I am very interested in the role that blood and as an extension art using blood plays a role in art responding to the AIDS crisis. I’m very interested in using my own blood as a HIV negative gay person in my art, signifying a sort of blood letting for mourning and considering martyrdom and the suffering and pain that previous generations of LGBT people went through. Almost a tribute to those who came before me, a representation of the mark it has left and a representation of the work put in by activists to have the disease taken seriously and for treatment options to be released and worked on. I feel my blood as a gay person who cannot donate blood due to the risk categories of blood donation holds an interesting space conceptually. Jordan Eagles discussed below has made work protesting blood donation bans for gay and bisexual men.

I have explored working with my own blood through using lancets left over from home HIV tests and adding drops to cyanotype solution. I have spoke with people who have experience in using blood in art and decided the safest and most effective and impacting will be piercing myself with sterile hypodermic needles, making sure to disinfect my skin before and after, wearing gloves and being careful where the piercing takes place. I’m considering emulating images of St Sebastian and other saints. In other areas of my project i’ve explored how there are parallels with religious imagery and the irony of this. This is something that Ron Athey, as seen below has explored a lot as a body modification performance artist with a christian upbringing. I am however cautious, idealisticaly with making it too much about myself, and centering my experience as an HIV negative person born towards the end of the AIDS crisis. I feel i need to very carefully consider using myself as a vessel for representation of something i didnt personally experience and make sure i am only representing the echoes i have experienced and not imply that echoes are comparible.

The use of blood in art work regarding the AIDS crisis is widespread. Blood, or at least fake blood was used in ACT UP demonstrations. Artists I have researched who have used blood in their work.

Jordan Eagles

Jordan Eagles is an artist who uses blood in his work, primarily from gay men and hiv positive individuals.

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Jaden Hastings

Jaden Hastings is a biologist and artist who uses blood and scientific processes in her work. She has used the albumen found in blood to create albumen prints, which usually uses albumen found in eggs. https://www.popsci.com/artist-who-turned-blood-into-photographs/

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Connor Collins

Connor Collins is a portrait artist, often working with political subjects and unconventional materials. He created a portrait of princess Diana in HIV positive blood.

Francesco Fragameni

Francesco used blood in his project “The Blood Portrait Project” this project explores ‘derivative printmaking’ in which he uses constituents of blood, haemoglobin, iron, copper salts and natural pigments. He has said – “It represents a Postdigital approach to printmaking that examines the interplay between analog, mechanical, and digital image making and the biological form as both subject and medium.”

“Blood has deeply rooted symbolic meaning for all cultures, represents powerful ideas as well as social taboos, and is a unifying life-force held in common by all people. Through this work, my hope is that viewers will confront their own perceptions of what makes us who we are, the social judgements that we impose upon one another, and the boundaries between human form and artistic object. These portraits are printed in the blood of the person pictured. These are not merely pictures of people, they are in essence a lasting and tangible piece of the people themselves.”

https://youtu.be/CQss_o9zDKo

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Ron Athey

Ron Athey is a performance artist who uses aspects of body horror and modification in his work, exploring ritual, spirituality and politics. As a gay, HIV positive man, he has used this as a topic in his practice. A lot of his work draws on his Pentecostal upbringing. His work reflects a lot on christian imagery of suffering bodies, including St Sebastian, often viewed as a homoerotic figure and with him being the saint prayed to in times of plague, has links to the AIDS crisis and Athey’s HIV positive status as expressed through his work. His work is somewhere between performance art and theatre.

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Marc Quin

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Marc Quin is famous for the inclusion of human blood in his practice, he created a self portrait by casting his head in frozen blood, the sculpture needs to be kept under constant refrigeration. Each head happens to contain the approximate amount of blood of a human body.

“Self is a self-portrait of the artist, but one that literally uses his body as material since the cast of Quinn’s head, immersed in frozen silicone, is created from ten pints of his own blood. In this way, the materiality of the sculpture has both a symbolic and real function. The work was made at a time when Quinn was an alcoholic and a notion of dependency – of things needing to be plugged in or connected to something to survive – is apparent since the work needs electricity to retain its frozen appearance. A further iteration made every five years, this series of sculptures presents a cumulative index of passing time and an ongoing self-portrait of the artist’s ageing and changing self.”

Hermann Nitsch

Hermann Nitsch Uses blood in a number of his pieces, his work is very ritualistic and he views it as a puification for both himself as the artist and the viewer. His performances use animal carcasses, blood and guts and are very shocking and gory. He has spent time in prison three times on charges of Public indecency due the the nature of his art.

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Chiharu Shiota

Chiharu Shiota has used imagery surrounding blood in a few of her works, I saw a video of her performance ” Wall” 2010 at her exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park in 2018. In the video, she lies naked in a white room surround by tubing filled with a blood-like red substance as the fluid is pumped through the tubes.

“WALL (2010), is the key to the structure and the functional dynamic of all vertebrates. This fluid circulates through capillaries, veins and arteries, transmitting life to all of the organs in a human or animal body. “The traces of belonging are always condensed in the blood country, nation, religion, family; everything we are is represented in peoples’ blood flow. In this video, I appear tied up externally by the tubes through which the blood is circulating; that’s where the name wall comes from”. This wall is represented in different ways, both in the past and in recent history and it is objectified in events that have marked our past and our present. The Great Wall of China, the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall, the Western Wall in Jerusalem, or the barriers that are put up in digital space, breaking up the access to information and communication, among all of the visible and invisible boundaries that block the way and act as controls for anyone wishing to pass. Yet, the wall that is referred to in particular is not just a barrier, or a net in an infinite sea with no horizons, but an interior wall that frequently connects or separates us from the world, or a wall that we build up and tear down continuously, mediating the decomposition of our divided selves.”

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She Also uses Imagery of blood in her Performance piece, “Earth and Blood” This performance came from her recovery and processing of suffering a miscarriage.

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I experimented with drawing prominent figures who died of AIDS on condom packets as a representation of the loss of culture and art due to the crisis and how widespread knowledge of precautionary measures could’ve possibly stopped this, as well as a representation of the way the virus is most often spread, with condoms being an inherently sexual object and I feel often public figures can have their sexuality censored and glossed over. I asked in CASS art what might be the best thing to use for this and we decided on posca markers which works very well, once the ink is dry it doesn’t easily rub off. Here pictured are klaus nomi and Freddie Mercury, as well as some other imagery like the pink triangle which is a reclaimed symbol of homosexuality since it’s use to identify gay and bi men in concentration camps. I find this reclamation incredibly powerful and defiant.

Many artists have used the pink triangle, including kieth haring.

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Mediums I am planning to explore and have began to experiment in are using condoms as an art material by drawing on them, using the condoms themselves, shredded to create fibres which I plan to make Victorian mourning hair works with, as a memorial the the lives lost and of ways of engaging in sexual relations lost to the crisis. The inspiration for the condoms being used to emulate mourning artworks is the cold and clinical way AIDS patients were treated at the end of their life and often after death, as Victorian mourning culture was a stark contrast to that, with post mortem photographs meaning handling bodies was commonplace and mementos such as hair showed a great amount of sentimentality and lack of fear around touching or being around dead bodies, or things that have been on them. An artist who has often worked with Victorian mourning imagery and with the materials of a piece being a key aspect of the piece is Dario Robleto who uses a multitude of repurposed objects in his art.

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I have tried to create fibres by plaiting strips of comdoms after washing them to remove the lubricant, I experimented with different thicknesses of strips and different amounts of tension while plaiting. I found holding it too tight caused it to warp too much, it need to just be held taught without being stretched for it to come out in a neat braid.

