Unit 1: Reflective Journal/Studio Diary
This reflective journal/studio diary serves as a record of my practice on a weekly basis. It records and documents the development of my studio practice in a chronological order. I see this journal as a cornerstone in my ability to work through and properly absorb the workings of my practice. These recordings function as a necessary reflection of my trials and errors, the material exploration, the risks I take, and the processes of my developing works. It is where everything I am making, thinking, and reading is noted down in one place, almost like a working sketchbook.
Studio Space 12/10/21
11/10/2021 Beginner’s mind
My intentions on how to approach this vigorous and in-depth period of study is to come at it with a beginner’s mind. In many ways I am beginning again.
Beginning in (re-entering) education
(re)Beginning with my practice
The beginning of this course/at the starting line
I’m trying to embrace the fear of these new beginnings and the sense of overwhelm that comes with it.
I am trying to free up the judgement and assumptions.
Not getting too hung up things going horribly wrong
Working this stuff out as I go
Being open to curiosity and wonder, not thinking about the outcome necessarily, more exploring for its own sake.
Other than settling into the reality of doing an MA, I have also been trying to unravel what’s come before in my practice. And now to ask questions of what it will become.
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Subject – I will explore the territory of breathing/the breath. This will be a physical, embodied, and spatial relation. But it will also be rooted in the real science of the breath/breathing. I have never had such a referent basis in my work before. My work has never been ‘about’ a subject in such a way, so how to navigate a subject matter which is essentially new to me and my relationship to making is daunting.
I need to get to know my practice again - To me, my practice is an extension of myself, it’s both me and an other. It has to reflect me, it’s something internalised that has to come out, it’s very intuitive. I see it as a dialogue and at the moment I don’t understand what it is saying or what it is doing. My most common question of my work right now is ‘I don’t know what you are’. It’s gotten lost somewhere in translation and I need to get to know it again so I can articulate it the way I want to…to find the words to hang on it. Once I’ve sussed it, I will then distance myself (the personal) and leave it to its own devices.
Language – following on from above, it is important to me that the words I use to describe my practice are purposeful.
The particulars of the language used informs the reading of it, the perception of it. At the moment I am unable to cling to many words because I don’t yet have the ones I want. The research that I will undertake will be the starting point, what words I find to resonate with will back up my intended communication of ‘the breath’. Once I have found the words (through research) there will be a foundation to build this on.
Particulars – the thread of prior arenas my practice was dealing with will continue to inform what happens now. My interest in drawing being that it is a mobile and versatile agency in which it’s elusive, ungraspable yet inescapable nature persists in going undefined, unanswered, and is unwilling to be committed towards a complete certainty of what drawing is or can be. This will be with specific focus on the line, the space it is opening onto, into, and its look of curious intent. What drawing (as informant and way of thinking) can influence and do, where it can bleed into other spatial arenas. How material/matter investigates other material/matter, process, and installation.
14/10/2021 Tutorial with Kate Terry
What am I making?
To just get going on making something I have x2 ideas I am going to run with
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Stop motion video from my laryngoscopy – this will be a step out of my comfort zone as stop motion isn’t a medium I have used before. I have a ‘failed’ drawing (failed as a whole) that I have cut up into pieces which I want to use to create the shapes of the larynx and try to mimic the movement and transitions. I am hoping to capture that sense of breathing rubbing up against glitch (not necessarily smooth movements) and a sense of a life of its own.
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Steel drawing involving curves – I have a drawing in my sketchbook I want to see realised in real life. I have no doubt that in the process of doing it is going to start to shift and alter things, so it won’t become a replica, it’ll be a drawing of its own. I will be using 6mm steel rods which are thin enough to create bends and curves (something I never utilised in my practice before, and didn't like I’ll see if I like it now) I am going to limit its size to about table height (I imagine) and I need it to stand up on its own. But it’s going to be very spindly so I don’t know how that will work out.
Sketchbook Page - as mentioned in entry dated 14/10/21
20/10/2021(edited 05/11/2021) Failed things
I tried my first attempt at a stop motion video, and it was horrendous. I think this was because I could not navigate it or get around it in the way I naturally ‘draw’ there was a massive disconnect between my intuitive gesture/process. I find it so hard to get my head around, I just don’t pre-empt in such a way.
The infuriation of my incapability is unbearable my not understanding the process and it feeling so alien made me take it out on myself. My inability to make anything left me feeling like I needed to have a result that was immediate. I needed that direct and fast impact immediate and direct, like the result of instantaneous drawing.
So I got ink and a dropper onto paper and just breathed onto it. But just breathing normally has no effect. And in my crossness, I blew at it which gave immediate, semi controlled marks (pictured below). I think this made me realise I need that physical contact in that push/pull of controlling a material and the dialogue it enables you to have.
The effect on me (physically is being out of breath and I can only do this for so long) and feeling sick from the number of forced breaths) The endurance aspect showed me some of my limits and also relates to the fact that this isn’t a personal exploration.
The effect in terms of outcomes of the work was organic spindle-like lines, spidery. They do have a sense of direction, like reaching. Look as though they are made by blowing through a straw (studio comment) so they do look like a breath?
They are childlike and their level of simpleness bothers me. It’s like it means nothing. They appear playful (as commented in the studio) which is an element I want – how to balance the childlike inconsequential aspect with the playful, purposeful?
Breath Drawing 1
Breath Drawing 2
21 & 22/10/2021 Welding lines
I went with a drawing (pictured from entry on 14/10/21) and had the intentions of trying to recreate it in 3d on a relatively small (table-sort-of-size) scale. But I automatically started working bigger and free forming the shapes, by the time I realised I wasn’t even working with the drawing anymore my attempts to try to bring it back to it were pointless. I felt the usual conflict and contempt at ‘copying’ 2d into 3d. The very process itself is drawing – sizing the lines, shaping them, welding them, angle griding the joins to make them smoother – I see no difference between this and drawing with pencil and paper. If anything, I think nowadays I find the latter harder to translate. My previous way of working with steel was always with straight lines, hard edges, sharp angles and corners. I never used the curved line. Working with steel again now, my intention was to work with bending the steel into the curves. There is a very fine balance between a quality mark (bend) and a crap one. And it’s a hard balance to get right. Because I haven’t welded in so long my aim is a bit off and my technique needs sharpening to make cleaner welds. There are elements of my lines which I really like. This particular bend, where it crosses over, the gesture is just right (pictured below right). Making curved lines stand up is difficult due to getting the weight bearing right and I just work through trial and error.
