tomorrow, Thursday and Friday.

The image below is what I came up with!

Day Today #1

These images are from the first day of research and development into a news story from a local newspaper. The last image in the selection is the final piece of work - a photo collage.

The story I chose was a local one and was written about curry houses and restaurants customers dwindling because of a high interest in pre packed supermarket ready meals.

I chose to photograph a ready meal curry laid out on a paper plate to emphasise the disposable and cheap side of the purchase.

I was interested in what makes people choose supermarket take away style ready meals rather than the real thing from the restaurants.

I began writing down fictional accounts of customers, reviewing their experiences at the curry house 'Indian Aromas'.

Because of the relatively trivial nature of the article/story, I figured I could inject a little humour in there for good measure.

Many ideas were passing through my mind whilst researching this article. I wanted to go down the digital route at one point during the day and make a sound piece that would consist of myself voicing the fictional reviews I had earlier wrote up.

Time was a factor and because one of the aims of this task is to practice keeping to deadlines I realised I had to stick to what was achievable in my time frame.

With my final piece I also wanted to emphasise the awareness of quality when it came to experiencing an authentic indian curry compared to a supermarket imitation. Some people when faced with the meal on a plate might not be able to tell straight away. The image below where I have taped over the curry and written the word 'FRAGILE' was intended to express the idea of a 'package deal' or 'package meal'. As an artwork and whether or not this is idea clear to the viewer is a different story. The monetary value of each meal also comes into play with some of the images below. Placing actual money alongside the paper plates and text was an idea that came to me when I bought the ready meal from Morrissons.

The following images contain mind maps and general notes I took down throughout the day. Some parts are clearer than others. This process of taking down thoughts and ideas is one I am very much used to. I usually look back and I am quite able to make sense of some notes but I know for sure that others will struggle to make the connections to my final piece. This is something I need to work on!

I think, although rushed, my research notes and development tie in well with my final pieces.

'Here & Now'

The first piece of the project I have been working on was created under the title 'Here & Now'.

I decided to work with video and audio as these media are always at the forefront of my mind whenever faced with a project. I use my iMac and the software 'iMovie' to create video pieces, I have become very familiar with how it works and can feel a theme developing with every art work I create.

'Here & Now' provided plenty of potential when it came to subject matter. 

As I have mentioned before in an earlier blog post, the concept of time has been an important part of my research and development for this project. How we perceive time and deal with it in day to day are things that I have thought about all summer.

To gain a fresh perspective on this subject I wanted to record some audio, specificly a voice. I also wanted an innocent feel to the video piece so I asked my 8 year old cousin Diarmuid if he wanted to participate in the project! He was more than happy to, so I arranged a time with my auntie to go down and visit.

I had to prepare a set of fairly straight forward questions that I could ask and that he would understand. I wasn't worried about whether or not his answers made sense, I just wanted a running narrative that the viewer can listen to whilst taking in the visuals.

I have recently been converting our old home videos into digital files on my iMac, so I wanted to immerse myself amongst these videos and hand pick from about 40 hours of footage, the most appropriate visuals. The ones I picked all related to 'time' in some way. For example one clip was my family celebrating the 2000 millennium year, and others were memories that I hold dear to my heart and moments that I can clearly remember. 

Once I had the audio material, I got to work on compiling the home videos and creating a strong, 1 minute piece. Deciding how much of the audio to use was a big problem. Some answers Diarmuid gave related really well to the visuals, other answers not so much. I managed to arrange them in an order I felt worked, for example there were short small audio clips that played when something quick was happening visually.

Whenever I make video pieces I always think about how it will be received when people get to see it. I always ask myself - Will they relate this to that? Will they understand that part? Do they know that was supposed to look that way? These questions help me during the creative progress but also get in my way. 

The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art

Today I visited the Modern Gallery in Edinburgh where Roy Lichtenstein's work was the main attraction. It was a great opportunity to see his and other artists work in the flesh. To see pieces in the context they were intended to be in is always a comforting experience, in that you feel the physical presence so much more. 

I like to stand directly in front of pieces of work especially paintings, and just try to imagine the artist standing in a similar position whilst creating it. I like to look closely at brush strokes and when possible inspect the corners of the canvas or paper, and just enjoy how the piece has aged. I was able to do this today when I discovered a few of Picasso's paintings. 

I just felt so lucky and happy that I was standing looking at a Picasso painting! Being such a well known name worldwide and having a reputation such as his I just couldn't quite comprehend being in the same room as one of his works. 

It is possible I'm exaggerating as I quite often do but this can only confirm how strong the feeling is.

Being able to walk around and see Lichtenstein's work was great. It was so satisfying scanning the vibrant colours overlaid with the trademark comic book dots. The size of some of the pieces was surprising but this only added to the experience.