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I am looking at the area of the theatrical religious movement, the Victorian spiritualist movement. The reason I am drawn to this is an interest in the human desire to seek answers to the unknown and find ways to comfort themselves when dealing with loss. I feel this is something innate in the subconscious of the human race and the spiritualist movement is one of the many manifestations of this desire to seek explanation and comfort in a confusing and devastating world. My interest in this stems from my interest in folklore. I. Particularly interested in similarities and overlaps in folklore and the ways it has developed.

I visited the Smoke and mirrors exhibition at the wellcome Collection in June which was an exhibition on the psychology of stage magic and featured some images and artefacts relating to the spiritualist movement. This made me think of it in a different way and made me see the theatrical and performative nature of the seances. photographs

https://wellcomecollection.org/exhibitions/W_vuwBQAACoA_SY2

It is believed that Spiritualism gained traction came out on a waning of religious faith and a move towards science and new technology such as the camera

http://www.victorianweb.org/religion/spirit.html

http://www.victorianweb.org/victorian/authors/doyle/spiritualism.html

I’m interested in how mass loss effects culture and how this influenced Victorian attitudes

Automatic drawing is a practice I find fascinating

We were taken to the RWA open exhibition on a trip to search for inspiration. The pieces below that stood out to me are all very textural and abstract and using neutral colours.

Spirit photographs and post-mortem photographs are a very good example of of how advancing technology influenced this time period, especially around the attitudes and rituals surrounding death and grief.

Williams hope was a spirit photographer, I feel the concept of spirit photographs is a fascinating topic because of how it indicates how the invention of photography changed society. Spirit photography was an early form of photo manipulation to make it seem as if there is a supernatural being in the photograph and to bring hope to the grieving that their loved ones are in the afterlife.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/spirit-photography-victorian-england

I have looked into Josef Vachal who has taken inspiration from the spiritualist movement, especially in this print of his. I find it very visually and historically interesting.

I feel that Grayson Perry’s work is relevant to my research in how he’ll often take inspiration from history and in using historical or folk art practices to express his concepts. I feel those blending of mediums and concepts creates a very rich and vibrant product and has incredible impact upon the viewer. The project, The Charms of Lincolnshire felt particularly relevant due to the subjects and the fact that it was done alongside a museum and working with the artefacts is very interesting.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/jul/05/arts.artsnews

https://www.victoria-miro.com/exhibitions/369/

Teresa margolles

http://www.contemporaryartsociety.org/news/friday-dispatch-news/teresa-margolles-sutura-daadgalerie-berlin/

Teresa Margolles is an artist I find incredibly profound and moving I how she’ll highlight issues in such a raw and brutal way and I feel in no way romanticised or dressed up. The way she often uses products of embalming and violence as her materials both fascinating and horrifying and I feel because of this her work is more effective at conveying the terrible truth she is exposing.

Hilma af Klint

https://www.guggenheim.org/blogs/checklist/inspiration-and-influence-the-spiritual-journey-of-artist-hilma-af-

The spellbound exhibition at the ashmolean, I found my visit to the spellbound exhibition very inspirational and as someone with a deep passion to learn about history and folklore it was amazing to see the artefacts on display.

I think conceptually what I am wanting to look at the the subconscious and how it naturally seeks answers to what cannot be known or explained. Also the directions in which the Victorians took this as an example. I would like to take inspiration from the methods they used. I think a large part of what I’m interested in looking at is sentimentality and the method in which this was expressed.

I am also interested in looking at rituals and their place in society for comfort and reassurance and many parts of the spiritualist movement rely of rituals to reassure and comfort the grieving.

I feel as a society today we have moved towards being incredibly detached from mortality and I feel also less sentimental and I wonder the effect this has our ability to cope with loss. During the Victorian era the rigid societal rules for mourning from how you could dress to how you could act would act as an outward sign to others that the person was grieving where as today I feel people aren’t given the space and that instead people are expected to pretty much push it all away once the funeral is over.

Artists I’m looking at currently are Grayson Perry, Michel Nedjar, Chiharu Shiota, Danio Robleto, Teresa Margoles.

https://youtu.be/x4w5esb38Z8

I am looking at the performance artist Ron Athey and his work “Gifts of the spirit” these piece involved multiple people producing automatic writing and a composer also composing the score though automatism.

https://www.stenudd.com/myth/freudjung/jung-collectiveunconscious.htm

https://www.jstor.org/stable/539073?read-now=1&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

I am looking at Jung’s theories of collective consciousness as they very much look at the aspects or folklore, spiritualism and religion that interest me and that I want to explore throughout this project. He sees these an example of a collective consciousness, like an instinct. Offering an explanation for the overlaps throughout cultures.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/henry-moore/tim-martin-erich-neumann-on-henry-moore-public-sculpture-and-the-collective-unconscious-r1151316

https://www.art-agenda.com/features/250374/dineo-seshee-bopape-s-when-spirituality-was-a-baby

Dineo seshee bopape – “when spirituality was a baby”

I am looking at Anselm kiefer as I find his mark making and use of texture is very effective as conveying emotion and the poignancy of his concepts

I have looked into Michel Nedjar, his work mostly is a response to the holocaust as someone born during the aftermath to a Jewish family. He creates twisted and pained dolls expressing the feelings of the community and himself as a child.

Rebecca Reeves creates sentimental three dimensional cocooned pieces, drawing inspiration from the mementos of Victorian mourning customs. Using this to process the death of her father.

https://www.thanatography.com/rebecca-reeves-ii

Carl Gent is an artist who has looked into history and folklore to create alternate histories based on the area, mostly through performance. Focusing on Queen Cynethryth, 8th century queen of Mercia.

https://v22collection.com/events/talks/careful-butchery-queen-cynethryth-mercians/

https://v22collection.com/events/collaborative-projects/excursion-bexhill-sea-smear-cynethryth/

I spoke to James regarding my visual and conceptual ideas I wish to explore in my outcomes and he suggested I look at Marlene Dumas, Francis Bacon, Robert Rauschenberg, Dario Robleto and Edward Kienholz

I find Francis bacon’s painting style very interesting in how his figures and faces are very vague and distorted which is something I definitely want to draw inspiration from. I also find his use of texture and colour very effective.

Dario Robleto is an artist I find very interesting, a lot of his work uses found objects compiled together to represent a concept he is exploring. This piece “Fossilhood is Not Our Forever” is made of Fossilized prehistoric whale ear bones salvaged from the sea (1 to 10 million years), stretched audiotape of three centuries of human heartbeat recordings (1865, 1977, 2014), gold paint, concrete, ocean water, pigments, rust, brass, coral, steel, Plexiglas

I find the use of significant objects very interesting and may incorporate this technique into my final piece for this project.

https://culture.pl/en/article/playing-with-death-the-morbid-obsessions-of-contemporary-polish-artists

An article of contemporary polish artists working on death

Edward Kienholz works in collage and installation. This piece is a screen print.

Marlene Dumas’ work is mostly portraiture but she is very much pushing the boundaries of portraiture with the distortion she creates. I really enjoy her style of painting and the vague lines and colour pallet she is using in them.

I attended an event at the museum as part of their exhibition on magic, this included a demonstration of mirror scrying and making a Roman curse where you inscribe a piece of this metal with your curse, making sure the words aren’t fully legible by writing backwards, overlapping, not using spaces then fold it and stab with a pin. These would have been left in the temple of a god.

At the moment I am considering doing mixed media oil painting featuring various textural elements, having spoken about this with James we discussed how cold wax could be a good medium for me to try for added texture and ability to add objects to a painting and use it for incorporating different mediums to a painting allowing it to not only be a flat piece.

I have done two Lino prints responding to my chosen theme of the spiritualist movement as a way to artistically warm up to making work on the project. I’ve experimented with different ways to produce prints from home without a press and have had success using a marble rolling pin to add some weight so the ink is more evenly distributed.

