The Real Digital

Sad news this week, some first hand, some second hand. This regards the steady decline of the commercial craft industry, particularly pottery, that started some decades ago in Stoke and now extends to small private enterprises and even worse - education.

Why have I titled this blog entry "The Real Digital"? I will explain.

Apparently, and I have it on good authority not just from students and their friends but also from tutors who have long feared this day, courses in ceramics in colleges and universities are closing down (with the excuse that it saves money, probably), and the departments being stripped of kilns, wheels, shelves and equipment and filled up with yet more Macs. The microchip is replacing all other art media, it seems. Certainly as far as attracting students there is nothing that is going to get bums on seats and fees in the bursary than computer courses that give youngsters and mature students (false?) hope of a job at the end of 3 years accumulating debts. But at what cost to society? Soon the only "digits" we'll be able to use will be 0's and 1's and not our own fabulously evolved five fingers. In an age when young adults cant even wire a plug, surely there is a need to maintain and improve manual dexterity and imagination that enables the human being to form something in real four dimensions (3D and time), consideratley, patiently and skilfully.
I will be sad to see Camberwell's renowned Ceramics department wound down, and my local ceramic painting shop closed down.
One day we will realise the folly of being stuck behind keyboards in sterile air-conditioned offices, and how demeaning and damaging it is. I hope the day of realisation dawns before we completely lose track of what it is to be intelligent self-sufficient beings...

If You Cant Be Good, Be Good At Being Bad

(or.. how I learned to stop worrying and love painting)

I am now, officially, a Bad Artist.

This is the story...

For a laugh, and because I wanted to know what the definition of "bad art", I entered some work for inclusion in the Bad Art Salon at the Vintage at Goodwood Festival this year.

I dont often enter competitions or make submissions, but I saw what examples they had and I knew in my attic I had similar works that were truly breathtakingly awful and deserved recognition as such.

I have to admit I am not the world's greatest painter, I might do the odd poetic composition but really I dont have the patience for all the techinal minutae and really like to be frenetic and colourful. This technique does not lend itself well to life drawing unless you are a really good expressionist painter, rendering the figure usually means taking one's time and using subtltey..!

(This is why my recent work has been more in the arena of the found object)

So, in a marked moment of insight, I selected my ugliest work,and sent my application and JPEG. Imagine my surprise when I was selected as a finalist and rewarded a pass for Vintage for the weekend as a "prize" (more about that later).

This appeals to me in the sense of the ironic. Having waded through my MA and having to be very serious and "good" it was lovely to be "bad" for a change. Its great that an artist can have this freedom and I embrace the whole idea of a Bad Art Salon! The irony is perfect for someone trying to cultivate a Postmodern persona.. I dont know if this is what I'm trying to do but the way I see it, any publicity is good publicity!

The Poetic Phenomena Of Light

“ The solid is for the dead, but the transparent is for the living ”
— I.M. Pei


For the last few years, I have been exploring the importance of humans being a participating element in an artwork instead of just a watcher or reader. This statement by the architect I.M Pei, about his creation The Louvre Pyramid, sums up the concepts I have been recently been dealing with neatly and concisely.

The transparent certainly does allow light to filter to the viewer, but the viewers are more than just passive – they are also a part of the effect of the structure, as the incoming light negotiates the physical presence of the human figure, casting shadows and creating ever changing effects. The life of the work is in the fact that it lives itself, it is not “dead” – in fact it moves and exists in a time frame that is as long as the structure stands or the person inside stays. In that instant it creates an exquisite collection of phenomena – an experienced moment that can never be repeated in its minute detail.

