Peter Dormer, The Art of the Maker: Skill & its meaning in Art, Craft & Design. 1994. Thames & Hudson.
Essential for the artist to gain self experience of doing/making, as it is very difficult to express in words. So craft knowledge is thoughts that enable the doing/making of something.
Craft knowledge enhance human experience and develops the self by forming knowledge - but a knowledge that is felt and rarely verbally articulated well. This knowledge is expressed in art. Therefore art is supported by craft knowledge.
Two types of knowledge:
Articulated in words - becomes Theoretical - leads to Analysis/ Reflection - results in Concept
Shown/demonstrated - thus Practical - leads to tacit knowledge - shown by example/comparison - results in Experience.
"The particular touch of a violinist, pianist, draughtsman, surgeon, nurse or vet cannot be described, but it can be demonstrated and, to a degree, be imitated or even learned wholly by someone else." Dormer 1994, 14.
Connoisseurship - knowledge acquired through experience of the senses. Requires personal, practical and physical effort.
Local knowledge - when an individual applies learned knowledge in an individual way. The 'how' of personal practical application. Goes beyond theory.
Tendency for fast results in today's society. Media driven society has promoted fast arts (abstract, computer, performance, video), the equivalent of art soundbites, to the detriment of slow arts. Craft knowledge is slow and difficult to learn. It is not "on demand".
Decline of craft skills - because it seems to have no value. Craft is "dependent on practical skills and who intention is discovered through the process of making the object" (Dormer 1994, 7). What he calls plastic arts are reducing, because it takes time and practice to acquire skills to manipulate one set of raw ingredients (paint, stone, textile) into art. Dormer dislikes ready-mades (urinal, but also tools like auto-focus cameras,) because so much of the artist's skill has been restricted to an automated set of variables.
Art students copy artworks that are an end result. Thus when art students copy Matisse paper cuts - without all the underpinning knowledge - the outcomes are weak. In order to make a robust outcome, the students need to gain the robust supporting practice and do/make things to gain this knowledge.
Dormer states artists who are already experts do not use rules. Rules are for beginners not experts. I'm not sure I agree with this. I think rules help people get started, and then rules turn into guidelines - they guide but do not restrict. Experts definitely have extensive tactile and material experience, thus they can anticipate the handling of materials in many different circumstances (how does thread glide through fabric on a humid day compared to aridity; how fast does cyanotype react on a dull or bright day.
Artists use words to back up and give theoretical validation to their art ... and reject craft (which does not get the theoretical validation). Artists replace drawing and painting with words to make up for lack of craft knowledge. With this type of artwork, words become more important that the artwork itself.
Two different points of view: Socrates: If you can't explain it, you don't understand it.
Dreyfus: Anyone who thinks he can carefully explain his skill, does not have expert understanding.
Thus I think that in 21st century western society, the craft artist is being pushed to use language (and rationality and all the other validation techniques) because there is an expectation that expert understanding will be explained and delivered spoon-fed!
Dormer: To know a craft, the individual has to make craft knowledge his or her own, so that thinking and doing flow together (Dormer, 1994, 100)
Human experience is complex - physical, emotional, intellectual, moral and aesthetic value judgement. A combination of individually gained knowledge, none of which is gained by the 'intelligent machine' or computer.
"What is especially valuable about craft is that once it is possessed by the individual it cannot be taken away and becomes a massive addition to the individual's life". (Dormer 1994, 103).
Thus I am using my craft skill base to honour the skills and talents of the people I depict.
My artwork is working without destination; but is working for exploration.
Sunday, 30 December 2018
Saturday, 29 December 2018
Thoughts on challenging femininity
I've been reflecting on my work. My work is not about passive women (ie the way men portray women in art), not women to be looked at. My work is about active women (a woman portraying women).
The women I valued started as being valued for their Intellectual skills (I think this is a value created by men. I think the hierarchy that places intellect above practical derives from men and power). Thus I was working within a male value system. I started depicting an Intellectual Woman who was not allowed to develop her intellect formally because of her gender - this was typical of her era. She had something valued by the patriarchy, yet was restricted in her capacity to use it by her gender. Then I moved to Argumentative Woman, who uses her intellect to argue, typically with men, for the benefit of anyone who was Othered. So I continued to value the intellectual.
Then I moved to valuing Homemaker Woman - manual, domestic activities. Highly skilled home-making/comfort based. Valuing housework as labour is a well worked theme, but has often focussed on the monetary value rather than the skill base.