There are parts that are really working, but as a whole I am not yet convinced. I want these lines to be able to look purposeful, have the authority of a confident quality of line. There are parts within these drawings which aren’t quite there yet.
I am just playing, not sure, so the lines aren’t sure. There isn’t a true purpose or connection. They are just things for their own sake. Working around and in them again is a nice place to be in. It's very physical and intimate. But I am tired now.
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​Other Notes;
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Usual issues of line needing a ‘clean’ space for it to be visible
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Difficulties in making it stand up and hold its own is a lot harder with curved lines
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The overall configuration is not working, it doesn’t feel cohesive
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The 'composition' looks sloppy
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The combination of curved and looping lines alongside hard, straight angles needs to be more considered so that they can relate to one another otherwise it doesn’t match up in dialogue with the curves. If it is going to be this way it must be intentional and look intentional
Steel Lines, workshop to studio
Steel Curved Lines
28/10/21 Silent Crit Notes (of studio wall & steel drawings)
It is so interesting to hear people’s perspectives and trains of thought on your work without being able to speak about it for yourself, fascinating how far a conversation can go and sometimes frustrating when you can’t input, respond, defend, or steer! But I do think it gives a wonderful insight into how your work is being read without you (which it would in any exhibition setting) and how successful you are at communicating your ideas.
On the whole I do think my work is doing exactly as intended/gave a very honest account of where it is at, and I would agree with all the interpretations that were made as very similar to my own reflections. (Notes in blue here are my reflections on the crit comments)
Presentation – would we view it on this height, would it naturally be on this height? Where it is placed as a sculptural object will change it a lot and change your view - I am very aware of this navigation and play with its presentation purposefully, but in this instance, it was on the studio desk in a studio crit.
Scale – amazing ambition in making something of scale, that it feels human, not imposing nor diminutive – again the scale of the steel lines has always been relative to human scale. I am keen to look at scaling down/up more simple line structures that relate directly to the human breathing tracts.
Enquiry of breath – how a title might make you look at it differently – titles (when they come) will have a large bearing on rooting the work into the subject of breath and act as a signpost to the viewer in that way
A big breath in and/or out, but then we have interruptions as well, separate pieces, integral parts which help it stand up, but it is not a continuous line – how do we see that in relation to breath, there is no rhythm in or out either when I made these steel drawings I wasn’t thinking about the breath and knew that there was little relation (it was actually about the probe of the laryngoscopy!) but it was interesting to hear where relations could be made and the scope I have to pull on here – thinking about the rhythm, the look of an inhale/exhale and how a line could communicate that.
One piece of work or the appearance of it being one piece of work, when its actually separate parts I like that I am able to pull apart/entwine numerous individuals which change the scope of the whole
What if it wasn’t a steel rod – what if it were a tube/pipe – something you could blow through – technically this would be difficult to achieve the same lines, they’d collapse I am interested in seeing what the scope is of still working with steel, but building a line which is hollow, how possible is this?
Something to explore, something that wasn’t solid
The tension between the shape and the material – metal rod is one of the least bodily materials I could think of it would be interesting to see it in a different material to see what it would look like – repeated lines in different materials – different metals, something more malleable?
Strong/hard/aggressive – breath is so soft and you have used something so hard (materials)
Tube – directly bodily, in terms of internal organs,
Fleshy pink tube, what if it was painted, the blackness of it is much closer to a pencil line, a drawing line, and it really is a drawing in space – how important is this? It’s not glossy or powder coated, and whether or not that is part of it?
Colour is obviously part of the work, but it’s not in this, does it come in in a different way. – this interests me a lot, what happens if I change the colour of the rod?
It feels like a design, an imprint – this was an interesting point, again it lends itself to this idea of repeating itself in other ways
Pleasing shapes, pink slab. Silicone or foam, I’d love to see it as a puddle of something sculptural.
Honesty about the material – it’s not hiding how it’s been made – I’m glad that this honesty comes through
They look flexible, even though the materials are rigid. – I enjoy playing with these contradictions and I liked that it was apparent
When you work with steel (or other materials) it goes from being rigid to being floppy, almost liquid. There is something about that moment, to even maybe record. There is something about this that reminds me of when the body relaxes or collapses, there’s a release that the materials could describe in some way.
There is probably a practical purpose to it, but this point has a real finality to it, there is no angularity to it anywhere else, but this feels like a real stopping point, an end. and in the context of the breath that is an interesting proposition. Formally it works really well as a little tail, but relating back to the breath it feels disjointed. This is a very honest reading coming through that when I made it – first time combining hard angle with curve and getting the balance of the composition right (and I don’t think it is)
Having heard Michaela speak about her own personal journal with the breath, coming back to this part of the sculpture feels intentional, maybe its appropriate then. This feeling of something being limited in some way. I found this interesting, but I am not sure how much I want to represent this idea of dysfunction, if at all.
I think this structure is – there is a lot of people working in this way – this is a really exciting and engaging sculpture/drawing – there is a well-trodden territory, it’s really pleasing, and it’s trying to work out what makes this different from all of those, in terms of where its coming from (ref. Caro/Vera Cox) there is a lot of people who work in this way, it’s trying to carve out your territory because its coming from quite a different place as well. I am aware of this, I am only at the beginning of this enquiry and have a way to go to work this out, but I get the impression that these other examples are more closely related to sculpture than they are drawing, and often seem like an alternative ‘working’ plinth?
