Blog 26

Having spent many hours piercing my roll of paper, I have decided to leave the work for a while on pause and start some other things. I'm very pleased to say that I have been awarded funding for my solo show from Creative Scotland and hope to start work with a film-maker soon with regard to this project.

As I pin, I've been thinking about the concept of thousands of holes verses one hole. 

I like the idea of this drawing as one huge sheet (wall size perhaps?) with one hole positioned on it somewhere. In 2006 I made a single dot drawing on an A1 sheet of paper. It was a fully considered and measured mark on a piece of paper. I hung the drawing in my studio for six weeks to see if I would draw  more dots. I never did and that was the work. 

Shawn cleverly photographed the image of the view outside our window through the hole. It is of the land opposite, across the water. I think this work takes me into other subject areas which I don't want to pursue. 

I do like imagery like this though. We can see it's a window and I have images where you can see a chair. Is it because they are inanimate, or an object? But I don't necessarily want specifics, just the sense of, or the wonderment of not knowing what you can see behind the holes at all.  

I went to a talk in March at the arts centre on the island called 'Exploring the Dark Side of the Universe'. I wasn't so wowed by seeing a constellation of stars but more the idea that it had taken thousands of years for the visual of each star to reach us before we could see it. It's a hard concept to grasp. The astronomer also talked about dark matter and dark energy - the dark 'stuff' around each star. That was exciting.

I keep piercing paper, little maquettes or drawings. I imagine this drawing above to be created on a large scale, placed across the floor like a big carpet, or river of holes. It has a velvety feel and is soft. Imagine walking across it.

I've returned to the canvas frame. In 2009, I created my first drawing on a frame. It was hundreds of black ink dots on a dark charcoal ground.  

This time I've placed white dots on a light charcoal ground. This work you need to stand back from, walk around the room, away from it, looking at it. It looks like a cloud, or lace. The black ink dots on a dark charcoal ground you need to get close up to. I don't think black ink dots work with the white dots together? Although I like the stray 'blob' on the edge of the frame. This piece needs to be bigger. Big. But how do you go about this on a practical level (even getting the canvas through the door) and cost? 

I've then taken a piece of A4 paper, attached it to a frame and pierced holes all across it. It needs light shining through it. Imagine every hole having a beam of light shining through it.

I've pierced a fixed piece of canvas that is already sealed on a frame. Light is more difficult to pass through. Both paper and canvas loose their rigidity and sag when pierced on a frame, becoming more sculptural, but only slightly. 

And I've had this black painted canvas as is, in my studio for ages, not daring, or wanting to touch it. What's going on? I like the shadow of the figure in the image, the reflection of me taking the photograph. Again, imagine a great big wall of reflective black. I also like the canvas itself, the structure of the material. Minute little grooves of cloth. 

I've drawn with graphite onto a board which had been painted with a white acrylic ground. Quite roughly painted on, you can see the horizontal and vertical brush strokes. The more I look at this, it reminds me of the look of linen. And graphite when thickly layered gives a sheen and therefore a reflection of the table the work is resting on.

I'm having a practical debate about the picture frame, and light, and the materiality of canvas, linen, paper, board.

And dots and holes. Black dots, white dots, on the line, through the line, in a line, pushing against a line, no line, free floating, lots of them or only one.

And dots placed on dots. Black first or white? They look like eyes, bubbles, foam, eclipses... Maybe these dots are too pretty.