Blog 41

I am aware that I have not written for a while but there has been a lot going on. This summer I have been to - ing and fro - ing, on and off the island, and alas, the last journey involved the preparations and funeral of a very dear member of our family. Death is a relatively new experience for me and I am very thankful for that, but it feels so, so final.

I had no desire to go into the studio initially when I arrived home and shut the door feeling disillusioned about a number of things but that door is now wide open and as time moves on I have started making again.

I have been drawing into the cut up portions from my slate mono prints but the work feels tight.

 Hand 'un' finished ink mono prints on paper - work in progress

Hand finished ink mono print on paper - detail

Ink tracing from mono print

I have started to break down the components of the drawings looking at dots and squares and now circles. I am back piercing paper.

Circle cut - outs, ink on paper, blank square...

Pierced circle of paper - diameter when flat 8.5cm

Large pierced circle of paper - diameter when flat 49cm

Large pierced circle of paper - diameter when flat 49cm

Large pierced circle of paper - diameter when flat 49cm

The last three images above were hard to photograph and I never claim to be a good photographer. I can visualise the circles like big large dots. They become distorted blobs, or like miniature worlds. They remind me of Monet's Water Lilies 1920 - 1926. I would like to blacken them with thick black pigment.

In my Blog 36 written 13th April this year I spoke about the oscillation between uselessness and usefulness. My work may feel useless at moments and yet this uselessness feels useful in trying to work something out, having value in the process.

I did a lot of writing last week and through the act of writing (by hand, I note), it has helped me to work through some of the things I am trying to find out, understand, or make sense of. I finished with more questions saying to myself "yes, that's what I am trying to work out!". I love the inquisitiveness and enquiry with art.

On 28th August between 2 - 3pm I joined in with the twitter debate #SummerOfCraft. My first live event, I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. It was fun but so fast for a twitter newbie like me! To have a read of the debate, go to http://storify.com/Axisweb/summer-of-craft-live-debate

From the essay that Rebecca Gordon wrote about me last year she highlighted that there are five strands to my practice - process, materiality, sculpture, performance and craft.

How does craft relate to me? I think it boils down mostly to the activity of making. I enjoy and employ labour intensive processes. I choose traditional materials and expanded methods of using and displaying them. I piece holes in paper with a needle but no thread for example. But there is a tension that becomes between my process and the object that I produce. 

Often I discard the work once it is finished, mentally, even if not physically. Because I have a long term desire to de - clutter, the more simpler the process, the tools and the materials, the better it is, the work. 

One of the things that popped up in the #SummerOfCraft debate, although very little, was the subject of digital craft and art and it's got me thinking, how could you create a virtual 'craft' or method of making?

You can film the process of making, and there are electronic tools, and technology to help with making objects such as 3D printers, laser cutters and electronic drawing pads for design, for example, but what about a virtual method of making? All I can think of at the moment is the Wii™and I know very little about that! You could create something that is both useless and useful in turn and produce no physical object at all therefore supporting the de - clutter objective and reducing the amount of 'stuff' in the world! 

A very good article has been written in the September issue of Frieze magazine called Film Studio, Theatricalizing the design process online by Elizabeth Glickfield. Glickfield writes about how more and more designers are filming their making process to share with their audience, wishing to include the history and development of the piece and the large amount of detail that goes into a finished product.

She writes: 

"If alienation from mass production has sparked a return to craft, the characteristics of digital media have also induced what design writer Ellen Lupton calls 'a new crack at materialism, a chance to re - engage with the physicality of our work' ".

Humorously, Glickfield also adds that it removes the mess of 'real' making.

Working with Stephen Hurrel last year, we made two films about the making of my work. The films are quite detailed and specific in showing the making of the work but I was coming from a different viewpoint wanting to share how and why an artist may be compelled to make something. I was and still am questioning what does an artist do, what is my role as an artist in society and does art as an imaginative engagement serve society? 

