Giacometti at Tate Modern

I spent the morning at London Met, resigning from my course.  The form I had to complete was shockingly basic.  Name, number, course; last date attended, date of formal resignation, and one box to tick to indicate reason for leaving.  No interview, no request for explanation of leaving, no discussion about entitlement to refund.  Fortunately I asked about a refund and was told it would be a pro-rata reimbursement, and that I had to ring the Income Collection team.  No offer of using their phone.  I tried the number - no answer.  So I emailed them.  No answer yet.

I've liked Giacometti ever since I was first visiting exhibitions as a student.  One of my first successful exhibition sketches was of one of his sculptures of his brother.  His style of sculpture was very well suited to my scribbly sketching style.  This exhibition at Tate took a chronological approach to his artwork.  His earlier sculptures were influenced by African and Oceanic imagery, followed by the Surrealists and Dada.

Giacometti, Man and Woman 1929, Spoon Woman, 1929, Woman and Chariot,  1945

In 1945, immediate post-war, Giacometti's style changed.  He started created attenuated forms and isolated figures which were read as embodying human anxieties and alienation.  By these figures, a generation traumatised by war recognised itself.  I enjoy drawing these figures.

Giacometti, Falling Man 1950,
Standing Woman x 2, Standing  Woman with broken shoulder, 1958-9

In one of the rooms, it said that Giacometti was striving to portray the perfect woman and was experimenting to find the ideal form.  I don't really get this - first his attenuated forms were representing a traumatised generation, then become the perfect female form.  I like to draw them but have not resolved my position about what they represent.  

I think I need to go back and draw some more.  I only drew the medium sized sculptures - but he did exquisite miniatures (I would need a magnifying glass to draw them) and incredible 10 foot high ones.

Time to stop thinking about myself

I had a wonderful day at the Shedio.  I went back to my Thursday class (as opposed to the Monday class) because I am no longer at uni on Thursdays.  We were finishing the Identity project.

OH MY WORD.  What fantastic work was produced.  Seonaid created a wonderful print concertina sketchbook; Sheila produced printed labels with choice found objects; Karin created an exquisite collection of wrapped and combined found objects along with an energetic acrylic painting; Lori had printed and stitched disorder into order and Jane had a stitched textile mounted on slate, and my work was a series of positive/negative/combination monoprints.  Each artist clearly explained how her work represented her identity.

This work was way beyond what is produced at uni.  Being part of the Shedio group means I am part of a robust, intelligent, kind peer group.  How blessed am I!  It's so good to look at and gain understanding from other people's work.

Then in the evening, we had a phone call about 10.30 from our friend Maurice, 82.  He has had a recent hernia repair, but was in increasing pain.  Apparently he had been warned that a common complication of his surgery is that urination can be a problem, and catheterisation might be required.  He had dialled 111 and was advised the quickest way to hospital was by car - so as I am better at hospitals, Jim stayed at home and locked up Maurice's home, and I took him to Broomfield Hospital.

We were prioritised through triage immediately, as Maurice's pain was excruciating. The surgery had left him severely bruised and the hospital team assessed, then catheterised him, immediately.  The relief was instant.  He was sorted out and we were on our way home by 2.30am.  The staff were unfailingly kind, knowledgeable, competent and courteous.  Once again we felt blessed.

And today has made me think about other people rather than myself.  And get some perspective.

Learning to structure my work for submission

I had a trip to the Shedio today to get my act together on photographing my work and structuring my MA research to make it easier to assess.

I was pleased with how my 2 samplers have come out, and hope my photos are getting better.  Samplers carefully pressed and pinned against the wall in the Shedio, for consistent lighting.

1. Keep the blog running, but make separate entries for different subjects.  Sort out a standard template for a word document to make them consistent.  Then, as I write them, print off each page, and file by subject in a hard copy file.  This way, come assessment, I already have  evidence of reflective thinking in a file, sub-divided by subject.

2. Keep a separate list of Conferences I attend.

3. List all visits I make.

4. Full bibliography, plus bibliography of pertinent work.

4. On each sketchbook, put a synopsis of:

- What finished artwork does it refer to?
- Why you did it?
- Techniques
- What are you researching in this particular piece - flowers, tools, media,
- Indicate which imagery has been used in a final artwork.

5. Document all testing e.g. what threads you use, photograph where the wrong colour was used, colour palettes with appropriate names e.g. White Garden.

6. Create Technical Developments page.  Threads - why/how selected.  Fabrics - why/how selected.  Stitches - why/how selected.  Photograph or samples to document

Useful phrases to get proposal to Coventry started:

At the close of my time at London Met, I identified a number of key ideas to progress ...
As a textile artist, I use ...
I propose to explore ...
My initial investigations show ...

Review evolution of ideas in the first 2 samplers.

A very useful morning.

I've decided to withdraw from the MA By Project.

I have decided to leave the MABP course at the London Metropolitan University.

This feels a comfortable decision.  Not a good one, but right.  I really dislike the way London Met conducts itself as an organisation.  Their invoicing system is unclear, because it only specifies tuition fees on the Reminder - no date, no course number, no module number or name, no indication of early payment discount, no indication of previous over- or under-payments and does not call its demands for payments an Invoice.

The Head of School sacked our very competent Course Leader, Linden, last year.  This was a politically motivated sacking as part of a reorganisation.  We have had alternative module leaders who had different skills which did not meet my needs.  The Theory module was shambolic - constantly changing classrooms because the module leader did not like our allocated room, so we wasted time each class finding where we were meeting, no analysis, no focus on students' choice of texts, lots of reading out loud by our tutor.  For our Developing Project module, I did not realise until a month before the end of the second semester (!) who the module leader was, and only had one tutorial with her just before the end of project.  We seemed to have lots of odd classes which appeared to be random exercises drawn from BA courses.

Then my feedback for the Developing Project module turned into a Viva, and made it very obvious the 3 assessors did not understand my work.  I was informed I had achieved 62 and 65, and when I looked up what 62% meant, the words said "significant omissions" - but I don't know what they are!  Then when the results were published I had achieved 67%.  Even with an adjustment for the scores being worth 30% and 70% of the overall mark, I don't understand this.  Then I checked in more detail on the university website and my marks for this module had become 66 and 68%, averaging 67%.  So maybe the assessments had to be moderated ... after feedback?

I had attempted to conclude the course by enrolling for the final 60 credit module, which was to be completed in 3 months June-August.  But this meant working for 50 hours a week ... which I just cannot do.  My technique, cross stitch, is very slow and I need more time to gather data and reflect.  We were one week late starting the module, the second week was spent in feedback (making me very demoralised) and the third week was discussing the 6-8000 word report we need to complete.  I can't even imagine rushing to gather 8000 words worth of data, while racing to complete a sampler.

Linden is disappointed but understands my rationale.  I want to continue as a student so she is happy to continue to supervise me.  She also suggested I write to Jill Journeaux, our course verifier, to see whether I could join Coventry university, or anywhere else.  This I have done.

I have also emailed the Personal Academic Tutor as I cannot find the form I need to complete to withdraw from the course on the university website.