I'd also like to see other materials. Other materials which could suggest air capacity, things being inflated/deflated. And things being limited without making literal references it feels that you work very materially and bringing in some other materials that might become part of the main stay of your practice, motifs, part of your tool kit and familiar references in your work. The line, or rod, is one of them. This will be brand new territory; I don’t want to make anything which is overtly kinetic, but I do really like this idea of movement and inflation/deflation, rising and lowering, filling and emptying – I like this play of opposites and what materials have a capacity to convey this but maybe not in the most obvious way?
The line is almost balletic
Is it necessary to continue the line?
It suggests this one long thing that you might follow
Ceramics wouldn’t necessarily be about line? Difficult to make a line in ceramics
Sound – to explore, recording the sound of breathing, working with metal, breathwork, as sketches for experimentation as elements within it could be interesting I am hesitant here, I’ve never really considered sound as a material I work with, I am also put off by the effect it has on my own breathing, but I can see that this could develop as a part of a wider whole, I also like the idea of seeing them as sketches
The pink slab – reminds me of cosmetics, even though no one would wear that colour, pastel – curious to see where that’s going to go
Once you start thinking about breathing you can’t stop thinking about it – this is an interesting thing to evoke. It feels like people are talking about breathwork a lot more right now, in terms of well-being, and also as a result of covid, being out of breath, anxiety, living with long covid, it feels like something we are more aware of. I think that is something we can all understand, we have all experienced some time
There is no regularity to this, it’s not a proposal for an ideal breath, of this is how you should breath,
What about the idea of presenting a rhythm to follow, to ground - I think rhythm is going to be important, or an sense of pace or cadence
You’ve made a work already, and it is a completed work, thinking where next, what else does it need, if you are making companion work for it, what does that look like? What would be its friends? Or its siblings? Definitely something I am trying to work out!
01/11/21 Pecha Kucha Presenting Research - Points made & planking
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Alchemical
My combining of science, artists and books were described as ‘alchemical’ which I was delighted to hear because my takeaway from that is that I am moving into this space, quite an intangible space and subject, successfully.
‘a transmutation of matter…a magical process of transformation, creation or combination’ – I see this as a chemist-like action and process of conjuring or enchantment in some way – if I can make my work look like its doing this (this look of doing is important) where matter almost has a lightness of touch.
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Matter
The science and medical element were presented as matter, rather than self-exploration – that this was clearly communicated – I was really pleased to have this comment because it articulated for me the attempt I was trying to make in using this material, as material. Which is an important distinction and has given me the conscious ability to verbalise this distinction and instantly helps me remove the personal.
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Planking
The works of the artists I am looking to, the poses and postures of Pilates/yoga came across – I had not consciously noted this before, now it’s been pointed out I can really see it. I like the idea that the sculptures positions could be seen as them exercising. Again, it is this sense of activity, physical effort, of doing something – this look of doing. Because this makes these sculptures active in what it is they are doing, it’s not merely matter sitting there, there is more to it than that.
Visual links between images pictured on the front cover of A Pilates Primer, selected works of Theodora Djordjadze and my own sketched lines mimicking these
04/11/2021 Artist Interview with Sophie Sargan
During this conversation I realised something about the stopping point of my work which I wanted to make a note of because I think it is important but haven’t fully grasped why yet.
She asked me ‘when do I know when to stop’ and I realised that the answer was when (especially in the case of the steel drawings) they have the ability to stand up on their own, literally stand on their own [two] feet. And I wonder if that says more about it than I realise (or not). I also wonder if this principle applies to other mediums I work in, in a sense, and if so, what are the similarities or differences?
09/11/2021 Metal Point Workshop
I didn’t know this/register this before (I am not sure why) but the very idea that what you draw with when working with a pencil, the material itself (or at least in original form e.g. lead) is metal – and this relation to me working with the steel line. In order to draw/make a mark, the surface upon which you are drawing must be harder than the metal you are using. There is something in that. Some relevance I haven’t put my finger on yet.
12/11/2021 Ceramics
(Finally managed to book on to a workshop!)
I am out of my comfort zone here and to work my way into this medium I wanted to start with basic processes and basic shapes. There are some repeat motifs I've been drawing in my sketchbook that I wanted to create in clay. They feel basic in terms of being quite simplistic and maybe also being quite common pleasing clay-forms that maybe is an overdone commodity. But if I start there, get them out of my system, more things will evolve from that form when I am able to understand it for myself in physicality.
The motifs are pulled from anatomy illustrations of the diaphragm, nasal passages, and orifices which I have simplified into reduced forms, summarising shapes. It is important to note that I am not depicting accuracy in these things, not for the sake of generalising, but because although I use medical/science on breathing as material, resource and matter, that level of cleanness and clinical-esque depicting is not present in my work, instead it comes more in the form of sensing and essences.
The lengthy process of ceramics (and the impossibility of being able to get in the workshop) means this is going to be very slow moving. I need other things being made on the go around this. Once these are fired, I will then glaze these objects. I am hoping that the colours I make them will be the asset of these pieces, it is what will mark their presence, enhance their characters, and add to their physicality.
Making ceramics works
Video of clay piece modelled off of the shape of the diaphragm, trying to prop it up so it holds its shape as the clay dries.
Sketchbook pages of ideas for ceramics works - based on imagining breathing orifices, nasal and mouth holes, the shapes of the sinuses and the diaphragm and symbols that suggest its directional movements
From working in my sketchbook, I felt the need to bring colour into my work but this is always something I struggle with. I work on intuition and hunches when it comes to colour and that makes it difficult to articulate reasoning. In this instance I feel the need for colour to fill a certain disposition of emptiness, colour makes them something more. There is also something of coding (or colour coding). In looking at medical illustrations, set colours often relate to set body parts or functions. They are often very bright and harsh. They are, what I find to be, ugly colours. There is a degree of bodily-ness I want to maintain but not for it to border on the visceral, I’d like to avoid that territory because it’s simply not who I am, and in turn what I create. I also want to lighten and perhaps soften (?) the forms, loosening them to make them more airy/buoyant.