Take a look at the films by Stephen Hurrel on my website at http://www.emmamoodysmith.com/gallery_530222.html

As I draw and pierce and read and write these are some of the things I am thinking about at the moment and I have more of a sense now of where craft may be considered in my practice.

Blog 40

Last time I wrote I was just about to embark on a trip to Amsterdam to help set up a show that I am in with the artists' group Plastic Propaganda. We had a few hectic days installing the work and all went well. I love setting up for show and I will put a link to the gallery's website at the bottom of this blog.

Coming home, two main things came out of this experience for me. Firstly, the cost, time and effort it takes to exhibit in an international exhibition, and secondly, the vast difference between Amsterdam and where I live now.

In terms of professional ambition I have always wanted to be an international artist, part of a global network of creatives. This, my premier showing outside the UK has proven expensive on my budget and I need to find ways to manage this whilst remaining true to my artistic intention and identity. This is tricky, and I need to think more carefully about what I make, how it can be transported and can it be installed without me? Can I find funds to make this happen, how do I distribute my money and what are the most important bits from the development of the artwork to it's exhibition and display? This I'm sure is achievable and I may need to think differently at certain points in the creation of new artworks. I employ the word 'may' because I mustn't put up barriers when in the flurry of creativity, although many artists as part of their practice set up rules or boundaries deliberately as part of their creative process.

Amsterdam is a beautiful city, vibrant and colourful. I walked everywhere whilst I was there and got lost in the process, still not finding all that I had intended to go to but happening upon other places in the interim. Everywhere there were bikes and cyclists, very innovative in the designs and use of their vehicles. You can purchase anything you want here. They have dedicated chocolate shops, cheese shops, sex shops, pancake bars, flower markets, I could go on...

The island I live on in Scotland is remote, but not the most remote. I have my silent place where I go to have quiet, just me, the loch, the mountains, the occasional sheep and birds. We have one street in our village which provides me with most of the essentials that I need. There is a community around me and I sometimes go further afield, even off the island, and that is when it gets expensive...

I regularly talk about de-cluttering in my life. It is a life style objective. We won't live on this island forever and when we move home next I surely cannot take all my art miscellany with me, not this time. I have started to reconsider old artworks, retrieving forgotten drawings, and liking the idea of making them into something new - the next stage in their development I guess. It is all relevant.

I have read about an artist who has set them self the target of writing each one of their blogs to a maximum of 50 words only. I like the idea of re-cycling and the concept of 'make do and mend' and embracing what you have got. Can I produce artworks that are aesthetic and worthy (whatever that word means) from this stand point?

I have some slate monoprints that I made back in 2008/9 and I have cut into them, dividing them up into portions. I am back into thinking about travelling, displacement, maps, territories etc. I would like to draw into them and change their appearance. Potentially I could have up to sixty drawings, a series, or one big fragmented piece?

Various including divided slate monoprints

You see on the right hand side of the photo above there are some fragments of a map, a series of line drawings I started on postcards, portions of places I had visited when I was travelling the UK back in 2010.

Photo still from film by Stephen Hurrel

You can just see a hint of these postcard maps on the wall behind the red chair when I was piercing my roll of paper in 2012.

Photo still from film by Stephen Hurrel

 And notice the view of the world from space in the background.

Photo still from film by Stephen Hurrel

And behind me in this image are some large line drawings of whole journeys we took in the 18 months we were travelling around the UK and Europe. 

Dress pattern paper yarn. Work in progress.

Whilst pondering I have done a little more yarn making with the dress pattern paper that has been in my storage for at least eight years. If you are able to look at the image closely, I particularly like the black markings that appear intermittently along the line of the thread. What can I eventually do with this? Present it as a ball of yarn? Or an installation of thread unravelled in a space...? N.B. I have tried knitting with it and it was horrendous with no give or elasticity, and this process seemed to complicate the simplicity of the thread, that being the 'star', the main focal point...