Next was Migrant Worker Woman - valuing distasteful manual, public service, work that native British people won't do.
Finally I'm looking at Manual Worker Woman. High volume manual work.
Activity Environment Power Base
Intellectual (Mrs K) Private (home) Church; father; husband
Intellectual (me) Public Corporate (transport);
Manual (Aunt Joan). Private Husband; church
Manual (cleaners) Public Corporate (cleaning); church
Manual (machinists) Public Corporate (cars); union
Whether these women are working in a public or private environment, they are operating in a patriarchal power base. Which affects how they are valued.
The women I valued started as being valued for their Intellectual skills (I think this is a value created by men. I think the hierarchy that places intellect above practical derives from men and power). Thus I was working within a male value system. I started depicting an Intellectual Woman who was not allowed to develop her intellect formally because of her gender - this was typical of her era. She had something valued by the patriarchy, yet was restricted in her capacity to use it by her gender. Then I moved to Argumentative Woman, who uses her intellect to argue, typically with men, for the benefit of anyone who was Othered. So I continued to value the intellectual.
Then I moved to valuing Homemaker Woman - manual, domestic activities. Highly skilled home-making/comfort based. Valuing housework as labour is a well worked theme, but has often focussed on the monetary value rather than the skill base.
Next was Migrant Worker Woman - valuing distasteful manual, public service, work that native British people won't do.
Finally I'm looking at Manual Worker Woman. High volume manual work.
Activity Environment Power Base
Intellectual (Mrs K) Private (home) Church; father; husband
Intellectual (me) Public Corporate (transport);
Manual (Aunt Joan). Private Husband; church
Manual (cleaners) Public Corporate (cleaning); church
Manual (machinists) Public Corporate (cars); union
Whether these women are working in a public or private environment, they are operating in a patriarchal power base. Which affects how they are valued.
Wednesday, 26 December 2018
Old Mistresses - Women, Art & Ideology
Rosika Parker and Griselda Pollock. Chapter 2 Crafty Women and the hierarchy of the arts
'The sex of the artist matters'. Art history categorises art into 'a stratified system of values, which leads to a hierarchical of art forms'. Painting and sculpture at the top. 'Other arts... relegated to a lesser culture sphere... 'applied', 'decorative', or 'lesser' arts. This hierarchy is maintained by attributing to the decorative arts a lesser degree of intellectual effort or appeal and a greater concern with manual skill and utility. ' p50
'The art and craft division can be read on class lines, ... economic and social system dictating definitions of the artist as opposed to the artisan. ... The sex of the maker as as important a factor in the development of the hierarchy of the arts as the division between art and craft on the basis of function, material, intellectual content and class. ... The history of flower painting, privileges the necessary link between sex and status - the presence of women in large numbers changed its status and the way it was seen. p51
There is a 'tendency to identify women with nature. .. Fused into the prevailing notion of femininity, the painting becomes solely an extension of womanliness and the artist becomes a woman only fulfilling her nature. This effectively removes the paintings and the artists from the field of fine arts. Descriptions of flower paintings employ exactly the same terms that are used to justify the secondary status accorded to crafts which are similarly described as manually dexterous, decorative and intellectually undemanding.' p58
In the 18th and 19th century there was 'the development of an ideology of femininity, a social definition of women and their role, with the emergency of a clearly defined separation of art and craft. Embroidery was one of a number of arts and crafts which ... glorified the ruling institutions, church, monarchy and the nobility. p58
Embroidery,... with its aristocratic connections, was a perfect proof of gentility, ... that a man was able to support a leisured woman ... and played a crucial part in maintaining the class position of the household. ... Women were encouraged to ornament every conceivable surface ... a refined, tasteful life-style ... symbolised the domestic virtues of tireless industry, selfless service and praiseworthy thrift. .... Needlework began to embody and maintain feminine stereotype. p61
'Samplers are often beautiful, ... admire(d) and ... represent ... the acquisition of ... feminine characteristics. Patience, submissiveness, service, obedience, and modesty were taught by concentrated technical exercises, as well as by the pious, self-denying verses and prayers. : ... Within limitations imposed upon them, women made samplers into an expressive form.' p66
'Samplers are not generally seen as expressive art forms and if they are valued at all it is for nostalgia reasons for for the manual dexterity they display. p67
(There is a) 'familiar package of derogatory definitions: Limitedness, decorativeness, industriousness and pettiness. ... To justify a change of status for such crafts and to move them onto the fine art circuit, they have to undergo a revealing transformation. ... Woven blankets by the American Navaho ... those who wished to see them as artworks had to expunge all traces of craft association. ... The geometric becomes abstract, blankets become paintings, and women weavers become nameless masters. ... In art history the status of an artwork is inextricably tied to the status of the maker. p68. ... Art Historical writing (is based on) the monograph on a named artist, ... a catalogue raisonne of all paintings ... because it is seen to issue from the hand of an individual. The way a worker of art is viewed depends on who made it. By contrast, books on craft history are more concerned with the objects themselves, in relation to how they were made their purpose and function; the maker is of secondary importance.