The result of the bisc firing
(Left) Mouth, buff stoneware, bisc fired, 10 x 1 cm
(Middle) Nasal holes (large), buff stoneware, bisc fired, 20 x 1 cm
(Right) Nasal holes (small), buff stoneware, bisc fired, 15.5 x 0.5 cm
(Left) Hole 1, buff stoneware, bisc fired, 12 x 1 cm
(Middle Left) Hole 2, buff stoneware, bisc fired, 14.5 x 1 cm
(Middle Right) Hole 3, buff stoneware, bisc fired, 16 x 1 cm
(Right) Diaphragm Impressions, buff stoneware, bisc fired 12 x 11 x 1 cm, 16.5 x 11 x 1 cm, 12 x 7 x 1 cm, 9.5 x 10 x 1 cm
(Left) Sinus Pieces, buff stoneware, bisc fired, various sizes, 5.5 x 1 cm to 2.5 x 1 cm
(Middle) Sinus Pieces, buff stoneware, bisc fired, various sizes 6 x 1 cm to 2.5 x 0.5 cm
(Right) Diaphragm Drawing, buff stoneware, bisc fired
18/11/2021 Breath Lines
Sketchbook page - breath line ideas and thoughts
I am trying to make a line that follows the ‘look’ of the breath, the trajectory and flow of the line as movements of an inhale and an exhale. I am not sure how successful these are, they are a lot looser in their stance and I feel like that could be an issue because part of the line’s presence is this rigidity/structure it allows for. This begs the question as to whether or not I am depicting it quite right, where is the balance between something as airy as a breath line and the activeness of a solid steel line and how can I make it meet in the middle?
I am going to colour some of these lines (sought technical help, because steel rusts over time and I wasn’t sure how effective it would be)
Automotive primer – then paint with colour.
Colours picked will come from the colour swatches of medical illustrations.
Colour swatches from a diagram of the larynx
Colour swatches from a diagram of the human respiratory system
Colour swatches from X-ray of the diaphragm
Colour swatches from 3D diagram of the diaphragm
19/11/2021 Gary Colclough Artist Talk + Practical introduction to watercolour & pigments workshop
In his Artist Talk, Gary Colclough spoke of making works as 'kits', 'as a way of thinking about a subject'. He said 'when thinking about subject areas, think of them as dialogues and activities rather than things', it is in this way that he approaches painting, drawing and sculpture and combines them. He gave the example of a kit for nature (see work pictured right), keeping it very simple, he considered the drawing of trees, the colour green, and the use of wood and how it could be constructed into a composition.
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It made me consider what a 'kit' for an image of a breath would look like.
What parts would I need?
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I also like the way he gets the shape of the work, the frame, its format, to do some of the work of the piece, and how he enables the space around the work to be activated without filling it.
Along the Path, 2017
Coloured Pencil, paper, panel, hardwood, teak, archival varnish with UVA filter, heritage emulsion wall painting, 86 x 74 x 1.8cm
20/11/2021 Idea of ‘loosening’
What is this? what do I mean? It’s a word that has been coming up a lot lately.
Definitions include – ‘make (something tied, fastened, or fixed in place) less tight or firm.’
make less strict
Less control
Become weaker
In these definitions, there is a sense of becoming ‘lesser’
But what about the flip side to that? Relax, release, set free?
24/11/2021 Annealed Steel
I wanted to try working with a softer, thinner metal
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Less force needed to manipulate it and I wouldn’t always have to rely on workshop equipment to bend it
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To depict more detailed and connected structures
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Test out other metals with similar processes
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I've been thinking about the use of the lines to draw delineations in the respiratory system, rather than of the breath. These were working from
images of the sinuses because I think they are such interesting shapes. This isn’t doable in the 5mm steel rods when hand bending them.
I sought technical help from the metal workshop and was advised to try out annealed steel, which is a lot softer. The bonus was that I would still be able to weld these lines together which aids the continuity of the line, rather than having broken up or obvious joins. They also came in a lovely copper colour, however, when welded that area changed colour drastically so I am considering making these lines coloured first to see what the result is before the larger breath lines as the scale is much more doable.
Annealed steel bent into shape in multiple parts (because of the limits of the length of the wire)
All parts now welded together, note change of colour where the welds are
(In the Studio) first time all the works sitting together in the space space - there is a sense of harmony between the different parts, the colours of the copper with the un-glazed ceramics is complimentary, a certain nakedness.
I also really like how the small ceramic pieces sit within the steel lines, they look like little bone structures.
26/11/2021 Forged lines
I tried out a new technique of heating up the steel lines with a blow torch until it was glowing hot and then bending them.
This produces much cleaner, smoother, and perhaps in some ways more visually pleasing lines. But I feel like there are limitations to this method.
Firstly, this process can only be done on a very small scale with small sections of steel due to space limits and H&S.
This isn’t too much of a problem as to get around this, small sections can be worked on and then welded together to make it larger. However, I find it difficult to keep in mind the many multiple parts when working on such small pieces at a time, to keep it flowing as it’s a very broken up process. Heating, bending, cooling.
This process lends itself to very small and tight bends and curves best, I am not sure how much use I have for so many small bends - it starts turning into spirals and pigtails more for the sake of the shape and not for anything else.
This process made me very aware of the sense and ability to touch. Because of the extreme heat, you can’t touch the metal.
So, while it gave me more control, I actually felt further removed and distanced from the material and process itself, literally, as you have to stay away from the heated sections and avoid touching them. This makes me feel a frustration or limitation, you can’t get near it and there is something important in this when working at such a level of manipulation.
This session was purely to play, and by the end of it I didn’t really know what I was doing or what it meant anymore, so I had to stop.
Using the blowtorch to heat the steel for bending
Bending the steel rod after it has been heated
30/11/2021 Animation Workshop
This workshop, organised by the university, took us through step by step the process of doing stop motion animation for a drawing. The task being to get from a classmate’s drawing, through a series of frames, to morph into your own drawing. The result was a drawing which wiggled and twitched as it shapeshifted, and I loved it. Being walked through this process frame by frame, was so helpful to me to finally be able to start to get my head around this process.
I have been thinking more and more about the animations/gifs you get with breathing exercises – the expansion and retraction. Often in their simplest forms, they are just circles. I want to start with some basic shapes and forms and seeing what I can achieve.