Three dimensional divided slate monoprints

With some of the portioned slate print cut ups I have been along the three dimensional route, influenced by my book making courses. I can visualise these as sculptures in their own right. They need drawing into, more work on them. I can also see them as large pieces, scaled up to walk around, imagine that.

The other thing that has been highlighted recently is how isolating living on an island can be. This is both a blessing and a curse. On a professional level I need to be in touch with my audience and the global creative community and I am working hard to increase my social media skills. I have spent quite a lot of time recently on the computer doing some online internet training, setting up a twitter account and working to improve my Linkedin profile. Do take a look and join me if you would like to. 

I'm aware I haven't mentioned piercing paper in any way this time which is my identity and what I am known for particularly at the moment. The process of putting a needle through paper hundreds of times still sits there as part of my practice. My needle is poised you could say. 

And the knitting with fishing wire? A piece is hanging suspended in front of my studio window, glistening, then vanishing in the changing light.

Here are some links to the various things I have talked about in this blog:

'The Critical Image' An Exhibition of Contemporary British Art by the group Plastic Propaganda

26 June - 27 July 2013:

http://www.vousetesici.nl/

The artists' group Plastic Propaganda which I am a member of:

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

My twitter page:

https://twitter.com/emmamoodysmith

My LinkedIn Profile:

uk.linkedin.com/in/emmamoodysmith

Blog 39

I have been using fishing wire to hang some of my paper works and it occurred to me what would this material be like to knit and crochet with? So I have been slowly knitting with fishing wire as a tester to see it's potential. And what a wonderful, if slightly tricky, new material / object it becomes. I like the play on light, in fact a very important component to the piece, and it's sculptural tendencies. It has an invisibility, and with the right factors can play tricks with your eyes. I like the act of knitting, something I can pick up and put down. It's a flexible making process, at least at this scale...

I've been thinking, wouldn't it be a great to link up with an artist who works with light or sound and see what creations we could produce?

I'm trying to work out what is the connection to the knitting compared to other works that I make - is this a red herring or a creative side track to something else? But I can see connections between the fishing wire knitting and my mud drawings, pen and ink works and bubble paintings of the past.

Mud Drawing

Pen and Ink Drawing - detail

Bubble Painting

I want to continue making my paper yarn out of dress - making pattern paper, collecting the colours of the paper together ready to cut into strips. I found a complete paper kit for a dressing gown and cut it out as a template liking the shapes that it formed and the markings (directions) on the paper.

It then got me thinking and I decided to deconstruct a man's white shirt which I purchased at our local charity shop. It's about the shapes that the unpicking of the shirt forms and I particularly like the holes left visible where the cotton stitching once was, a neat uniformed line, a trace. 

I like the shapes of the cuffs with the slit of the button hole at one end and the puckered mark where the button once sat, and the thick part of the rectangle where there is extra material for reinforcement and the thin part where there is no reinforcement, it's parallel partner. The cuffs in particular are very like canvases. 

And I like the cotton thread that I have pulled out of the shirt, all curly and 'wiggly', a 3 dimensional line drawing. I would like to unpick the fishing wire once it is knitted to capture all it's kinks and curls, the visual of it's first making process.

I am on the look out for a second - hand sewing machine so I can stitch (and unstitch) into paper...

Taking reference from the work I saw in Edinburgh recently of David Batchelor's sculptural drawings, I have been trying to draw the 3 dimensional work that I make, but I am struggling with this, it is not something I find easy. To pursue, or not to pursue? I guess I should.

Stephen Hurrel who I worked with last year on my solo show has edited a version of the film that we presented in the gallery - I have put a link to it at the bottom of this blog. Having played the film a few times there is a real sense of calm which perhaps I am not quite feeling at the moment? The simplicity of the work I produced and presented last year makes what I am doing at the moment seem cluttered, too busy - perhaps I am going off at a tangent? Sometimes this is necessary in order to work things out. Often unexpected surprises occur which can inform your current work or help you decide what you should do next. Sometimes it is just a happy detournement! 