I feel these are successful experiments but lacking the conceptual elements I wish to convey. I plan to include more elements that represent other parts of what interests me about the subject. Such as the psychology, collective consciousness, death rituals and how humans look to superstition and ritual in times of need or when seeking understanding.

I’m quite happy with these practices, although I struggled capturing faces in such a small scale. Working with pallet knives isn’t something I’ve done before and I enjoyed the mark making of them. I enjoyed the texture and depth that working with oil paint gives. Using both cold wax and impasto medium allowed me to create even more texture. On the abstract painting I also added sand to cold wax to add a more varied and rough texture. As I enjoyed the effect sand added to the mixture in future pieces. In my research of artists I admired the way materials used have significance, such as in Dario Robleto and Teresa Margoles’s practice. So instead of sand, I would like to substitute this for dirt from the ground, as a representation of the places it was taken from. I’m thinking I would take this from my home to represent safety and human connection as this is I believe a core principle of the spiritualist movement and what drove it. I think I would also collect dirt from Arnos Vale Cemetery to represent history, time gone by and obviously death and death customs. I feel Arnos vale would be an appropriate source due to the fact that it is a Victorian cemetery. I may also collect earth from a church or other place of worship as a representation of belief, Spirituality and what this contributes to the movement and us as a society and possibly also dirt from a modern place of burial to show what impact this still has on us today and how the beliefs and practices of the past and other cultures echos to our beliefs and rituals today, reflecting my research on Jung’a theory of collective consciousness.

I’m interested in these practices as I feel using digital processes to look at a historical movement represents my conceptual inspiration of looking at how the historical attitudes to spirituality and death reflect on ours today. By ours I mean people living in the UK which is a mostly secular country and people who are either atheists or don’t have a strong religious leaning. This reflects my upbringing. My mother was raised catholic and I had very devout catholic grandparents and she is no longer catholic but is very spiritual but doesn’t follow an organised religion. My father was raised by non religious parents and is an atheist. I myself am somewhere between an atheist and agnostic and don’t have any religious beliefs or leanings myself but have a curiosity towards religious practices, past and present and this leads me to wonder where these beliefs come from and interested in the variety of ways in which they manifest, including folklore, spirituality, organised religion, the occult and superstition.

I’ve decided to experiment with cyanotypes due to the importance that the birth of photography had to the spiritualist movement and all aspects of Victorian culture, including death, as demonstrated in the popularity of post-mortem photographs to commemorate their loved ones. In these I used spirit photographs printed on acetate, my own printmaking experiments on acetate, my collection of Victorian mourning jewellery and locks of my sisters hair.

I found this process satisfying and exciting due to how unpredictable the results can be which has meant it allowed me to produce a variety of outcomes. I found that the amount of mixture printed on my fabric effected the colour, how long it’d been left in the sun, the light levels on that day, which he objects and images placed over the fabric. These all are variables which have either made an image work or not. I find the first time I tried I’d started too late in the day for it to be exposed long enough but the small amount it got had slightly coloured them, so I re covered the pages and tried again, this time starting earlier and leaving them in the sun for much longer. This produced a different effect than the pieces with only one layer and exposure.

I have come across some issues with there not being enough sunlight for them to come out properly recently since it’s been darker during the day.

I have decided to add more dimension to my paintings i have decided to add photo transfers to my composition, this is done by sticking printed photographs to my canvas using acrylic then when dry dampening the photograph and rubbing away the excess paper, revealing the images. James gave me a demo to refresh my memory from when we did it last year.

With these photo transfers I will be painting around and over them, leaving parts visible. Incorporating photographs this way feels appropriate due to how significant photographs were. Adding them to the composition rather than just using them as a reference for a painting, I feel represents the concept better.

I’m happy with the progress of these. I plan to add other elements to them such as hair due to how hair was used in mourning jewellery, added texture with cold wax and impasto medium, as well as texture from adding dirt, beads from mourning trims.

I visited Arnos vale cemetery to gather some dirt to use in my paintings and to look at the symbolism in the memorials. Arnos vale has a large selection of statues that present the language of symbolism which is a large part of Victorian mourning.

When adding the dirt I dirt tried mixing it with white spirit and linseed oil but it wasn’t thick enough to bond it together and allow it to adhere to the page. I then tried mixing it with both impasto medium and cold wax both separate and together which I found created different effects, also in some places I added small amounts of paint to tint the mixture. The cold wax is a heavier and more matte texture but it does obscure some of the gritty texture of the dirt, however the impasto medium is more glossy and viscous and allows the mixture to be spread thinner. Mixed it has the qualities of both so depending on where I the composition it was added I used them all.

I found this project allowed me to deeply explore paint as a medium rather than just as a method of portraying and image and I very much enjoyed experimenting with ways I can use it in abstract painting. I felt it was a very immersive medium and I very much enjoyed how versatile it was and how it worked with adding the other elements I was working with – cold wax, impasto medium, hair, dirt, beads, photographs, cyanotypes

Here are words I have cut out of magazines that stood out to me. I found this an interesting exercise in almost subconsciously creating a narrative. It reminds me of neural network art using computer generation which is an area I’m very interested in and could explore

I’ve tried using the words found in magazines to make a folded paper book. As my book has no beginning or end the folding makes it so that depending how you look at it any piece can be the first, and as you fold it different ways different pieces will be revealed. I like using words from magazines since magazines very much represent ideals and aspirations and disability is very much seen as the opposite so using something that upholds societal desires and goals to make work on disability feels quite defiant and challenging to the status quo.

I’m going to make a zine with illustrations of the mobility aids I use and have used in celebration of what they give me, as a counter of the view of them being sad symbols of disease and disability. I’d like to glorify and romanticise them.

So I’m going to make a book with illustrations of my mobility aids and I want to romanticise them and show them as tools of power and freedom rather than how they are seen and I was thinking of using flowers but wasn’t too into it because I want it to have meaning

So what I might do is go on trips in my wheelchair to collect flowers and press them so that way they represent something that I wouldn’t have been able to do before.

I went to see the artist books at Bower Ashton then after went to Ashton court to collect flowers as this isn’t something I’d have been able to manage without my wheelchair. I’m going to scan these in and try printing it on acetate and tracing paper to overlay it over the print of the wheelchair. I’m thinking of taking photos of things mobility aids have helped me do for the other pages, Im thinking for embroidery I’ll take a photo of embroidery supplies. I’m finding it difficult to think of what I want to use for the crutch so I discussed it with my boyfriend and he suggested I have pictures of things like cups and phones and things I’m able to hold when using a crutch, as when I first got it that felt very felt very helpful and positive, which at first I was thinking felt too mundane but I think looking at the small every day things mobility aids help me do is what I want to look at as I want to both show the value of mobility aids and make disability seem more normal due to how disabled people are either pitied or put on a pedestal for their achievements.

I later decided to just stick with flowers as a metaphor for the value of the unseen beauty of mobility aids. I feel individually representing what each aid gives me cheapens it and over simplifies it as I want the representation of the value of my mobility aids to be more conceptual, I also want to create a unified and romanticised look for the book.

I scanned in the pressed flowers and printed them onto acetate

I printed onto acetate but on the ultra glossy setting and the ink didn’t dry properly but it got smudged and I found the colour beneath looked interesting so I decided to wipe away all the ink that hadn’t settled and I really like how it looks.

I tried printing on tracing paper but adjusted the settings from the one below and it worked a lot better.

I printed on tracing paper and I had the printer on the setting for glossy paper and the printing wasn’t very sharp.