As I entered the exhibition space I was completely taken by surprise when I spotted 'Monster' by Douglas Gordon. I researched Gordon for my Final Major Project whilst at Borders College and instantly became interested in his video and installation work. This cemented for me the importance of seeing a piece by one of your favourite artists in the flesh - I felt amazing. It was a lot bigger than I expected, being a photograph from the 90s I imagined the quality to be slightly grainy or weak but the closer I got to it the sharper it became! 

'Monster' by Douglas Gordon 1996

The visit was off to a great start. 

French born artist Aurélien Froment based in Dublin was the next artist that caught my eye. His piece was a video installation with the first part showing a miniature version of an industrial paper making machine. The camera pans from right to left following the mechanical process before moving back from left to right. The footage was overlaid with the voice of a child reading from a sheet of paper detailing the origins of paper making and ending with the introduction of larger scale production.

Part 2 presented us with a bright yellow jellyfish floating through a deep dark tank of blue sea water. The commentary over the visuals gives us a detailed insight into it's habitat, survival techniques and natural environment.

I enjoyed this piece. I liked the darkened room it was in, how it was projected straight onto the wall, the audio was sharp and clear and I felt it was a reasonable length too. The long panning shots of the machine was particularly interesting to me. After filming material for my Final Major Project I have grown closer to moving images and video in general. I have come to appreciate it as a craft and look forward to pushing ahead with my own pieces and experiment with subject matter. The use of audio with the girl reciting and the man narrating was a nice touch. I have found with my small projects adding or even deciding what audio to include is a huge task! Whether or not you want it to coincide with the visual, or it to completely contrast with it is not an easy decision. But I think coming to see exhibitions like this one helps my personal development a lot.


Exposing myself to video work and installation pieces is something I need to continue doing. 

The next piece that I took a particular liking to was by Billy Apple. 

'For Sale' by Billy Apple 1961

I like this piece for the use of typography and the message it conveys. The point it makes that Art is made to be bought and sold is very obvious. My interest in letter pressing and type was what originally caught my attention. I have created work in the same vain as 'For Sale' with the intention of questioning the art piece itself. Kind of like a parody of itself I guess! 

Summer Project

Back in July I was sent an email from Edinburgh College that gave instructions to complete a project in preparation for starting the Contemporary Art Practice HND Course on August 24th.

Part 1 of the project was to research a handful of contemporary art galleries and specific pieces dotted around Edinburgh, to then express either positive or negative reactions to the pieces of work.

Part 2 required us to actually create 2 pieces of work based on our research and development taken down in Part 1. These 2 art works were to be produced in response to 2 of the following titles:

• Here & Now
• For Sale
• This Land is Our Land

The instructions included details of how we were expected to create our actual art works. We were asked to produce our final responses in two distinct media with at least one of the pieces in a media we are less familiar with.

Having been used to critically evaluating different art works from the BTEC course and why I like them and why I don't, I felt I was able to easily slip back into that mindset when I visited the Modern Gallery recently on Belford Road in Edinburgh.

Since receiving the email I have made a conscious effort to visit Edinburgh and take down my thoughts in note form regarding different art works and how they made me feel, why they made me feel that way etc.

(I will post these above mentioned reflective notes in a separate blog post)

Since I have became familiar with working with video and audio in the past year I chose to create 1 piece using said media. As for the second I have the material and development but have yet to choose an 'unfamiliar' media to work with.

I have just under a week to complete the project and hand it in on my first day. It has been great to get into the swing of things again since finishing at Borders College in June!

Working at Lyle & Scott this summer has given me the opportunity to think a lot about what I want to achieve through my artwork. 'Time' and how us humans experience time has consumed a lot of my thinking this summer and has ended up being the theme of one piece of this project under the title 'Here & Now'.

I am planning on posting about this project at the weekend once I am completely finished.

Wet-plate Photography

Last Wednesday I contacted Sam Christopher Cornwell,  the owner and artist in residence of the contemporary gallery 'The Taxi Office' located in Hawick. I had saw some posts he had put up on his Facebook page of photographs on tin plates. The portraits appeared very clear and I felt intrigued and curious as to how the whole process worked!

I decided to Tweet Sam and ask if it was okay if Alice and I popped in Friday afternoon to sit for a portrait. He replied soon after and was more than happy to have us! Once we arrived he began explaining the initial stages and walking us through how he applies the liquid to the tin plate and works some magic in the dark room. After being shown how to prepare the tin slide, Sam had me sitting on a stool in front of the huge camera with 18 bulbs pointed straight at me. I hadn't posed for a photograph like this since High School but in this case I felt a lot more excited to see the outcome!

Sam explained how light and exposure time would effect the tin plate and I was fascinated. The lead up and eventual efforts put into just one small piece of work did gradually sink in and made me appreciate the whole process a lot more.