Transmission

Transmission of light through a tinted window, is like transmission of an idea through a filter.
Language is a filter. It only allows certain information through. Hence the word “transparency”, and and the phrase “to be opaque”. Transmission of ideas takes place through technologies of transmission. Radio itself uses transmission: radiation of radio waves, sound waves. Sound waves are in our voices and our environments.
Ideas are transmitted through speech. Word of mouth. People chatting about the weather.
The volcano transmits ash through the air, and affects air travel – incidents around this event are transmitted on the radio, the TV, and by word of mouth.
(The newspaper is a static form and therefore is a complicated kind of transmission, not flowing but a dead text on dead wood, obsolete and still as soon as it is printed).
Sometimes corrupted information can be transmitted like a disease, a virus that changes from host to host.
Transmission doesn’t care where its going, the endpoint always moves during time.
Radiation is transmitted by the sun, and burns our skin. It also makes our grass seem greener and makes us feel better. It sparkles off the sea, and off car bodywork. It is beautiful but deadly. It brings out the glorious colours in the garden, but dries out and kills the flowers....

Words dont come easy...

I'm really jealous of people who can write books, who can devote themselves to one subject, focus like a raptor on the details and sieze the ideas like so much hidden prey and make them their own. To be an authority on a subject. To be able to digest and re-present. To actually have the working memory to be able to remember names, dates and conceptions and put them in the right order - and then write fluently with enough factual evidence to impress academics and critics but with enough fluidity to make the passages readable. Having said that, there are plenty of books out there that are reading for the sake of reading, insofar as they appear on reading lists on courses up and down the country (even when there are far more interesting books on the same subjects out there, often more accurate and updated); and plodding through these is like bog snorkeling. But to be able to write ANY sort of book would be a pretty amazing dream for me. I already have enough anxiety writing a few thousand words in an essay. I read and write copiously, give myself a bad neck and a headache, and end up with chunks of typing that start off sensibly enough then end up as either a rant or a barely readable stream of conciousness...

Occupation..?

I like to tell people I'm an artist, but in reality I dont know what I am.
Quite apart from the fact I dont know if what I make is "art" in the contemporary and exhibitable sense, there is the employment aspect.
Employing oneself in an activity doesn't necessarily make one an expert in it, even if its 8 hours a day. Being paid for doing so counts for a bit more vailidity, but then one can feel trapped. Being an officially self-employed artist may mean you have more contacts and business, but setting oneself up as a limited company and getting a loan and insurance and all that that entails makes for a pretty big gamble.
Getting some sort of part-time job seems to be the option for many artists I know. Unfortunatley this does not leave a lot of time for networking, let alone making work, and they never get further than a few small local shows or a bit part in a group show somewhere better known - if they are lucky.
I'm at the point now where I have to make this big decision. The MA is all but over, I'm out of my comfort zone, and despite all the discussions and seminars on careers I'm still no clearer about my future plans than I was 2 years ago!

Invigilating the MA Show

Its been a lot cooler of late weather-wise in the South East of England. The Private View felt like vegetables in a boiling stew, and the first day I invigilated I thought I was going to pass out from the heat. The Gallery, being as it is fully glazed and facing West, pulls in the sun, from the afternoon especially. Now, this is all very useful for my work, which, from 3pm takes on some real life as all its coloured shadows extend, but for someone who has to sit by the window and watch the public to make sure they dont damage anything (including themselves) its the equivalent of sitting in a greenhouse!



However, being in Brighton was a joy rather than a chore on Saturday. No oppressive heat and sweltering people. I could've easily spent the day outside! Walking to Grand Parade, surrounded by shoppers and tourists of every description, in their summer pastels and colours, pinks and blues and cut-off denims (the boys AND the girls!), with the sun gently warming and the air fresher and cooler than it had been in weeks; I felt invigorated and energetic. The train down to the coast was packed with a gaudy rainbow of bodies and happy voices, loud in their abandonment of responsibilty; the windows were open - it was like a fairground ride where the air whips you and you are surrounded by noise and colour. It made me excited too, it was catching, even though all I had to look forward to was sitting in one spot all afternoon, and getting warmer and more uncomfortable. Compared to Tuesday when I had to invigilate, the little drop in temperature caused a great deal of relief and happiness. Even when the full heat of the sun had not yet flooded into the Gallery, I still felt confident that the heat inside would be actually bearable. And, as I said before, it needs to be sunny! The sun needs to shine! Not just because my coloured transparent work inside "depends" on it (although I did make it have more interest than merely shadows), but to also lift the spirits of everyone under the canopy of the blue and add sparkle to the surfaces and faces of this dense and busy seaside city.