I spoke to Steve about my ideas and we discussed how mobility aids are viewed in contrast to how they impact the lives of people who use them and how disability is usually framed as a tragedy or as someone overcoming massive challenges and still showing the disability as what is being overcome rather than inaccessibility and attitudes to disability. We discussed how these views where as disabled person is shown as doing something extraordinarily is put across as such an inspiration and that it’s not very realistic for most people as I have no desire to do something like climb a mountain so I want to show the strength in overcoming accessibility issues rather than my disability and how mobility aids help offset the ways the world isn’t made accessible for disabled people and have the gathering objects be showing how it’s something others may take for granted. I absolutely do not want to frame it as tragic or inspirational and more as a rebellion against the way disabled people are seen.

I like the idea of using the format of a zine because of the political history of them. As well as the idea of using a book because of the validity and truth given to books

Im going to try doing Lino prints of my mobility aids and appliances as the drawing I did felt very flat.

Work in progress of the Lino cuts of my finger splints, I’ve decided to use different textures in the print to give a sense of depth and show that it is a 3D object.

A test print of the block for my ergonomic cutlery. I feel I need to carve the edges deeper so they won’t show on the page but otherwise I’m pleased with the outcome of this print.

Test print of my wheelchair, I’d like to try to redo this and make it more minimalist and neater as I feel it doesn’t match the rest of my prints and I want a much simpler and bolder image.

The Lino block with the added details, this print has the look I was aiming for and I’m pleased with how it turned out.

Print using the new block on pages from an old medical book. I’m happy with how this design came out and I feel it has the right balance of clean minimalist lines and subtle detail. This is the block I will be going for in my book.

Test print of my crutch, I’m pleased with how this came out. I think it’s simple and bold which is what I’m aiming for. I’m happy with the way it fits on an A5 page so will be using this block for my final piece.

Lino prints of my finger splints. I forgot to cut out the middle of the bottom one but I feel I prefer it this way as it differentiates between the other one that is a similar perspective. I like how these work as a composition. These are so far my favourite of the prints. I tried the layout in various different ways and decided I preferred them in a line as it had a cleaner, starker look.

https://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-bind-your-own-Hardback-Book/

Instructions on book binding

practice of folding paper to make a zine with the tracing paper printed with pressed flowers. I might use these as a base for cut out word poetry.

I have practiced some book binding techniques to try methods before I attempt the final book. I tried to follow a diagram but really struggled to follow it, so it turned out incredibly messy.

I took some of the card board from the book and covered it using the book binding fabric I am using for the final book and using other small pieces of paper cut offs I made a smaller one, this time following a YouTube tutorial which I found much clearer and easier to follow. The technique I used is called Coptic stitch. After this I feel pretty confident in using the technique again. I like the appearance and the fact that is allows the spine of the books to be the edges of the pages which I feel is really beautiful. I went for a deep warm green for the fabric on the outer side of the book as I wanted to go for a look that resembles old botanical books. On the inner side of the hard backs I used sheets from and old medical book. I have a selection of three colours of waxed threads, black, brown and a pale tan and have decided I prefer the look of the brown against the colour of the fabric. Overall I’m very pleased with this practice, I can see from my stitching that I could’ve done with keeping the tension tighter so in the final book I will keep a closer eye on that for a neater finish.

While at college using the press I made prints using my medication packets as an experiment. I liked the effect, I especially was pleased with how the packets being textured caused an embossing effect but decided to keep the book to the topic of mobility aids rather than medication as I want to create something specifically about the value and taboo of mobility aids as I feel if I try to cover too much there is a risk of losing focus on the issue I want to be discussing through this piece of work.

I decided to try my prints on the pages of an old medical book that belonged to my grandparents as a comment on the contrast between the medical model of disability and the social model which most disability politics follow and I myself as a disabled person find the most accurate and useful. It feel like some sort of rebellious act to be breaking apart and placing between the pages, my own Lino prints celebrating mobility aids, which are often demonised by the medical model. As well as this the book is from my fathers side of the family, which is where my genetic disorder has been passed on from. So conceptually it’s both a rebellion against the socially accepted view of disability, which is most often the medical model, while also being a visual representation of my genetics which have caused me to be disabled.

In transferring the file from a desktop to my iPad via email it caused a glitch which I found fascinating and prefer to the original scan, so rather than the image being ruined by the distortion it has in a way become more beautiful which I feel is a good metaphor for disability not being a negative and ugly thing. I have discussed how this works with my project conceptually with my friend Dirk and my boyfriend, both of which are artists.

This completely accidental glitch lead me to be inspired to try to purposefully distort the image. I tried using an app that creates glitches and also then layering sheets of acetate and tracing paper to create different patterns and colour combinations which had some very interesting effects.

Here are the images I created using the glitch app. I think that I find their discordant image feels quite fitting for showing the unconventional beauty of disability. Although I feel the colour pattern doesn’t fit the image I am wanting, which is a much more neutral and classic look with muted, natural colour.

This is an acetate print that I purposefully put on the wrong printing setting to make their be too much ink on the page. I have notices that it is only the cyan and black that will be bubbled on the surface and then when it’s wiped away it creates a textured blue wash with flowers left made up of yellow and magenta which look like negatives.

This is a collection of images made by layering the sheets of acetate and tracing paper on top of each other.

These are the ones I have finalised for the book, I’ve printed them all out since when printed they look very different.

I’m feeling fascinated by how an accident has pushed my work into this direction as I don’t think distorting the images is something I’d have thought of otherwise, which I feel is again a good metaphor for disability not being inherently wrong or tragic just because it’s a divergence from the norm. And that there are positives to what are seen as mistakes. I’m thinking of the nature of mistakes and luck and how these play into disability politics on how people see disability as a consequence of doing something wrong and that if they juts do all the right things they will be safe. Such as, do yoga, exercise, eat well, don’t take risks. Which isn’t true. My disability was inherited and is written into my genetics making it an inescapable fact of my being and no amounts of doing the right things will change that but I feel that’s a truth people are uncomfortable to,be confronted by. This being a fact and something I have little control over is something I’ve had to work incredibly hard to come to terms with which is one of the reasons I am so passionate about dispelling the myths and taboos around disability. I’m constantly, whether subtly and subconsciously or outright told that the way my disorder presents must be because of something I’ve done. From unsolicited advice from people who don’t even know what is wrong with me to people saying I’m just not trying hard enough to not be disabled and “ giving in to my disability” why I am doing is working within my means and working with my body rather than against it as in the long term it will have the best outcome for me given that my disorder is degenerative.

These are the images I chose to use as pages for the book. I asked for input from my boyfriend who is an art student and a friend who is an artist to help me narrow is down to these. I decided on them as the shapes are pretty uniform but with the variation in colouring making them different which I feel works, I decided to order them based on the colours so they fade into each other and appear as a progression of colour.

The print of my finger splints came out smudged and I was going to reprint it so I could get a cleaner print but after thinking about it i decided too keep it this way. I discussed this with my friend who felt that allowing my work to have mistakes and marks from the process added to it conceptually and visually. Especially given the concept behind this project being celebrating divergence from the norm, in this case being disability and with the floral pages being changed and improved by mistake. The ways prints will turn out differently is one of the reasons I enjoy print making.

I’ve bound the book together using Coptic stitch which is what I used in my mini practice, I feel like my ability to do the neatly has improved. I really like how the edges of the signatures are visible below the stitching.

On the front of the book I stuck a vintage Greek Milagros. These are charms in the catholic faith to pray for healing etc. They are also used in Mexico and I bought a couple, an arm and foot in the gift shop of the v&a exhibition of Frida Kahlo’s clothing and work. Since frida kahlo is an artist I find very inspirational as a disabled artist this link to her work felt appropriate.

Up the Disabled Punx

An article on cripple punk culture

Magrittes Venus de milo

https://www.magrittegallery.com/product-page/les-menottes-de-cuivre

I’m currently reading the book Disability Aesthetics which gives really interesting insight into the portrayal and perception and inclusion of disability within modern art. He talk a lot about the censorship of “Degenerate Art” By the nazi’s and how this was due to their agenda to eliminate disability as they viewed the artists who created these works to not be of sound mind.