When talking about 'Navaho products as art, Pomeroy conjures up 'nameless masters' .... used by modern historians tolerate an artistic identity for an artist whose name has become lost to history. ' Not 'nameless mistresses' or even 'nameless artists'! 'Once again I modern art history the fine artist is synonymous with the male artist'.. What is required is 'a new status for the maker which includes not only a change of terminology but also of sex and implicitly, of race. p69
'Women's work is ... awarded secondary status because of... differences(s) between private and public activities, domestic and professional work. ... What distinguishes art from craft in the hierarchy is. not so much different methods, practices and objects but also where these things are made, often in the home and for home they are made, often for the family. The fine arts are a public professional activity. What women make, which is usually defined as 'craft', could in fact be defined as 'domestic art'. ... It is out of these different conditions that the hierarchical division between art and craft has been constructed; it has nothing to do with the inherent qualities of the object nor the gender of the maker.' p70
'High art and the fine artist have come to mean the direct antithesis of all that is defined by the feminine stereotype. ... The important questions concern women artists' relationship to an ideology of sexual difference in which the notions of masculine and feminine are meaningful only in relation to each other. ... All women's art is seen homogeneously as inevitably feminine in painting... as in the crafts is the effect of this ideology. We never speak of masculine art or man artist, we say simply art and artist. But the art of men can only maintain its dominance and privilege on the pages of art history by having a negative to its positive, a feminine too its unacknowledged masculine. Ideology is not a conscious process, its effects are manifest but it works unconsciously, reproducing the values and systems of belief of the dominant group it serves. ... This ideology is reproduced not only in the way art is discussed, the discipline or art history, but in works of art themselves. It operates through images and styles in art, the ways of seeing the world and representing our position in the world that art presents. It is inscribed into the very language of art.' p80
Thus in art, 'the position of women is contradictory and problematic, for if feminine is the negative of masculine and masculine is dominant, how do women see themselves and how do they produce meanings of their own in a language made by a dominant group which affirms men's dominance and power and reproduces their supremacy?' p81. (I need to answer this question)
'The sex of the artist matters'. Art history categorises art into 'a stratified system of values, which leads to a hierarchical of art forms'. Painting and sculpture at the top. 'Other arts... relegated to a lesser culture sphere... 'applied', 'decorative', or 'lesser' arts. This hierarchy is maintained by attributing to the decorative arts a lesser degree of intellectual effort or appeal and a greater concern with manual skill and utility. ' p50
'The art and craft division can be read on class lines, ... economic and social system dictating definitions of the artist as opposed to the artisan. ... The sex of the maker as as important a factor in the development of the hierarchy of the arts as the division between art and craft on the basis of function, material, intellectual content and class. ... The history of flower painting, privileges the necessary link between sex and status - the presence of women in large numbers changed its status and the way it was seen. p51
There is a 'tendency to identify women with nature. .. Fused into the prevailing notion of femininity, the painting becomes solely an extension of womanliness and the artist becomes a woman only fulfilling her nature. This effectively removes the paintings and the artists from the field of fine arts. Descriptions of flower paintings employ exactly the same terms that are used to justify the secondary status accorded to crafts which are similarly described as manually dexterous, decorative and intellectually undemanding.' p58
In the 18th and 19th century there was 'the development of an ideology of femininity, a social definition of women and their role, with the emergency of a clearly defined separation of art and craft. Embroidery was one of a number of arts and crafts which ... glorified the ruling institutions, church, monarchy and the nobility. p58
Embroidery,... with its aristocratic connections, was a perfect proof of gentility, ... that a man was able to support a leisured woman ... and played a crucial part in maintaining the class position of the household. ... Women were encouraged to ornament every conceivable surface ... a refined, tasteful life-style ... symbolised the domestic virtues of tireless industry, selfless service and praiseworthy thrift. .... Needlework began to embody and maintain feminine stereotype. p61
'Samplers are often beautiful, ... admire(d) and ... represent ... the acquisition of ... feminine characteristics. Patience, submissiveness, service, obedience, and modesty were taught by concentrated technical exercises, as well as by the pious, self-denying verses and prayers. : ... Within limitations imposed upon them, women made samplers into an expressive form.' p66