I think the reason I am keen to use stop motion drawings is because it lends itself so well to the notion of twitching with life, it feels like a living thing, it’s like breathing life into a drawing (forgive the pun). Plus, there is still a closeness to the drawing itself, it takes on this and/also stance where the materiality of it is in two places at once – the static drawn material, and the lines which move – and it gets to sit in both places at the same time which gives vibrancy to its matter.
Sources of example videos/GIFs
Top Left: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldFD-L-Csz0
Top Right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEqZthCaMpo
Bottom Left: https://giphy.com/explore/breathe-in-breathe-out
Bottom Right: https://dailyburn.com/life/lifestyle/stressed-gifs-breathing-exercises/
3/12/2021 Recording Breathing
As it had been recommended to me more than once to make recordings of the sound of breathing, I hired an audio device to do this. I think I would be a fool not to have at least tired recording breathing, especially as one of our main conscious interactions with breath is through sound, it is an audible thing, and our attention is often only drawn to it by its noise.
That said, I don’t feel like I want to explore using sound as a material that much. I can see where it might come into works later down the line, to be paired with parts of an installation or video. But for now, I am just using them as sketches and experiments and to test out this way of working.
I had volunteers from my Pilates class breathe for me (breath 1 & 2). Being covid conscious was an issue here and made this way of working difficult. This was not to set exercises, this was just breathing into the microphone.
I recorded just myself breathing to get around covid restrictions (breath 3, mouth breath, bow breath), but then it meant I had to have more breath to give (literally)
Take away points from the recording process were
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To be audible enough you had to do heavier mouth breathing, nasal breathing is difficult to pick up, the result of this is exhaustion and light-headedness
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Using my own breath just highlighted and amplified all the things that don’t work properly (the squeak of my nose, wheezing) and I am not interested in the ‘failings’ of my breath
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Having just the sound of breath as the material with nothing else around it heightens so much of your attention to just that one thing, so you go looking for things in it, like anomalies, or stressed situations
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Because it wasn’t for anything other than a test in itself, it was hard to know what to do when recording – what is this for? - things to give it parameters are needed, which is why I think it is better to be a recording to go with another piece of work (e.g. an animation, or background sound to an installation)
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At the moment, I don't know what to do with these, there's nothing to hang them on/with, they just exist. I don't have much interest in working with sound by itself. Maybe this will be something to come back to later to add another layer to physical material?
Group Breath (6 people) - feels quite forced
Group Breath (6 people) - more relaxed
Me breathing, mix of mouth and nasal breathing - you can hear all my breathing dysfunctions
Me breathing, steady mouth breathing
Me breathing, set breathing techniques, inhaling and exhaling through mouth
09/12/2021 Group Crit Notes with Leonora Brook
I am reeling from this crit - it was intense and I have a lot to consider!
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I am using breath – but to the audience it’s nothing to do with this.
It’s pointing towards something, but it needs to be about more than that – why is it more interesting? What about it is more interesting?
Its more about the materials themselves, the materials and the forms.
If the lines become colourful, something important might be lost, it will remove the heaviness, it will make it rubber and plastic-like. It will mask aspects of what it is about. Colour is symbolic, what will it symbolise? It will change them into something graphic (rather than being like drawings)
The lines themselves – they speak of fragility, tremor, playing with space, being open and closed and a sense of balance, these are drawings in space. Dealing with surface, mass, line, void – and playing between these formal aspects
How do the lines fit together with the ceramic pieces, which are animated and clumsily made?
Suggested that I make a series that explore key ideas/themes of the breath, to try and embody that particular feeling/aspect.
Note: similarity between this comment and Gary Colclough's 'kits', making me consider doing this more and more
Discussion in relation to ‘angry breath drawings’ – what if these were made huge? Printed out really big and cut out? Or laser cut? Scan them in really high res and then print them out very large? Play with these forms.
They are sculptural things if they could be released from the paper. They are irregular but have their own rhythm and they are the literal result of a breath, something that actually happened. They are forces going out (blowing out) what about forces going in? is this doable?
Flotsam and jetsam – they were called being like flotsam and jetsam (had to look this up) debris (relating to marine) odds and ends, rubbish – not sure how I feel about this yet. I guess it could be the debris of a breath?
There is also a capacity for them to be like mobiles (both the ink drawings and the steel lines), rather than floor based or wall based, they could be air based?
Consider other ways air could be recorded, that mobile sense – like dust moving? Filming this.
10/12/2021 Glazing Ceramics
I was finally able to book onto a ceramics slot to glaze my pieces – I was asked why I hadn’t painted them with just household paint or got my own glaze in this time – firstly I want the opportunity to be able to test glazes and I want to start here. Secondly glaze often has a glass like texture or appearance that becomes the thing itself (it goes beyond adhering to a surface, it becomes it), it’s a quality paint doesn’t have.
The colours that I had gone in mind with quickly went out the window when I realized that the glaze stock is just simply whatever is to hand and nothing specific. I decided to go with a range of blue colours as I was thinking of blue as perhaps the best colour to symbolise breath. I have no idea how they will turn out; I’ll find out when they come out the kiln!
16/12/2021 Glazed
The glazes have come out so bad! This is definitely not what I had in mind, not only do I need to refine my techniques, I also want to use better colours. Now that I know the process better, I think I will investigate purchasing certain colours of my own that I am likely to want to use on a regular basis to make it cost effective.
They have turned out very blotchy, coverage is poor - this is my fault, I think I needed to add more layers of glaze.
Where I attempted to do a dip of a clear glaze you can see all my mistakes - fingerprints and blotches - this piece also has a very obvious crack. It's very dull, it almost looks dusty, I wanted the opposite of this, vibrant and clear.
(Left) The one set that did turn out better than the rest in terms of overall glaze coverage (minus a few spots) and is a nicer blue. But this glaze makes the works look more pebble-like. It has a grain to it and there is something geological about them, this aesthetic is moving in a direction I don’t want to go in.