Homepage

Graphic medicine looks at

https://www.shapearts.org.uk/

Article on the social model of disability

Vic Finkelstein

Article on Vic Finklestein the founder of the social and medical models of disability which was a revolutionary step in disability activism history and is a theory that is widely used today and one I find very useful.

Tony Heaton

http://www.tonyheaton.co.uk/mixed-media-film.html

Tony Heaton

Seohye lee Is

https://www.shapearts.org.uk/news/artist-profile-seohye-lee

http://www.disabilityartsinternational.org/

Something i find about the portrayal of disability in art is that it’s always shown as either only worthy because of it being made by a disabled person and being posed as an inspiration in a dehumanising and condescending way, or its shown as a thing that is purely for therapeutic reasons. As if disabled people can either be inspirations or patients. I don’t want to be seen as either as it’s either be put on a pedestal or pitied.

This is an area of research and work i have been finding very engaging and I can see myself working more on this theme in future as I feel there are a lot of topics I’d like to work on beyond my idea for the book of mobility aids. I’ve also come across s few organisations who work specifically with disabled artists which I think is something I could consider as a career option after my studies.

A zine about disability inclusion commissioned by hull city of culture

http://www.briananoonan.com/new-page

Sally booth is an artist who is visually impaired

http://www.sallybooth.co.uk/index.html

I bought a pair of zines titles “why disabled people are magic” from an online friend who is a disabled artist. The zines look at uplifting and affirming disabled people.

An artist who is a friend of mine makes a lot of work using medical equipment and braces as a way of reframing disability and illness and to glorify the tools that have so much power. A lot of their work features cheek retractors which is a process of reclaiming medical trauma https://www.dazeddigital.com/beauty/body/article/42212/1/bonnie-bakeneko-fetish-jewellery

https://www.instagram.com/bakeneko_designs/?hl=en

I’m wanting to look at disability and my relationship to it and the perception of disabled people.

I feel disability is something that is often underrepresented in art and media and society as a whole.

Disability politics are incredibly important to me and something I’m very passionate about so I think will make for a broad and nuanced and personal topic to explore through my work and the medium of book making.

link to an article about the creation of a zine by someone I know https://medium.com/standupmag/disability-acceptance-and-amazine-activism-9415d05cdac1

Canadian organisation who work with disabled artists http://tangledarts.org/

I looked at Frida Kahlo for my essay on the importance of context within art and design and spoke a lot about her disability and how she portrays her life in her work. She started to paint while recovering from the bus accident that would change her life which I feel is important to the subject of disability art.

Article discussing her work and disability – https://www.respectability.org/2017/10/frida-kahlo-self-portrait-painter-showcases-disability-art/

Pieces of hers that I find particularly moving  and important in terms of the portrayal of her disability are:

“Marxism will give health to the sick” Which features a lot of symbolism around her disability, politics, her identity and how they intersect. Disability politics and Marxism very much overlap and due to this many disability activists are also Marxists, myself included  So this painting means a lot to me as a disabled artist and is something I find inspiring in my work as a disabled artist. 

“The tree of hope” is a piece that is quite a graphic illustration of her body and disability which puts across a very strong visual cue about the relationship she has with her body. 

The way she would adorn herself while in bed due to her operations is something that I feel challenges the view the disabled people aren’t able to look nice or put effort into their appearance or else they aren’t actually disabled, which is a viewpoint I’d like to challenge in my work and life. She also decorated her casts which turned something ugly and clinical with a purely functional purpose into a piece of art which is something I’ve been inspired by.

Yayoi Kusama is another artist who’s life has been very much shaped by disability, in her case severe mental illness and trauma. Her work is very repetitive and obsessive which is something attributed to her mental health. I know the way she works i something she finds theraputic. 

Something that is used to dismiss my disability is the fact that I manage to create art and I’ve had this used against me many times for people to try to use it to say I’m not as disabled as I am. Because of this I think exploring my disability through my art would be a very empowering experience.

I like the idea of using a book as a medium for this due to the way books are revered as a symbol of truth and knowledge and validity which often disabled people are not treated with the same dignity. From people challenging people without visible disabilities for using things like toilets and parking spaces, to the vast amount of dismissive doctors which can lead to dangerous negligence because they don’t believe their patients, the way the government treats disabled people and the benefits system being full of ridiculous hoops to jump through and lies to twist the situation to stop people getting what they are entitled to and need. The life of a disabled person in the society we currently live in is one of constant distrust, pity and exclusion.

I read a paper presented by David L. Hosking presenter at the biennial disability studies conference at Lancaster university in 2008 which talks about the models of disability.

Click to access hosking2008.pdf

The medical model being that disability is a personal tragedy that needs to be fixed and the social model being more that society is what disables people due to lack of accessibility and inclusion. This is s theory I think is very important in understanding the disabled identity.

I’ve bought another book on art and disability called the incorrigables. 

I went to uwe to look at the artists books there but as there was so much choice I found it hard to know what to look for and at so didn’t find a lot during that trip but I definitely found that the ones I mostly liked were ones exploring a subject and portraying it subtly and using the medium of a book not only as a way of getting it across but also playing with the concept.

I went to the Bristol artists book event at the arnolfini and saw a lot of incredibly interesting books. It was a lot to take in due to the amount on show and I didn’t make it around the whole show but I felt very inspired by what I did see. Things I found I was particularly interested in were techniques like mixing media like print, drawing, stitch, collage in one book and having limited but carefully selected text. Something I really enjoyed was clear or sheer pages on acetate or tracing paper which create layers and the way that the pages show through creating another dimension and meaning to the work was very interesting. I bought one that was like this that worked as a little scene that moves. So not a typical book but this is something I found very inspiring.

Another I have that I was given is a story of a serial killer poisoning through giving food called “GIFT I made this for you” by Sarah Bodman. I really liked how it was set out like a recipe book and only by reading through the sentimental notes under the recipes and reading between the lines could you pick up the story running through.

I spoke to the artist, Sarah about it and spoke a little about what it is.

A book there I had previously found from my research one is a book illustrating each death in the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley in small stitched scenes of their death which was done for a project for the walker gallery on the 200th anniversary of the book being published. I was able to talk to the artist and to see the original which was interesting and I’d never have thought of displaying embroidery within a book.

https://www.a-n.co.uk/news/artists-books-31-marking-200-years-mary-shelleys-frankenstein/

I’m thinking since this is a medium I have never worked in I will make books while I research to try out ideas while I come to a decision about how to make and what my final piece for this project will be.

I’ve decided to make trials and test techniques while I research since I’ve never made a book and I think that will be the most efficient way of working for me.

I’ve tried folding paper which I’ll add to create a book piece.

Article of artists who have worked with books

https://mymodernmet.com/book-art/

I have discovered the artist Su Blackwell who makes delicate scenes out of books. I really like the attention to detail and composition.

https://www.sublackwell.co.uk/fineartportfolio/

in the second two I like how the scene is laid out on a book, looking as if it’s an illustration of the story come to life and I find the lights very interesting for how they add another dimension and add depth and realism to the story and scene.

Brian Dettmer creates art from carving books. I think I find it interesting how what he creates relies what is already there but completely changing how it’s viewed from being a standard book to being a sculpture. It feels like 3D collage which I find very interesting as I was working with moulding and casting before which also felt like that. I find the ones with words on that get turned into a form of black out poetry very interesting as it’s a method I find very psychologically interesting with how the words are there but the act of choosing them changes the meaning and which ones have and haven’t been chosen creating a narrative.

https://briandettmer.com/

Interview with him on his work

https://mymodernmet.com/interview-with-the-book/

Austin Kleon is an artist who creates black out poetry

https://austinkleon.com/2014/04/29/a-brief-history-of-my-newspaper-blackout-poems/

http://newspaperblackout.com/

black out poetry is definitely something I’d like to try out in my experiments.