'Samplers are not generally seen as expressive art forms and if they are valued at all it is for nostalgia reasons for for the manual dexterity they display. p67
(There is a) 'familiar package of derogatory definitions: Limitedness, decorativeness, industriousness and pettiness. ... To justify a change of status for such crafts and to move them onto the fine art circuit, they have to undergo a revealing transformation. ... Woven blankets by the American Navaho ... those who wished to see them as artworks had to expunge all traces of craft association. ... The geometric becomes abstract, blankets become paintings, and women weavers become nameless masters. ... In art history the status of an artwork is inextricably tied to the status of the maker. p68. ... Art Historical writing (is based on) the monograph on a named artist, ... a catalogue raisonne of all paintings ... because it is seen to issue from the hand of an individual. The way a worker of art is viewed depends on who made it. By contrast, books on craft history are more concerned with the objects themselves, in relation to how they were made their purpose and function; the maker is of secondary importance.
When talking about 'Navaho products as art, Pomeroy conjures up 'nameless masters' .... used by modern historians tolerate an artistic identity for an artist whose name has become lost to history. ' Not 'nameless mistresses' or even 'nameless artists'! 'Once again I modern art history the fine artist is synonymous with the male artist'.. What is required is 'a new status for the maker which includes not only a change of terminology but also of sex and implicitly, of race. p69
'Women's work is ... awarded secondary status because of... differences(s) between private and public activities, domestic and professional work. ... What distinguishes art from craft in the hierarchy is. not so much different methods, practices and objects but also where these things are made, often in the home and for home they are made, often for the family. The fine arts are a public professional activity. What women make, which is usually defined as 'craft', could in fact be defined as 'domestic art'. ... It is out of these different conditions that the hierarchical division between art and craft has been constructed; it has nothing to do with the inherent qualities of the object nor the gender of the maker.' p70
'High art and the fine artist have come to mean the direct antithesis of all that is defined by the feminine stereotype. ... The important questions concern women artists' relationship to an ideology of sexual difference in which the notions of masculine and feminine are meaningful only in relation to each other. ... All women's art is seen homogeneously as inevitably feminine in painting... as in the crafts is the effect of this ideology. We never speak of masculine art or man artist, we say simply art and artist. But the art of men can only maintain its dominance and privilege on the pages of art history by having a negative to its positive, a feminine too its unacknowledged masculine. Ideology is not a conscious process, its effects are manifest but it works unconsciously, reproducing the values and systems of belief of the dominant group it serves. ... This ideology is reproduced not only in the way art is discussed, the discipline or art history, but in works of art themselves. It operates through images and styles in art, the ways of seeing the world and representing our position in the world that art presents. It is inscribed into the very language of art.' p80
Thus in art, 'the position of women is contradictory and problematic, for if feminine is the negative of masculine and masculine is dominant, how do women see themselves and how do they produce meanings of their own in a language made by a dominant group which affirms men's dominance and power and reproduces their supremacy?' p81. (I need to answer this question)
Thursday, 20 December 2018
A useful day in Ilford
Jill had been encouraging of me having my MA show in an appropriate venue in East London, because my 5 samplers will be about women in this area.
Today I went to Redbridge Library and Museum. They had a very interesting Wonder Women exhibition about women from Ilford over the last 100 years and their changing role in society. Very interesting. I looked at the exhibition space, and asked whether it was possible to hold my exhibition there in September. They have a waiting list for exhibition times, although 9 months was a good lead time and I was advised to make my request by email.
However, on reflection, the space was too big for me. So as I was in Ilford, I decided to walk down to Eastside Community Heritage and take advice from Judith. I wanted to use her name, as a supporter and to show I was not a fly-by-night, to the relevant authorities. Judith was very helpful. She suggested two other venues that might be better. Eastbury Manor (National Trust, but run by LBBD) or Dagenham Library. Eastbury Manor is under-used in Judith's opinion. Would not get many passing visitors. Dagenham Library has a very keen curator/librarian, Vince, who would be very keen and hands-on with an exhibition. This sounds better to me. I will follow-up over Christmas/New Year.