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(Right) Again, poor coverage, and overall colour is more brown than blue. I think I used the glaze wrong here too, it should have been dipped and not painted.
This was an attempt at an underglaze that did not go well, again not enough coverage.
Quite possibly the worst one! You can see all the paintbrush marks. This piece is also cracked. I need to find out why this happened.
16/12/2021 Pop up show Crit with Dan Howard-Birt
This was our first pop up exhibition; I was not present for the curation of a large part of this. It threw up some really interesting discussion.
DH-B: Thinking about the line in relationship to a number of other works, the dialogue it strikes with other works in the show.
This turns into a three-dimensional presence – emerging forms, where something is suggested but not quite fulfilled, it presents an idea but doesn’t feel the need to illustrate it. This stops even shorter, this is almost, it’s very, slight is the wrong word, but there is a quietness to it.
In your absence, we installed a complex one on three levels, then coming back we find a much more restrained approach. Where were your fears and anxieties about the complexity, what was it you wanted to explore better by choosing simpler forms?
Me: I came in to a messy space, an unfinished install, with no idea what had happened yesterday. To me they looked like they had been stashed. And because I store them in a similar way in the studio, that’s not them presenting themselves. That’s them being stored out of the way. so I pulled them out.
DH-B: That is interesting. In the studio they were all woven over one another…the feeling was that that was where the enthusiasm was. The fact that we had misperceived the territory of your practice. How does that make you feel when you come in here?
Me: It makes me concerned of how they are seen, in terms of what is the difference between them lying around doing nothing and being passive and when they are being active. Where does that judgement take place in someone else’s mind rather than my own because without me there, they were still passive. And how do I then make that space activated by someone else, and not me.
When I watch other people move around them, it always shocks me how invisible they are. I think my sense of spatial awareness is heightened, just because that’s the work that I make, and then how obvious does the line need to be to be seen.
DH-B: You talk about the misconception of them as if it were a negative quality, and it fills you with concern that the work doesn’t, isn’t, concrete enough in its intention. Do you ever get excited about the possibilities of misconception?
Me: I do, the only reason I am tentative about it at the minute is because I don’t know them very well myself. I think that’s why. Otherwise, yes. I would play on that on purpose. But I do worry about certain aspects of H&S (laughs)
So yes, the precariousness, the tentativeness, the almost visible. I do play on those aspects on purpose.
DH-B: There is so many recent examples that tell this story about installing works, an example of an ICA show of Barry Flannigan’s work wrapped in hessian, how much do we take off, how much do we leave on, there were no instructions, they just had to make an arbitrary decision, and Flanigan probably thought, of course they’ll know.
Another example of a friend’s paintings, when they go into museums and gallery spaces they get pinned in elegant arrangements, always in relation to light and space and architecture. She was asked to be in a show during lockdown. So, she shipped three paintings, they installed them in this show, they sent her these photographs and she was like ‘they are idiots, they put all three together, that is three works, not one, this is a nightmare! All those decisions I make in the studio, do they mean nothing?!’ and they mean absolutely everything, but that doesn’t mean anybody else is going to see it.
And the famous example of the Tate hanging a Matisse upside down for about twenty years. You don’t have to be someone with a very experimental practice, these things go wrong anyway.
I am interested in those misreading’s, misperceptions, misinterpretations.
That said, now we are not talking about misperception. We are talking about the thing you have decided to happen, so one way we could come to talk about these works is the idea of presence and absence, invisible and the visible. I think we can extrapolate this to talk about a conceptual realm too, how evident is decision making. How important is it that those values like form versus chance are significant?
What is the difference? The difference is in me, the viewer, the viewers perceptions. Again, a self-awareness, or self-consciousness in the viewer. In the way that I am now trying to analyse it as if it might possibly be chance orientated and at the same time, whether moving with it or through it, whether it becomes some sort of mutating or evolving formal proposition.
So, in some ways its modesty, its presentation, allows me a huge amount of space to invest in it, to ask questions. I am almost asking how it might exist on two different rhetoric frameworks, two different histories of making, two different philosophic propositions.
And in some ways, it is the simplicity of the gesture which opens up the complexity of the thought.
But there’s the artist with these anxieties of misconception. So that is the problem of artmaking. It is part of the mystery…to keep that moment of not knowing open for as long as possible.
Do you think it looks like a structure or an object, or do you think it looks like a drawing that’s been made in 3D? Drawing in space, what is a drawing in space then?
If you have drawing on a page, it has its relationship, you know where a curve is and where a line is. But with this, those change all the time. Where the line is, where the rhythm of a curve is, it is open when I stand in front of it.
Classmate 1: It has used what is already there
DH-B: The presence of the object in space, makes us aware of the space.
Classmate 2: It is more like drawing in VR…
DH-B: this happens a lot in virtual reality. It is very easy to push a line around in space if you have the digital skills, but here we are looking at in some ways a digital proposition made in raw material.
Classmate 2: If you think about its process, drawing is, if you take a pen, you create a line from nowhere, and this [my work] is where you bend a straight line…so this is not drawing.
DH-B: Wait a minute, look at this, this is Drawing MA, lots of things that are very tediously linked to drawing…
Classmate 3: I think this is drawing sculpture, there is a lot of kinds of drawing. So, we should think about flexibility, but in my opinion the space is distracting, people don’t pay attention…they need more clean space. Maybe that is why people are struggling to concentrate
DH-B: the way you approach works, is to consider the generosity of the works, the inclusivity of them. You think very much about the audience, and about how they might approach the work. The audience is going to need less distractions in order to focus more in a cleaner space.
This is definitely something of value, but there is also something to be said for testing conditions, forcing the viewer to do a bit harder work. I know that not every viewer is going to want to do that work, of course. But the more we make life easier for them, in a passive way, maybe we’ve made them see it just as something to put on their Instagram account.
In terms of installing, in the way you are speaking of, and of being delicate, I think it would be improved, thinking about these lines, with very precise lights and a cleaner environment, you would get shadows.
Classmate 2: Are you saying it is like drawing, or it is drawing?