Tindar is an artist who uses book pages as a canvas to draw large tree roots linking pages together with the book pages being of religious texts with the tree roots symbolically linking them which I feel has s very powerful message

http://www.tl-galerie.com/gallery-and-tindar-start-art-fair-london-sept.html

https://mymodernmet.com/tindar-roots-sacred-texts/

Maskull lasserre is a sculpture artist who has used books in this piece of a skull carved out of computer manuals https://maskulllasserre.com/section/290988-Incarnate.html

Thomas wightman is a graphic designer who has worked with books, this piece of made of pages of a Robert Burns with thistles growing from the pages which is iconically Scottish and was an award and commissioned by visit Scotland. I like that the book and imagery are vital to the narrative of this piece.

https://www.thomaswightman.co.uk/thistle-award-outlander-book-sculpture

another piece commissioned by visit Scotland

https://mymodernmet.com/thomas-wightman-visit-scotland-glenfinnan-viaduct/

Hidden fore-edge painting in a book

https://youtu.be/OZZQ28YZXSE

Martin Frost is a painter who works on hidden fore edge paintings

https://youtu.be/v-mzCgJvlsw

Notebooks with embroidered covers and traditional Japanese bookbinding methods. I find the clean and balanced aesthetic of these very satisfying and like the idea of using embroidery in a book like the Frankenstein one I saw at BABE.

https://mymodernmet.com/fabulous-cat-embroidered-notebooks/

PRRINT are a company that have used book pages as a background for designs with anatomy intermingled with flowers. I’ve previously used book pages as a back drop for prints and found it very interesting. I tried doing monoprints on old dictionary pages with images corresponding to the words on the page.

Book made from banana which is an interesting material to use.

Folded book inside a pocket watch, i like the idea of a tiny book inside something.

Another book inside something, I’m not extactly sure what it is but I find the delicate tissue and pearls very interesting as it looks like an oyster.

A folded book made from found images

Another folded book featuring calligraphy

Collaborative zine on mental health and disability rights

https://freedomandcitizenship.columbia.edu/disability

Overview of zines

http://www.grrrlzines.net/overview.htm

history of zines

http://mentalfloss.com/article/88911/brief-history-zines

Artist books made by Margarita lypiridou

http://www.margaritalypiridou.com/nexus-page.html

http://www.margaritalypiridou.com/archived-memories-page.html

I went back to uwe to look at the artist books and here are some pictures of the ones that caught my eye. I only managed to look through two drawers though sadly.

I found the way the transparent pages were used in this very interesting and would like to try out something similar

This book is on inherited sewing boxes which I found very interesting and moving because of my own inherited sewing boxes from my late grandmother.

The way this one is like a museum is something I found very interesting and fun.

A friend of mine is a zine artist and collector so ze showed me zir collection of zines and I photographed ones I found interesting.

I found the simple colouring and printing of this one good for putting across the message they are trying to portray.

A zine on folding zines from a sheet of paper, which I followed the instructions for.

a zine on historical queer looks through the ages which is a collaboration between multiple queer illustrators, each illustrating an era. I find this very important as I feel often queerness is viewed as a new thing, where as really in the past it was just pushed underground so a visual history of queer representation feels as if it’s unearthing that.

this is a very beautiful illustrated zine on autumn leaves. I admire the clean design and use of colour and negative space.

A zine on managing a chronic condition which is relevant to my own work.

A page from it.

A very beautiful zine using risograph printing and coloured papers. I really like the techniques used and how the printing gives it a nostalgic feel.

I looked at two books in college, one on zines and the other on book making which were both very informative. In the book of zines I was mostly interested in the political ones due to the subject I’m looking into being very political.

I’m very interested in the history of zines as a way to spread information and build solidarity with marginalised people. This is something I’d like to explore in my work around books. I plan to make a hard cover book and also smaller digitally printed versions to be distributed. This act of distributing copies of the book will be a part of the art piece by spreading my personal account of disability to others, either disabled or able bodied as a political statement. I may also make a series of zines as a part of this.

The book making book gave me some interesting ideas for assembly. Which is like to experiment with. the pages of the book on making books that caught my eye as possible techniques to try.

The pages of the book on zines that caught my eye and felt relevant to my work.

I am looking up ways to bind books. I have found a YouTube channel with quite a few tutorials that I’ve found helpful.

https://youtu.be/j-r6c_trSxY

https://youtu.be/ue52htX3j0k

https://youtu.be/a_LZ-BWhH_Q

https://youtu.be/ymTiRFRI4Uk

A selection of my work from the drawing brief at the beginning of the year.

Exercise In automatic drawing. We had to do a self portrait. It came out almost indistinguishable but I like the lines and how it’s possible to make out parts of it.

Stikito exercise of a shell, I think having the marks being very hard and sharp in comparison to the natural smoothness of the shell is interesting. I feel it lacks dimension though.

Stick and ink drawing of a piece of jawbone. I think the outline is too heavy but I like the texture around the teeth.

A continuous line drawing of a partial sheep skull. I feel keeping it in one line gives it a softness which I like. When we did our lino prints I used this to make my impression.

I like this as I feel it’s very different to Lino cuts I have done in the past and has a quite abstract feel. It’s very different to the drawing.

Two prints using fabric and chicken wire with red ink. I really like the fine texture the gauze made. I feel sticking to one colour keeps it simple and makes the texture stand out.

A drawing from the walk around the docks of a lamp that caught my eye using ink and bleach. I enjoyed using this method and the results it gave. I feel the proportions are quite off though. I like the colours the ink and bleach creates.

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Psychogeography piece. I started by thinking about when I was in Yorkshire in August. My mum, aunty and uncle to make the most of the trip and recover. We went to a sea nature reserve that I got a lot of visually interesting objects and photographs from and some conceptual ideas around the sea and the relationship to mankind

Things left behind by people and end up on beaches, who were they, what was the object to them

Passing of time and how it reflects on objects and structures by the sea making the passing of time a visible thing to be observed making it more solid and tangible

Abandoned piers and how things that were once a focus of society and entertainment but are now just ruins

The sea making man made objects look organic, almost like an unstoppable force, reclaiming objects. Metal rusts, sharp rocks get smoothed, Coastal erosion.

The rust is in the shapes of a piece of coastal erosion I found a photograph of and drew the scene in my sketchbooks so I decided to include the shapes in my final piece of work. Instead if including the details I did it to appear like a piece of rusted metal I found and painted.

I find the texture and colours of rust, decay, mould, moss, lichen and general wear very visually interesting

Ive stitched pieces of found fishing rope to add to texture and add more aspects of how the sea shows the passing time on land and objects and also stitching on pieces of crabs that I collected on the beach.

I also used the fishing rope as a sort of makeshift brush with water colour paint to make marks on my piece, following the shapes and lines of the coastal erosion and fill some of the negatives space

I decided to keep the piece quite minimalist as I didn’t want it to look too busy and wanted to portray the sparce empty feelings of abandoned spaces and unoccupied beaches and the sort of forgotten, lost, left behind theme of these.

Abstract exercise. I started off with a rough drawing of a skull. I reduced and warped it until it became a curling and dripping shape with the eye holes becoming floating orbs, then made it so it was a mirrored image.

3D exercise using paper and cardboard. Here are some trials of designs. I was thinking about extreme Corsetry and the aesthetics of pushing nature to its limits prompted by the anthropocene brief. I was thinking about wats humans push this boundary in many ways and the aesthetics of nature and beauty. Then distorting this.

I have tried making a birds nest from wire, old electrical wires and other pieces of scrap. I feel the outcome is too visually messy so I think I will spray paint it for a more uniform look. Also to make it more dirty and oily in keeping with the theme of the sculpture.