Today I went to Redbridge Library and Museum. They had a very interesting Wonder Women exhibition about women from Ilford over the last 100 years and their changing role in society. Very interesting. I looked at the exhibition space, and asked whether it was possible to hold my exhibition there in September. They have a waiting list for exhibition times, although 9 months was a good lead time and I was advised to make my request by email.
However, on reflection, the space was too big for me. So as I was in Ilford, I decided to walk down to Eastside Community Heritage and take advice from Judith. I wanted to use her name, as a supporter and to show I was not a fly-by-night, to the relevant authorities. Judith was very helpful. She suggested two other venues that might be better. Eastbury Manor (National Trust, but run by LBBD) or Dagenham Library. Eastbury Manor is under-used in Judith's opinion. Would not get many passing visitors. Dagenham Library has a very keen curator/librarian, Vince, who would be very keen and hands-on with an exhibition. This sounds better to me. I will follow-up over Christmas/New Year.
Tuesday, 18 December 2018
Cleaning Art - Judy Chicago, Mary Kelly, Mierle Laderman Ukeles
Helen Molesworth, Cleaning up in the 1970s: The Work of Judy Chicago, Mary Kelly, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles, in Rewriting Conceptual Art 1999, chapter 6.
Second wave feminism in the 1970s tried to reclaim women's history. Essentialism offered a positive image of women by focussing on biological processes and female sexuality, using domesticity and handicrafts, and presumed equality to men, by claiming medical and juridicial inequities. However much of the feminist writing at the time presumed woman to be white and ignored other differences.
1980s feminists used linguistic based theories and argued against reality a priori and said 'reality' is a construction. Thus reconstructed woman and the idea of sexual difference. Focus on how pictorial and linguistic representation constructs meaning. Sexual difference through representation, not representations of sexual difference. The vision and the gaze were debated. Essentialism was rejected.
Mary Kelly created the theory-based, psychoanalytic description of feminist practice, Post Partum Document. " The Mother ... is never imaged pictorially, only textually, a strategy meant to mitigate against the prevailing problematic of woman as object of gaze" (a gaze presumed male). (Mary Kelly Imaging Desire, Cambridge MA, 1996) "Posits femininity as a position in language".
"Articulate the figure of Mother as one who possesses desire; the mother as denaturalised and sexualised subject". Stages the production of sexual difference in representation as opposed to a difference based on a biological body.
Tate.org Mary Kelly Post Partum Document, Analysed Marking. "It suggests an interplay of voices - the mother's experience, feminist analysis; academic discussion, political debate". Kelly 1983. p xviii (My work has a different interplay of voices - me as artist, the subject(s), family members, not sure about the analysis or academic discussion)
Gatens, in Feminism & Philosophy, says the idea of equality is skewed because equality in the public sphere is dependent on and evolved by a male subject who acts in public but is maintained in private, traditionally by a woman. A system structured by inequality cannot grant equality to women, merely the chance to become men. Gatens says the body is "an effect of socially and historically specific practices".
Ukeles Maintenance Art brings in the issue of labour.
Judy Chicago Mary Kelly
Essentialist ________________ Theory based, psychoanalytic
Dinner Party \ Private Aspects / Post Partum Document
Bodily \ of Women's / Mental
\ Lives /
\ /
\. /
\./
Mierle Laderman Ukeles
Labour
Maintenance Art
Political economy
Ukeles saye human labour can be divided into Development, and Maintenance. Development is largely modernist, about progress and individuality; Maintenance is largely human, continuous, ongoing - cooking, cleaning, shopping, children etc. She reconfigured value upon unobtrusive maintenance operations - and the ramifications of making maintenance visible in public.
The commonality between these three is writing. Chicago has names written on the table runners and the tiled floor; Kelly the writing of her and her son on the slates; Ukeles has writing on posters, charts and the Maintenance Art stamp. They are also all objects designed to be viewed in a museum/gallery environment.
Ukeles makes a typically private, domestic labour, cleaning action into an activity in the public sphere, thus making it a debate about what is legitimate and what is not "Opens public space to the pressure of what it traditionally excludes". Rosalind Deutsche, Evictions: Art & Spatial Politics. Queries the traditional publicness of art's reliance on the public sphere for its legibility and value. Ukeles underscores the public sphere's structural reliance on private/domestic labour.