Classmate 4: It’s even got a graphite feel to it, its grey, the texture
Classmate 2: I feel like it is mimicking drawing. And not being.
DH-B: I think it is interesting you use this word mimic, and I do think this is a mimetic drawing, and I don’t think that is a negative thing. I think meiosis, or the act of using an artifact, to re-enact the world, then that is essentially the definition of art making. In some ways all studio practice is a way of navigating, understanding the world. So, if you say this is a mimetic drawing, then I think that is a good thing. There is a kind of self-consciousness in that you might not only make drawing, but you might make something which is memetic of drawing and that feels like a completely extraordinary pursuit of how an object exists both within the world within tradition and in language.
Classmate 3: it is balanced
DH-B: Yes, it is balanced. There is something elegant about it, and, I’m going to use this word carefully, crap about it. And the balance between care and crap and I think that is part of the humour of it but also the elegance.
You referred to the welds, and some of these bends. In order to keep this up it is a bit like a walking stick, so suddenly the sculpture becomes like an elderly person that needs supporting. Some of these lines have a grace and an elegance but some of them very self-consciously have a jagged awkwardness so there is a constant to-ing and fro-ing between that which is extraordinary and transcendental, and that which is base and earthy and very close to its material truth.
Classmate 5: The minute the drawn sculpture arrives in the studio, the whole studio becomes an extension of the drawing because of all the other tonal lines in the space.
17/12/2021 Overhaul of Lines
The compositions of the steel pieces that I have been making just aren’t sitting right with me. They are weak. They aren’t holding their own. The composition also needs to be able to work from multiple angles (as you can move around them and see every aspect) and in some cases there is no achievement of this, even from just one point of view.
In the same way that you can do 99 bad drawings to get that one good drawing, this process is the same. In the same way you can render a quality line in a confident gestural mark but in and amongst that drawing you can also have lines that have been fiddled with, this is the same process.
There are aspects of them, where the quality of line is intact, that are working. But it is tied in with these fiddled lines.
I am going to cut up these lines and reform them into new compositions. Retaining those lines that are successful and re-adjusting those that aren’t. Throwing them all back into the pot as it were, pulling them back out, and re-drawing them.
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I am keen to keep the slenderness of the 6mm steel rod as I am enjoying its tentative presence in space – it hovers on the brink of a certain amount of visibility and because of its thinness it lends itself well to manipulation. There is something quietly impressive when a line that is fine is able to stand up, it looks a little like a feat in itself.
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With re-making these line pieces I want to up the scale. I don’t enjoy them being too diddy as this makes them feel lesser. I want them to address the viewer from similar heights to them – especially at the hips, because this gives a relation to legs and legs mean movement - an ableness, to get up or get about, stand, walk. Giving an association to the legs provides a reading to do with legs, but at the same time being very different to legs = simultaneously draw parallels and contradictions. I want to see what upping the scale does to its ability in being more autonomous.
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The below documentation shows all the lines I have made up to this point and their shortcomings.
2021 Annealed steel
2021 Annealed steel
2021 Annealed steel
2021 Annealed steel
The annealed steel lines were purely tests of a more malleable material to look at the idea of closed lines (a constant loop of inhale and exhale) and what that might look like in object form. It is almost too bland/nothing going on. Maybe scale is something to do with it?
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
I remade this in large scale while the stance is better when the line is more stable and less malleable it is still not doing a lot for me.
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
I then considered having open ended lines (below), and this was the resultant piece. I don't like the feet, both facing the same direction makes it look oddly decorative-gone-wrong. While the scale/height of it is better, the activity of the line feels empty, it isn't active and you don't get a sense of movement.
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
These are the forged steel lines that I am still unsure of. Again, these were tests to try out the process, so their actual form is of little consequence to anything.
I enjoy that they can be flipped and reconfigured, I also actually like their small and compact scale, more hand-able/something to hold, trace your hand along the line.
I have left these to one side as the process was so different, I feel like I am still mulling over their potential.
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This one is successful because it is of human height, you register it from the same space as yourself, you read it in relation to your body. Its looped ‘head’ reads like a head too, circular in shape and open, it’s like a face.
Its long-lined body traces down into a limb-like support with a little pointed toe at the end. It could almost be a dainty gesture. Or not too sure of itself and where it’s putting its feet.
It wobbles in place, not necessarily precariously, more comically. As though it bobs and dances in reciprocation. Or tentatively holds its pose.
There are human elements at play. It feels quietly alive.
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
I’ve come to affectionately call this one crap/care. I am going to make some alterations to it.
When I made this piece, it was my first time welding again after several years. So, my aim was off, and it is a very noticeable ugly weld, too noticeable. While I don’t hide my welds or how the work has been made, the level of honesty here is purely to do with welding ability and it is causing the work to be read as ‘crap’. Which is at odds with the care of the placement and elegance of the other lines that make up this piece. Other than that, there are elements here that are really working - the elegant looped lines, the relationship between the hooked over lines and their ability to stand and support one another.
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
2021 steel (6mm)
This one I just find to be an absolute mess. It is confused, there are lines and shapes all over the place, an odd relationship between the curves and the straight hard line of its 'foot' at the end. I have no idea what this one is getting at, to me I would call it a 'bad/failed' drawing (you know those days where you just can't draw - well that is what this is!)
08/01/2022 Stop Motion Animations
Since doing the stop motion animation workshop I have wanted to try this out for myself. I don’t know to what end, but I want to give it a go.
I like the methodical nature of the process involved in this making and the way it sort of develops on the brink of blindness. You have a feeling of what will happen, but you don’t know for sure. The end point of threading together all those minute moments is a little bit magic.
Initially I failed to grasp the full concept of drawing out an inhale and an exhale. I got it in static terms, but not in the details of animating the movement. I hadn’t appreciated the fact that there is a slight pause at the top of the inhale with full expansion and then that the exhale would be longer, more drawn out than the inhale.
1st Breath was my first attempt – while it expands and contracts, it doesn’t pick up these details.
2nd - I also tried and then decided that drawing with a thicker pen was not an aesthetic I wanted. It is blocky, the subtleties are lost, and it stopped relating to the line itself.