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I have decided to create molds of my objects to create a sculpture.

The result of spray painting the birds nest. I’m pleased with the result and I think I achieved the look I’m after, the spray paint being a satin finish gives it the oily finish i was after. I think it could be better with some added texture.

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I am using alginate to cast these molds and plaster to cast the objects.

Suzie the technician advised me to try out casting my finger and a small mushroom to start and see how they turn out.

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Once these moulds were made I cut the objects free then reassembled them. This made me realize the alginate around the objects wasn’t really thick enough as part of one of them was too fragile and fell apart.

I filled the moulds with plaster to see how the impressions came out

These casts of mushrooms came out well also but due to the pouring gap it has a protrusion so I was advised by the technician to instead cast them sideways and pour in where the mushroom will be joined to the cast of the mould so in my future casting I changed the position of the mushroom. This resulted in more even looking casts with the protrusion being on a part that won’t be seen.

The size and thickness of this mushroom made it very difficult to remove from the mould and I had to cut it into 4 parts which then made it difficult to fill the mould. I’m going to again try to cast this sideways to try to make it easier to fill and remove.

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This is a casting from the mould which fell apart but I decided to try casting the intact half to see the results and it picked up the texture very well on the parts that were in contact with the mould. I’m going to make sure in future that I make the alginate mould thicker.

I’ve done another test to cast my whole fist in plaster. It picked up a lot of fine skin texture but the way my fingers were positioned made it difficult to release my hand from the mould without taking parts away so there are some areas where it has become deformed because of this. In future castings I will avoid this by positioning my hands more freely to avoid the alginate getting trapped in crevices. I will also use Vaseline or similar are my hands are quite dry and which I think didn’t help my hand release freely from the mould.

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I tried making casts of my finger and a mushroom in jesmonite. I feel they worked well but I think they had a lot of bubbles and the mixture was very thick. It didn’t set well where it was in contact with the alginate mould. I theorised this was down to the water content of the alginate mould. I spoke to my boyfriend who has worked with jesmonite before about the difficulties I was having with it and he said that it was likely the water as jesmonite is water based and doesn’t react well with water. This caused some parts to lose fine texture. To avoid this I’m going to try using silicone to make moulds of mushrooms.

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The result of the mushroom cast in jesmonite. You can see how the texture of the gills on the underside ended up flattened by the jesmonite not properly setting. Along with the trapped air causing imperfections. I think the jesmonite being quite old made the mixture thicker than it should have been which meant air couldn’t escape as easily.

The jesmonite casts of my finger, these picked up good fine detail but did have trapped air causing some imperfections.

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A plaster cast of a mushroom that was quite flat due to half the mould breaking. I decided to try building up some texture with jesmonite. It worked well but I don’t think it’s a technique I’ll use as it was hard to get an even texture and if it were even it would be too smooth. It might be something I decide to use in future if I’m wanting a flowing liquidy texture that is solid.

I tweaked how the mushrooms were in the moulds to hopefully improve the casts. The smallest one turned out very well without any air bubbles. The large one sadly caught a lot of air bubbles. The medium size one was too far deep in the container so the alginate didn’t end up all the way around leaving a flat edge. I need to make sure the objects are in large enough things when pouring the alginate to stop this happening.

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I’ve decided to try casting mushrooms in silicone as I’m finding the alginate to be very fragile and as a result it’s harder to get a good cast and I’m also wasting a lot and I need to prioritise using the alginate for body casts.

I couldn’t find a suitable vessel to cast my hand and wrist in due to the size requirements to be able to freely pose my hand. I spoke to Steve and he got me to take measurements for the size I need and showed me how to make a box from board and wood to fit my size requirements. When the box was finished due to being a square I felt a lot of the space was unnecessary and would cause me to waste alginate so I drew around the inside of the box then around my hand and sectioned our the corners and excess space on the paper to give me a template to use to cut out filler segments. Steve suggested i use foam cut on in the hot wire. This worked very well and now the box should be the perfect size for freely posing my hand without wasting too much material while having enough space around my hand to make it strong enough.

The way I sectioned out the box to make template for the foam. I cut out three of each making the box deep enough to get enough of my wrist in the alginate.

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I have a medical draining device that I want to include as a representation of sickness and eventual death. It looked too fresh and new so I’ve stained it to make it look less clinical and more like it was once a medical device that has been just left in and it’s started to become clogged and probably make whatever it was trying to fix worse with infection, dirt and grime.

Spoke to James about my progress and was recommended to look at Cathy de monchaux, Gregory euclade, Sophie Woodrow.

Also got some tips on attaching the mushroom casts to the hand. I was advised to drill into both pieces and attach a metal or wood rod and glue in place to give stability

I have practiced painting the mushrooms to add colour and texture to them. I want a subtle effect and one with a natural look and tone but not actually mimicking the appearance of the fungi the plaster casts are moulded from. I decided to try a mouldy mossy damp look. I tried using brusho paint diluted in water and black ink watered down to add depth and make the tones more murky.

Under side of small mushroom. I dabbed the ink on using a quite bedraggled fan brush which i think gave the marks a fine quality. I feel this one may be too saturated so I will try a lighter touch on another. I do like the pattern, texture and colour.

Again a plaster mushroom coloured with brushing and ink. I feel this finish is too subtle and uniform in colour and doesn’t have the impact I desired for looking decayed and overgrown

Top of cast mushroom with the colour wash

View of how the mushroom will appear when secured to the wrist

Another larger mushroom practice I like the variation in tones on this and the composition of the marks on the surface of the plaster.

I’m quite pleased with the outcome of these experiments. I will do more trying some other finishes.

I had a discussion with my boyfriend about my piece and the concepts behind it. We discussed how the third piece is very conceptually difficult to present physically and that I feel it’s better to possibly instead leave it as a blank setting and instead rather than being a statement have the blank space represent a question of what would symbiosis between mankind, Technology and nature look like and be, rather than actually making a prediction and keeping the physical aspects to being a representation of two far ends of a spectrum. We discussed kazimir malovich’s paintings that are conceptually no painting and every painting that has ever existed. Using people’s perception instead of physically representing it.

I was thinking about in film how often the most frightening horror is when you don’t see the scene in full and your imagination fills in the rest.

I’m thinking about possibly representing the question physically through having a place setting possibly in clear resin.

What I don’t want to do is focus too much on having a physical aspect and I feel it could be tacky and clumsy to try to force the piece.

He suggested possibly having plaster hand painted Matte black for the middle piece but i feel this will be too visually similar to the dystopian piece.

I am deciding whether to include mushrooms on the dystopian piece or not. We discussed how as they were a very early form of life and the importance of these to the environment and how they can be a sign of decay but also that they can give life through being a food source and allowing dead matter to be repurposed and recycled and their role in the ecosystem. I have decided to keep mushrooms to being in the piece about nature rather than in both even though conceptually they would fit in both pieces but I think considering I’m trying to represent two extremes of a situation I want to keep them as visually far from each other as I can.

We spoke about the cycle of cultures dying and being resurrected through time and dialectics as a concept which is applicable to my work.

The third piece I feel is much more conceptually strong as a question about how a future goal of symbiosis and nature could work and the piece to be a place holder for this and have people think about what this might be, using the way the audience interact and view the piece as a large part of it. As it is being made to be seen and viewed and questioned I want to utilise this relationship with the audience.

outcomes of changing the moulding material from alginate to silicone. I’m finding silicone much easier to use due to it being a more robust material and that it holds its shape better and can be used multiple times. I am finding that the silicone really gets deep into the gills which is good for getting fine texture but means it’s less solid and quite fragile. I’ve tried trimming the inside of the moulds where there are hairlike protrusions from the gills so that they don’t make such deep crevices in the plaster. It does however take longer to set so I’m finding it best to do these in batches in the evening then leaving them overnight.