Finally he plunged the tin plate into a clear solution and we witnessed my 'likeness' - as Sam referred to it - appear on the plate in front of us! It was a great thing to watch happen.

Alice was next and I loved going through the process again and seeing the different stages and how each one was so important in contributing to the final piece.

Afterwards Alice and I stayed and chatted with Sam for about half an hour, we talked about our forthcoming courses and discussed some artists we had mutual affection for. It was great to talk to someone so passionate and with a legitimate drive to want to expose the population of Hawick to contemporary art.

As we left we expressed our excitement regarding the Borders Photo Marathon he with the Taxi Office is hosting this coming weekend.

Questions and Answers

How many questions do we ask per day? 

How many questions do we ask ourselves per day?

These are very different things.

The questions you ask fellow humans (or even animals) are one thing.
But the ones you ask yourself are in a completely different league.

Can you ask someone what the time is? Sure.

Can you ask them how they are? Definitely.

Can you ask them why we persist and persist at an existence that on the surface doesn't even cover 1% of what we truly want to achieve and that ultimately this ride we call life will be over in the blink of a bloodshot eye rendering all effort and progress gained utterly pointless? ...yeah you can ask that, but don't expect a prepared and positive answer.

There are curiosities we should probably keep to ourselves (with the exception of a very patient friend or family member). They could be mundane dilemmas like what paint to use when making a piece of work, or whether to use audio in a video piece or not. But as we all know these dilemmas may take a lot more than a few seconds of pondering....

Like:

"Should I even be even ATTEMPTING to paint?!"

or

"Wtf am I doing on iMovie?! I don't even 'get' what I'm trying to create!!"

These worries and brief attacks usually pass... But the point is that you ask them in the first place.

I'm not a particularly high strung guy. I stay positive the majority of the time and don't get too hung up on the small things. Nonetheless though, I ask myself questions all of the time. From the trivial to the terrifying. What I have realised is that these questions are what keep us creative types going. Even if we give the wrong answers, it's not the end of the world. Plus, what even is wrong? We'll figure it all out at some stage.

From here on out I vow to ask as many questions as possible.

(I'll try to keep the weird, awkward and panic inducing ones to myself.....maybe)

'Work Version 2'

Gave 'Handmade: Glass" a watch after Niall recommended it in class just the other day. A truly beautiful 29 minutes worth of considered camera angles and phenomenal skill.

Afterwards, I was working on some stuff for one of my units and I felt inspired.

I had a record playing in the background so currently shiteing it that YouTube will pull copyright theft and remove the video off their site, so fingers crossed.

Blogger, it's been 2 months since my last confession...

Since I last posted on here I attended my interview at Edinburgh College! It was a great experience, I was able to mingle with fellow hopeful students and get to know a bit about each other before we were taken in individually for our 10 minute interviews.

I was asked questions like;

1. Why do you want to do this course?
2. What was the last exhibition you saw?
3. What do you think the strongest piece in your portfolio is?

My lecturer had helped me the week leading up to the interview with the portfolio itself, mounting photographs, drawings, prints etc. I had explanations at the ready for each board of work but was only able to convey these through my answers to their questions.

It was great to see their facilities and where I will hopefully be studying for the next 2 years. I was able to ask them a few questions of my own at the end of the interview. I enquired about how much freedom and flexibility we will have as students when it comes to projects, also I was eager to find out about life drawing classes and how regular they would be.

The interview panel told me they really enjoyed looking through my work and especially watching the video pieces I included on a disc for them to view with the portfolio.

I was told we would here back from them later in May. So until then the pressure is on regarding our current units: Papermaking (due in this Wednesday), Surface Pattern (due the Tuesday after) and Info Graphics and Final Major Project sometime around that time too! I still have bits and pieces to get together and sketchbook work to polish off but apart from that everything is on schedule!

Final Major Project filming = done!

On Thursday I went along to Hawick Knitwear and finished up filming for my project.  I spent about 3 hours in total at the factory and made sure to take notes to include in my sketchbook. Human Resources and the staff in general were consistently helpful and genuinely interested when it came to what I was filming. I began at the very 1st stage of production and followed the process through the mill capturing visuals that looked similar to each other. I was considering composition with every shot I took. Having the tripod definitely helped me frame certain shots, and even allowed me to venture from stationary recording to slowly sliding the camera left or right. I made sure I spoke to each operator a little before I began filming at their machines, every single one of them were more tan happy to help out and even gave me a basic run through of what it was they were actually doing. This made a huge difference when it came to understanding how long I should film for or how zoomed in I should be etc. I let them know the exhibition dates and that I would provide them with a few invitations nearer the time to show my gratitude for allowing me in to film.