Blog 7

Decisions. Decisions.

I haven't done any practical work for the last two weeks as we have been busy and I'm feeling a bit twitchy.

I've been reading the February issues of a-n magazine and Art Monthly. Both journals emphasize technology. It seems to be the buzz word at the moment. Blogging. Facebook. Tweets. YouTube. The internet is something I've been looking at myself, a useful media tool for someone who is often working in isolation.

I think I need what's known as artist' surgery, where you meet with an arts professional and discuss your practice, both it's strengths and weaknesses, explore new ideas and objectives with the eyes of an outsider. I have two thoughts running through my brain...

Firstly, should I try and sell some of my work via my website, and how do I go about this in a practical and cost effective way? Providing a product range and setting up PayPal doesn't seem too difficult, but my concern is how to ship artworks out to the customer, particularly if I'm working from a temporary or remote location? Please, if anyone could advise me on this.

Secondly, I would like to set myself a simple brief, or a set of parameters, in order to develop a series of new artworks, but what should that be? I've seen a couple of examples that have re-prompted this.

We went to Galeria Pedro Cera in Lisbon two weeks ago and I saw the works of artist Paulo Quintas. He is a painter who develops his paintings by using two paint colours and the canvas frame, his own bodily actions and just these materials to create a series of works.

Reading about Lu Qing in Art Monthly, she is the artist who is married to Ai Wewei, who has created Sunflower Seeds at Tate Modern. Qing sets herself the task of taking a long piece of silk fabric and painting on it over the course of a year. She starts a new piece of fabric at the beginning of each year.

Both simple briefs. Process led. Meditative. Risky?

When I worked in the food industry we had to write HACCP plans. HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points. For example, if a customer liked product 'B', then actions 'C', 'D' and 'E' would take place. If the customer liked product 'B' but wanted changes made, then 'D' and 'E' might happen but action 'C' wouldn't, and so on and so forth. Conversely, if the customer didn't like product B then you would revert back to the beginning 'A' and start all over again. The Critical Control Points were the routes or actions that you took at the most crucial time.

Art development is like a HACCP plan. All our daily actions in life are like a HACCP plan.

Decisions. Choices. Obligations. Risks.

Returning to technology, there was an artist recently who used the internet to create a drawing, where the audience texted in what she should draw next. Once the drawing was complete, she then sold it (I think).
Hmmm.

Certainly in terms of my drawing brief, perhaps it should revolve around dots and holes. That seems to be my obsession at the moment.