 

 

Some found objects I have spray painted black to be more uniform visually. I will use these and other objects in my dystopian piece.

I’ve found that the test casts made from Jesmonite aren’t porous enough to paint with the water colour so I’ll continue to use plaster for the final

Painted plaster cast fungi

 

Plaster cast finger test, .I’ve tried painting this like my other tests and like the effect. I feel like I would like to go for a weathered stone effect.

I added some more colour to the mushroom casts for a murkier deeper effect. I feel it’s made them look more natural which was what I was trying to achieve. I am undecided if I feel these are too saturated though and I’m thinking I’d like to have more of the natural plaster colour showing and I’m trying tests in doing this. I’m keeping the colouring but using a lighter touch with filling then with the colour and using the same ink but more diluted for my subtle colours.

Here is a trial for this effect

I definitely much prefer it as I feel the others have too much going on which distracts from the form and texture and makes them too busy. I feel it’s more balanced and that the details are more of a statement do to it standing out better against the paleness of the plaster

I’m thinking about natural but unconventional forms of beauty and the human nature of repulsion and how these are often instinctual due to things causing harm, such as mould being something that is disgusting to most people. I feel when it’s removed from the context of being mould on a wall or on food ect it becomes something quite visually beautiful and I’m very interested in where the barrier between this lies, which links back to my thinking around the formulation of this piece around where the barrier between natural and unnatural lies and whether there even is one.

I tried another practice for the colouring of the fungi and definitely prefer it a lot lighter and less saturated with the ink for subtlety and texture. I’m using the ink to highlight the natural shape and contours.

I spoke to James and suzie about ways to present my pieces. A bell jar was suggested but i think I will be too difficult to find something large enough to accommodate that I can afford. We discussed possibly instead having wooden bases instead, Possibly with brass plaques to label them to give them a look of a Victorian museum artefact. Also discussed a letter punch thing James has but we decided it would be the wrong look. I’m thinking I may get some trophy plates engraved for this. I’ve found some fairly cheap online.

As I’m considering having an empty place holder I’m thinking this could be represented with a phrase or question on a brass plate such as “what is symbiosis” or “what is our future?”

Spray painted found objects. Circuit boards to represent technology and the down sides it can bring, soy sauce bottles shaped like fish, which is ironic because of the damage plastic causes to marine life. Animal bones and a piece of crab shell.

I was recommended by James to watch the film stalker because the aesthetics and content might be relevant to my work and also a more recent adaptation annihilation. Based on this my dad has recommended that I watch monsters as it has a similar these so I’ll watch these three.

Short discussion with my boyfriend about the possibility of continuing this piece as a performance Piece featuring prosthetics.

I have made a cast of my hand and wrist using alginate. I didn’t mix enough though which resulted in having to mix up more to add but by the time I had it had started to set which caused issues. I think I should’ve more accurately measured the volume I’d need for this. Because of the lower layer being set the finger tips were quite distorted and didn’t get a good cast. Also the third lot of alginate I used was chromatic and while I did get a good finish with it the dye in the alginate has made my plaster cast pink which is something I want to avoid. I’ve bought more alginate that isn’t coloured to avoid this in the rest of my moulds. I now have a better idea of the amount I will need to use for my moulds. although after the plaster had dried more thoroughly the pink colour went.

Other than the issues with the alginate setting I feel it went well but I think I need to instead keep my arm more upright so the base can be straight. I will use this one as a practice for my final piece as I don’t think it has the space to incorporate mushrooms.

Another batch of plaster mushrooms. I’m happy with the paint on these, I feel they’re the correct balance of paleness and grungey decayed colour.

I practised the oily masses I plan to crest using glue gun and thermoreactive paint on my failed cast of my fist adding with other trials for the paint finish. I’m pleased with how this turned out but I feel there is too much contrast between the white and black so I need to figure out what to do about this.

A video of the paint working when touched.

The plaster hand fell and smashed so I tried laying it out with the plaster mushrooms and photographing it as a composition. I will try gluing it back together. James suggested using gold leaf on the cracks to resemble the Japanese practice of kintsugi which I try. I think this would be conceptually interesting as the piece in in some ways both about decay and things becoming overrun and a possible future or alternate time line where humans aren’t dominant which would be possibly a fix for the environment or that it never happened. I will try this technique.

I tried painting the hand as I thought the white had too much contrast with the black and I wanted a more subtle look. however I feel it did the opposite and made it look tacky and too much like a theatrical prop.

I then sanded it to try to tone down the colour but I’m still not happy.

I am going to try painting it matte black for a more minimalist aesthetic. To pair with the other sculpture. I feel the matte effect will also appear like carbon which I feel is fitting with carbon emissions being a big issue.

the hand cast after being painted matte black. I think it looks much better now and has a more refined and less visually busy look as before I think the contrast took away from the oily masses bring the focus.

I painted the other sculpture slightly flesh toned but I’m undecided on whether I’m happy with it right now. I may keep the final just white or colour it to appear like weathered stone. The paint didn’t really take when it was dry and it also became quite discoloured when I tried to glue it back together where the fingers have broken off.

I had another try at casting my hand and wrist and had no issues with the alginate this time which is good. Although the plaster I poured in was too thick to properly reach the fingers and get all of the shape and detail. In future I’ll need to make sure the plaster is thin enough to get into each part as it was kind of the texture of yoghurt rather than a thick liquid which can easily pour which lead to the fingers of the cast being half formed.

I think the way the fingers came out have an interesting look but they’re not solid enough to not break incredibly easily so I had issues removing the alginate because of this and had some of them break. Other than this it was very successful in how much of my arm I was able to cast which leaves a lot of space for adding mushrooms. I will use the arm of this to practice attaching and retry casting it to get a more solid and realistic cast of my hand. I think the thickness of the plaster also caused a lot of air bubbles to form.

To hopefully have less issues with the fingers breaking I’ve bought a stronger kind of plaster called stone cast. I will also try making some mushrooms from this.

I started by thinking about when I was in Yorkshire in August. We went to spurn head nature reserve that I got a lot of visually interesting objects and photographs from and some conceptual ideas around the sea and the relationship to mankind and the passage of time.

Things left behind by people and end up on beaches, who were they, what was the object to them.
Passing of time and how it reflects on objects and structures by the sea making the passing of time a visible thing to be observed making it more solid and tangible.
Abandoned piers and how things that were once a focus of society and entertainment but are now just ruins and memories.
The sea making man made objects look organic, almost like an unstoppable force, reclaiming objects. Metal rusts, sharp rocks get smoothed. ruins beneath the sea and forgotten societies.

Coastal erosion is something that sparked my interest conceptually as the idea of the sea wearing away the land throughout time is very interesting to me with it being an ongoing process that takes years of constant wear to occur so it being a physical manifestation of years of waves is very interesting and powerful.
The rust is in the shapes of a piece of coastal erosion I found a photograph of and drew the scene in my sketchbooks so I decided to include the shapes in my final piece of work.

Instead if including the details I did it to appear like a piece of rusted metal I found and painted.

I find the texture and colours of rust, decay, mould, moss, lichen and general wear very visually interesting
Ive stitched pieces of found fishing rope to add to texture and add more aspects of how the sea shows the passing time on land and objects and also stitching on pieces of crabs that I collected on the beach.
I also used the fishing rope as a sort of makeshift brush with water colour paint to make marks on my piece, following the shapes and lines of the coastal erosion and fill some of the negatives space
I decided to keep the piece quite minimalist as I didn’t want it to look too busy and wanted to portray the sparce empty feelings of abandoned spaces and unoccupied beaches and the sort of forgotten, lost, left behind theme of these.