Next week I head off to Amsterdam to set up for a show with the group Plastic Propaganda. There is so much to be done besides the work that the viewer sees in the gallery space. From packing up the artwork securly in crates (made for me especially, thank you), to sourcing couriers to deliver it, arranging insurances, flights, accommodation, labelling and costing the artwork, providing information for catalogues, updating website etc. The list goes on... It is all part of the bigger picture of exhibiting your artwork and these last few weeks particularly have left less time for practical making.

I am looking forward to meeting the team at Plastic Propaganda and I love the process of installing artwork for show. For me it is still part of the creative process, the act of making, and the work can take on a new nuance and come alive in it's new setting. 

Here is the link to film that I made with Stephen Hurrel http://vimeo.com/67584892

Blog 38

I have just come back from a very useful research trip to the east coast of Scotland stopping at Edinburgh and Dundee to visit some galleries, take part in a professional development course and review a collection of artists' books. It was very worthwhile and my head is buzzing with ideas, thoughts, reflections.

Living on an rural island to staying in a city was an explosion to the senses, the noise, the smells, the traffic, the people, and I walked everywhere, through different districts, shopping malls, housing estates, green spaces, grand buildings. It was brilliant, although by the end of the trip I did relish the return to the island.

I've had a conversation recently regarding my location and to what effect it has on my work. At home there are few distractions, a place to concentrate on the job at hand. Visiting the city like that allows a brief intense period of focus. It was really good to be in galleries looking at the artwork on display with a fresh pair of eyes and mind and it will be interesting to see how I respond to this experience over the next few weeks and coming months.

The course I went on was about making applications and proposals. We were a broad group of creatives ranging from architects, film-makers, artists and designers and this meant the information given couldn't be too specific which was disappointing. What the course did do was ask me some fundamental and thought provoking questions about my practice, some of which personally, I found difficult to answer or am uncomfortable with.

Some galleries I couldn't find, some galleries were shut or 'between shows', some galleries didn't appeal and some galleries were an unexpected surprise.

David Batchelor 'Flatlands' at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh was a revelation. He is primarily known for his sculptures but for this show he presented 2 dimensional work and drawings about sculpture. Here was his ideas for sculpture, as well as drawings of sculptural work unrealised or complete, often using these drawings as instructions for installation.

It was his process of creating which excited me the most and he works in series over long periods of time, 10 -15 years sometimes.

Famous for working with colour he has written a number of books on the subject of colour and the monochrome. One of his books in particular is now on my wish list, 'Chromophobia'. Because I always work with black and white I have been curious for a long while as to why that is, maybe his text might enlighten me?

At the Ingleby Gallery in Edinburgh was Garry Fabian Millar 'The Middle Place', a series of 40 photographs taken over a period of time of one place, at a fixed point with the lens. Every image was slightly different, but only ever so, and I could pick out some favourites. Each image was presented in a white frame for group continuity. I actually found the choice of display a little boring. It seems that anything as a series is either pinned to the wall, or put in a frame of equal size, style and colour. What about juggling things up a bit, ever so slightly, to create a slight blip, to break the monotony up, a little bit, yet still as a continuum?

In complete contrast was Summerhall, a creative arts hub in Edinburgh. One of their exhibitions called 'Phenotype Genotype (PhG)' has on display a collection of artworks from Summerhall's scientific past, illustrating the avant garde from dada, surrealism, arte povera, conceptual art, minimalism, pop art and the YBAs. Presented in old fashioned glass cabinets, it was a mass of the ephemeral. What struck me the most was how dated a lot of the work looked and it has made me now wonder how dated will my work look in years to come? There is looking dated as in 'a classic' (good) to looking dated as in 'naff' (bad)? I feel concerned.