Carole Pateman (The Sexual Contract, p144) contends that the public sphere is always assumed to throw light on the private rather than vice versa.
Ukeles Transfer. The exposure of maintenance (as an artwork) added a stage to normal museum procedures, and created extra work. Thus privileging maintenance work over other art shows (Carole Pateman) demonstrated how structural to patriarchy and capitalism it is, that the labour of maintenance should be invisible. When visible, maintenance arrests or stymies the labour it is designed to maintain.
Each of these 3 works embodies how the world might be differently organised.
Ideal dinner party - convivial conversation and the pleasures of the flesh.
Equal value on mothering and being an artist.
Maintenance has value equal to art, by reorganising public and private spheres.
Each of these pushes towards art as a legitimate public discourse.
Second wave feminism in the 1970s tried to reclaim women's history. Essentialism offered a positive image of women by focussing on biological processes and female sexuality, using domesticity and handicrafts, and presumed equality to men, by claiming medical and juridicial inequities. However much of the feminist writing at the time presumed woman to be white and ignored other differences.
1980s feminists used linguistic based theories and argued against reality a priori and said 'reality' is a construction. Thus reconstructed woman and the idea of sexual difference. Focus on how pictorial and linguistic representation constructs meaning. Sexual difference through representation, not representations of sexual difference. The vision and the gaze were debated. Essentialism was rejected.
Mary Kelly created the theory-based, psychoanalytic description of feminist practice, Post Partum Document. " The Mother ... is never imaged pictorially, only textually, a strategy meant to mitigate against the prevailing problematic of woman as object of gaze" (a gaze presumed male). (Mary Kelly Imaging Desire, Cambridge MA, 1996) "Posits femininity as a position in language".
"Articulate the figure of Mother as one who possesses desire; the mother as denaturalised and sexualised subject". Stages the production of sexual difference in representation as opposed to a difference based on a biological body.
Tate.org Mary Kelly Post Partum Document, Analysed Marking. "It suggests an interplay of voices - the mother's experience, feminist analysis; academic discussion, political debate". Kelly 1983. p xviii (My work has a different interplay of voices - me as artist, the subject(s), family members, not sure about the analysis or academic discussion)
Gatens, in Feminism & Philosophy, says the idea of equality is skewed because equality in the public sphere is dependent on and evolved by a male subject who acts in public but is maintained in private, traditionally by a woman. A system structured by inequality cannot grant equality to women, merely the chance to become men. Gatens says the body is "an effect of socially and historically specific practices".
Ukeles Maintenance Art brings in the issue of labour.
Judy Chicago Mary Kelly
Essentialist ________________ Theory based, psychoanalytic
Dinner Party \ Private Aspects / Post Partum Document
Bodily \ of Women's / Mental
\ Lives /
\ /
\. /
\./
Mierle Laderman Ukeles
Labour
Maintenance Art
Political economy
Ukeles saye human labour can be divided into Development, and Maintenance. Development is largely modernist, about progress and individuality; Maintenance is largely human, continuous, ongoing - cooking, cleaning, shopping, children etc. She reconfigured value upon unobtrusive maintenance operations - and the ramifications of making maintenance visible in public.
The commonality between these three is writing. Chicago has names written on the table runners and the tiled floor; Kelly the writing of her and her son on the slates; Ukeles has writing on posters, charts and the Maintenance Art stamp. They are also all objects designed to be viewed in a museum/gallery environment.
Ukeles makes a typically private, domestic labour, cleaning action into an activity in the public sphere, thus making it a debate about what is legitimate and what is not "Opens public space to the pressure of what it traditionally excludes". Rosalind Deutsche, Evictions: Art & Spatial Politics. Queries the traditional publicness of art's reliance on the public sphere for its legibility and value. Ukeles underscores the public sphere's structural reliance on private/domestic labour.
Carole Pateman (The Sexual Contract, p144) contends that the public sphere is always assumed to throw light on the private rather than vice versa.
Ukeles Transfer. The exposure of maintenance (as an artwork) added a stage to normal museum procedures, and created extra work. Thus privileging maintenance work over other art shows (Carole Pateman) demonstrated how structural to patriarchy and capitalism it is, that the labour of maintenance should be invisible. When visible, maintenance arrests or stymies the labour it is designed to maintain.
