sunandbrightness

A weekend in S France – Marseille is an astonishing place culturally and weather wise I have never been there when it’s not sunny, whatever the time of year. If you get the chance to go, after wandering around the fantastic Mucem building eat at Au Bout du Quai, everything there is most excellent – the soupe de poisson is a must. Got out to Crest despite the train strike – walking and the market and the design classics show at http://www.centredartdecrest.fr/home/ - one of those where you say – we had one of those and I remember that!!! gestetner printing machine anyone? Recently I’ve been to see some live theater – first the immersive – I was a Guidestar Volunteer at Saint Jude with Swap Motel theatre group where my job was to ‘speak’ to a coma patient (an AI) to wake them – not bad, although it did turn into an experience similar to an escape room. Meanwhile Gecko Theatre’s Kin was brutally beautiful (bruitifull). Gecko are an amazing company that always creates stunning work that makes you think both about the subject they are dealing with and the very concept of theatre itself. https://www.geckotheatre.com/  Onto screens – the latest series of F1 on Netflix was, as ever, madness on the highest level on every conceivable front….and……let’s not talk climate issues! 

somestuff

The yearly school’s celebration at Snape was wonderful, as ever there was a real sense of happiness and pleasure in the room. Unconsumed - the show at the shoe factory in Norwich looks good – there is much to see in this eclectic exhibition – I appear to of sold something (red dot) which is nice. https://www.instagram.com/unconsumed.theshoefactory/ The work is part of a new body of thinking so its good that somebody else recognises the potential. Meanwhile onto screens – deep into The only murders in the building – wacky and twisted.

venndiagramtellsthetruth

Its my birthday and we are celebrating with, among other things, tattoos. Undertaken by the wonderful jims_skins (my son). really liking the vennn diagram feel (the best of all diagrams). biggest and longest one, so far. don't anyone tell me that it doesn't hurt to get a tattoo...........

whatisyourmeaning?

some of the great questions pupils at St Michael's CofE Primary school in Louth asked of the Meridian Line sculptures last week - Do you ever get bored? Are you tired of standing? Do you feel pain? Do you enjoy standing? Why am I holding this? Are you cold? Do you have a soul? Why can girls figure it out, but the men can’t? Why do you have pieces missing? Do you like being wacked? Why do you have lines all over you? How many people have you seen? Why did you decide to be here? What is your meaning? If you were real, what would you do? What do you think about? What is it like to know the Meridian Line? How many more years will you last? What is it like being iron and rock rather than skin? Why do you have a stump on your head?  How old are you? Are you insured? What is it like being a statue? Are you okay? Do you need help? Do you have a brain? Does anybody celebrate your birthday? How much longer do I have to stay here? What’s happening to this world? How did you get your scar? What is it like to see the outside? How are you not cold? How do you keep yourself entertained? What would you say if you could talk? What is the favorite thing you’ve seen? Why is everyone else moving but not me? What do you see that we haven’t? – Do you ever think of being a real person? Why don’t people stay with me forever? How do you survive not talking? What do you do all day? Why are we all lonely? Why was I put here? What is the Meridian Line? 

returningtothefuture

Last week saw me returning to Louth to develop work based on a piece of public artwork I created with Laurence Edwards 22 years ago – it was great to revisit the pieces that have obviously been valued and looked after by the community – it was as if I left them yesterday rather than 22 years ago. The original work set out to create a moment of stillness and reflection, whilst celebrating something that we cannot see. The pieces were used as a catalyst to help us explore our imagination, we looked at how art enables us to engage in the world, to see potential in the seemingly mundane and celebrate what we value through creative thinking. Working with 90 pupils from St. Michael’s Church of England Primary School in Louth over 2 days we generated lots of questions and answers alongside sculptures, books, and drawings. Now I’m in the process of designing a book. Everyone gets a copy. Spent time in Sheffield and Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Really good to see old favorite's at YSP, the Hepworth’s and Moore’s alongside the awesome Hirst’s and the gloriously lowkey disturbing work by Lindsey Mendick. Also managed to see the awesome Seizure by Roger Hiorns.

craftcraftartmagic

I’ve been thinking about craft recently and how over the years what I do has been adopted into the craft arena. This is something that I have readily agreed with, I love the idea of connecting to a method of doing something with a long history. My work has often straddled several worlds and I have engaged with taxonomy, the art craft debate has fueled many an evening. On reflection, often the categorization would appear to of been about the outcome, whether the work looked like craft was one way of engaging with the argument. This was to neglect examining the impetus, the intention around the engagement with the process of making. Reflecting on a recent body of digital 3D printed structures has meant that I have been asking the question What is the role of the digital in this word? I have been thinking how technological procedures can have similar properties to what some would deem traditional craft practices. I can see this, both in my own current work and within recollecting discussions around what is needed to make work – idea, process, materials, and equipment.

I'm deep into assessment on a course I teach on, and a student’s research report leant on Malcolm McCullough’s Abstracting craft to build a similar argument. McCullough touches on the idea of the soul of craft, that ‘The possibility or craft lies not so much in the technology as in the outlook you bring to it’. It talks about how you use and look at this technology to create a product. In that way the current work is an indicator of my relationship between craft and digital practices. However I'm also in some way drawn to the sentiments expressed by Ivan Pope who admits that whenever he hears about 3D printing a part of him still screams, "WITCHCRAFT!". We are all adding to the discussion of what we deem to be craft for the 21st century. 

magiciswithinusall

A fascinating session at Kings, working with Jon Armstrong enabled us to explore magic within a scientific context – thinking about the magic we all have, thinking about what constitutes magic - the information or secrets that we have accumulated over our practice. Reflecting on the session both in and on the moment and it gets me to thinking about the unseen, the value of stillness – the idea of direction and gesture. It will be interesting to embed these ideas into my day to day teaching as well as rethinking my approach to the studio and making. Reflecting on the idea of the secret took me to craft and the factory. How the experience of working within a scientific field has informed and influenced my making is something I’m constantly thinking about – it happens almost by osmosis – how new ideas have transformed my approach rather than thinking of the work being directly an illustration. The current 3D work explores the seen and unseen, the process of the body as an idea of the internal/external seen simultaneously. Something there and not there, fixed in the moment, the work itself and the idea of it changes as you move around the piece, in that timeframe it exists but it can shift form in a heartbeat, unfixed. This fluidity of thinking shifts away from a need to give objects fixed meaning, a move away from focusing on the object. The craft of 3D printing, using and thinking about the process, to go beyond seeing it as a tool to use, to manufacture, and to use it to explore ideas rather than a means to an end, creating rather than documenting, developing a dialogue with the machine, a language. Meanwhile I managed to see Imi Knoebel’s exhibition ‘Once Upon a Time’ at White Cube Bermondsey which was bright with possibilities. Leah Gordon’s extraordinary photographs Kanaval at Ed Cross Fine Art are extraordinary and mostly disturbing. Onto screens – Megan – disturbing in an OMG AI is taking over. Nolly – disturbing in a wasn’t the past terrible way. Infamously in love – disturbing in a tragic way. Banshee of Inisherin - disturbing in quiet dark way.