In Dundee I had the pleasure of visiting the Centre for Artists' Books in the Visual Research Centre housed at Dundee Contemporary Arts Centre. With a collection of over 1300 books it enabled me a flavour of what an artists' book is or could be. It appears that generally an artists' book may contain handwriting and hand drawn imagery but is then printed by machine for publication. To connect with the viewer more personally a number of books were signed by the artist, with an original signature, and many books were limited editions. Hand crafted books appear to be a slightly different scenario and I think I prefer the sense of the handmade as opposed to the 'catalogue', hardback style design. It has certainly got me wondering as to how could I create books within my practice? I will have to try out some test samples. I think another step would be to visit an artist's book fair and see what is currently being produced, on the market right now, and what sort of prices they are.

This blog is just a sample of what I have seen, done and thought about during the last week. It has been so worthwhile, a success, and there is so much more. Being part of the wider art scene whilst living on an island can be difficult. The computer and social networking has to be key to my connection with the wider creative community but I love where I live and it is key to my daily existence. I have just joined Twitter but have yet to gain confidence in regular twittering. I have a small number of connections on LinkedIn and many friends on Facebook. 'Collaboration' was the buzz word on the applications and proposals course. Too much networking though means less time for creating and I need time for making. It's about getting the balance right.

And there is so much making to do.

Blog 37

I am piercing paper again in force developing a series of small drawings testing out blocks of pierced paper verses flat spaces, looking at how the edge of the paper curls when it is pierced, liking the rough and smooth textures of the flat and the raised surfaces, looking at relationships between each drawing.

Working small, postcard size, is a good template to test out ideas. I would like to create a series of large scale works for exhibition.

I have kept my weekly newspapers and magazines and used this wastepaper for pierced paper ideas, looking at patterns and shapes, formats.

And I have been folding sheets of paper together and stitching them together, a sort of book, but still a sheet of paper.

Larger Scale Work in Progress

I have purchased a mini starter pack of 20 watercolour paper sheets from Ken Bromley Art Supplies to see how the piercing process performs on different specifications of paper. It might be the case of simply changing the specification of paper that I use that could make all the difference. I actually like the exercise of piercing 20 sheets of paper, all in the same way, all to the same process, and I am getting different results.

In July I will be exhibiting in a show with the group Plastic Propaganda. We will be in Amsterdam, my premier showing outside the UK. I have been looking at ways to present my pierced drawings and getting costings for different framing solutions. In the ideal world I would like to present my works as they are, without any constraints at all, a piece of paper, as is, but that is not always possible, so I need to find hanging solutions that are as minimal as possible.

Plus it is so costly to have work framed and prepared externally for showing. Along with courier services, transporting artworks abroad, getting to the venue myself, accommodation. The £££ keep rising for this show.

Artist Karla Black suspends coloured paper in a space using thread or ribbon. I have tested out clear plastic fishing wire. In certain light you cannot see it. The paper looks like it is suspended, there, in the space, on it's own. Fishing wire as a material in itself is interesting. If it has a kink in it, you cannot straighten it out, the curl remains there. I have been thinking, how about crocheting with the fishing wire and then unpicking it, capturing all the kinks and curls. That would go well with my dress making paper yarn that I am making.

Next week I head to Edinburgh and Dundee. I am on course to learn more about making applications and writing proposals. I have also made enquiries to view a collection of artists' books at the Visual Research Centre in Dundee.

Reading, research and theory all play an important part in my practice. Is there a way to disseminate this thinking to my audience that can be stimulating, thought provoking and interesting? Where do books as an object and subject fit into my practice?

I have just been interviewed to discuss my solo show and project that I completed at An Tobar Art Centre this last year and I have caught up with an artist whom I haven't spoken with for the last 4 years. They were asking some important questions. The books that I read and talk about in my blog, the place where I now live, and the physical and the intangible costs to my work and practice, what influences are they having, if any, on my work?

I am busy.