3rd – is a better attempt at picking up on those breathing movements, but I have looped it wrong, there is a halfway breath in between. It is also very simple, too simple? The background was also removed on this which has this feeling of emptying everything out.
4th – looking at expanding and contracting, but this shape’s references look too cervical to me. What I did gain from this animation was noticing the aura that happens around the drawing. I am more interested in that and those barely perceivable ripples and the subtle sense of movement it gives.
To view the above GIFs works properly, please click here.
5th – playing around with no looping sequence, something that could continue going rather than coming back on itself. I went in with the ideas of lungs, nostrils, passages, and tubes. I really enjoy the morphing from one state to the next and even though these states are different, how they hark back at themselves a bit like an echo, you get this sense of evolution.
As noted in the 4th stop motion animation above, I picked up on the aura around this animation. I like the ephemeral alterations made by the changing lighting. The temporal aspect of the process has captured this and turned it into movement which I find interesting.
13/01/2022 Does Pilates need to be a context?
Although I (originally) considered this context to be inconsequential to my practice, it is slowly becoming evident that it has more input than I realise, hence questioning whether or not it should become a context? Moving into Unit 2 I will investigate this further, but for now it is worth more than a note.
This context filters into my practice because it is my job. I have been teaching Pilates for over 10 years now. And that links to breathing, although I noted it in actual conversations with people, I never noted it here, properly, within my practice.
Some part of it is ‘inextricably bound up with the physical functions and mental manifestations of the human body’ (Robbins, J. 2006: 131) – my body and, therefore, the way I make.
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I am not interested in the physical exercise or the ideas of perfect postures that relates to Pilates. But since looking into Thea Djordjadze's work and her comments ‘I don’t think I’m doing forms. I am working with movements. I work with materiality or energy’ (Art It, 2011: Part II) and
'it has to do with how I move and how I live.’ (Art It, 2011: Part I) this is making me consider how it is I am relating to the body in my work and her comments struck a cord with me and my own approach.
14/01/2022 Blown up breath drawings
I don’t like or dislike them. I’m not convinced there is anything more to them (in that it’s not a route I want to take my work down) they just don’t do anything for me.
I really like the aspect that they are the direct result of a breath.
I like the up-close details of certain areas that look as though they have taken on landscapes, the surface texture looks like it hosts another world of mountainous, rocky or moonlike terrain.
I’m not sure that enlarging them has added anything to them. It’s just as they were writ larger.
They feel nothing-y, empty.
I feel like I want a ‘drawn’ element to be a part of my work (ref. Katrina Cowling) but I don’t know what or how yet. These aren’t it. I think I’ll leave them there.
To view these works, please click here.
17/01/2022 Now Blue Lines
I have finally tested turning some of my line works a different colour.
They are gummy, plasticky, the colour lends them a lightness they don’t have.
They are now more playful, tactile.
They become less involved in their surroundings, but I don’t know if it makes them more of/about themselves or more object like?
I find myself hesitating about changing the colours of the others. I think this is because it feels irreversible. The change of their colour changes more than just the surface of them, it fundamentally changes the character/behaviour of the line itself.
My original handling of the lines was as a dark grey line, and I handled them in reference to their original colour.
Maybe try colours to accentuate points?
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To view these works, please click here.
25/01/2022 – End of Unit 1
Coming the end of unit 1 and I have been trying to sus out what’s been going on. At the very beginning of this MA my research question was,
An enquiry into how I can utilise my drawing practice to explore the shapes, forms, and passages of the human body’s breathing apparatus.
What is coming to the forefront is that it is not about breathing as much as I thought it was. I do still think my research question is valid, however, it’s under adaptation and I am having a re-set.
I went in thinking that it would be all about the breath, and in the last few weeks, I realised that I had gone full tilt into the ideas surrounding the notions of breathing but what I have been making is not marrying up with that subject at all.
And while trying to write my artist’s statement I realised I didn’t want my statement to be about this subject of breathing all that much, because that is not it. I think I tried to attach this bigger concept to my work too soon and it got confusing (for me and my viewer) because I am not looking at the subject of breath in a literal way. It is so in my head [breathing] and coming from a personal standpoint, it’s something I must be conscious of (but others don’t). It has taken some time for me to realise that I need to separate out the narrative I have put on top of my work and to understand why I’ve been struggling with it so much, because I have been talking about one thing while the work is doing another.
Off the back of conversations (crits with Lenora/Dan etc) it has become clear to me that the conversations and territory my work was dealing with since my BA several years ago are still the same and still very important:
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The liberation of line into space, where the subject of the line can extend from 2d to 3d
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I come from a standpoint in drawing that is not drawing in its traditional sense
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I don’t seek to define drawing practice, but I do look to test the potentials of what a drawing can be
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A pursuit between my works existing as drawing and being an inquiry of drawing practice simultaneously
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critical debates about contemporary drawing practice are key
I know where the idea of the breath stems from – that probe/line that was physically put in my head that has been stuck in there metaphorically ever since. And the line has become the vehicle by which to navigate this idea of breathing – the line is the starting point. I have always been interested in investigating the line as subject - as object, tangible thing - rooting around, probing – but it is entering a new embodied terrain.
Which leads me to where I am at now and to try and quantify what is happening, what the work is actually presenting. I need to start listening to the work (rather than talking about it). To stop thinking and really throw myself into making and the intuitive processes that come with it and to trust that it is all in there. The work needs to lead the way.
The stuff I need to grapple with in order to shift my works forward are,
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I know it relates to the body – but what about the body? Expressions (not facially), essences, feeling around, moments of postures, movements, these don’t come from ‘artistic’ sources – human elements
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Continue the play on contradictions and maybe try to understand them a little better; perfection/imperfection, lyrical/awkward
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Pay more attention to the formal investigation – form, balance, space, materiality, colour and playing with these terms, playing with the sculptural elements/terms/tricks
So, breath isn’t quite it right now, I feel like it will catch up later.
The making needs to be my focus of research and development now.
Studio space at the end of Unit 1