Each of these 3 works embodies how the world might be differently organised.
Ideal dinner party - convivial conversation and the pleasures of the flesh.
Equal value on mothering and being an artist.
Maintenance has value equal to art, by reorganising public and private spheres.
Each of these pushes towards art as a legitimate public discourse.
Saturday, 15 December 2018
Women, Power, Protest at Birmingham Museum
Great trip to a museum. I'm really glad Jill put me on to this one.
 |
| Sue Richardson, Burnt Breakfast, 1975 |
I can't say this appeals to me, but I like the use of craft as a serious textile medium, while expressing her frustrations at being a housewife. Housewife is not a term used much in the 21st century. Is it because society now realises women do not marry a house. Or is it that Government policy want women working at all times so they are contributors, not claimants, and earn their state pension with their own contributions, so the term housewife has been dropped?
 |
| Mary Kelly, Post Partum series, part vi. |
My work does not use the bodies of women (other than my own!) to represent them, but the tools they use and the objects that they create. Does this enable me to say anything about the 'layered social and physical burdens placed on women's role"?
Interesting that the venue put in a warning about Margaret Harrison's work, about rape as described in newspapers ie easily accessed publications which don't have a warning on the cover.
 |
| I like the quote from Lucy Lippard |
 |
| Birmingham Museum has made some very good artwork statements, that explain the circumstances of the artwork or its previous display. |
 |
| Margaret Harrison, Rape. |
 |
| 1970s newspaper clippings of actual court cases |
 |
| Quotes from Judge Sutcliffe |
 |
| Definition of rape and statistics. |
 |
| Tesco tried to defend their underwear stocks. |
And while 40 years later, rapist knickers would not be in a supermarket, M&S have recently been criticised for window displays at Christmas that deem 'must haves' to be suits and clean shirts for fully dressed men in the window, yet are frilly knickers for semi-clad women in the window!. Hmmm!
 |
| Sonia Boyce, 1985 |
I like Sonia Boyce's work for how she deals with inappropriate behaviour, and uses the cropping technique on the man, that is so often used to reduce the agency of women.
I like the way this gives the point of view of a minority group. It expresses very well, things that I might not realise from my own standpoint.
While I love this art that can be so challenging, because it points out and criticises how women are treated, my own work chooses to focus on the positives about women. I think my art would be less likely to be attacked by critics than that shown above (which has often been castigated). One that comes to mind is a show by Margaret Harrison that was closed because she portrayed Hugh Hefner as a bunny girl (which was closed for indecency as he was a man, yet porn magazines were indecent and allowed to be sold because they portrayed women!).
Tutorial with Jill and Imogen
I saw Jill and Imogen on 12 December. Unfortunately my email of two pieces of writing from the previous fortnight sent on 9.12 had not arrived with either of them. They said I needed to do more about the spiral of long term research – otherwise what is the point of doing a series of work. Use images to start reflection. Identify relationships with bigger contexts.
Go to Birmingham Museum. Look at Mary Kelly. She did notdo certain things, but diddo other things. Non-patriarchal. Chicago’s work is all about the subject. My work is about subject, process, content. Look at Peter Dormer. Tacit knowledge, embodiment. Confirms and backs up. Use method in a new way. Look at Rozika Parker. Biography, autobiography, memory. I know about all these people, but I need to work out how to use them.
Onion diagram. Decision/problem
My work
Theory of reflection
Context of other art.
(Making an outcome/process; history of stitch; women’s art about other women; their agenda regarding the representation of women – look up Caren Garfen, Mierle Laderman Ukeles - museum step cleaning).
Write about 750 words about my reflective practice. (I’ve had a first stab at this in the writing that I re-sent in tutorial). Consider reflective doing – discerning judgement – identify what parameters I use (size, scale, material) – drawing methodology. Consider variables – how much image -v- text; individual chosen; colours used. Symbolism of objects and borders. How I improvise with all of them. How my capability at improvising has increased. (improvisiation – jazz context). Why using linen – the grid, how the light reflects. Go to linen museum (Ireland). Threads – reasoning. I’m not doing painting by numbers – explain.
Look at artists who use pattern shapes. Shelley Goldsmith. Crafting anatomy show. Caroline Broadhead.
Actions:
CMT – to go Birmingham museum – Mary Kelly
CMT – go to Linen museum, Ireland?
CMT – lots of writing.
JJ/IR – please go slower in tutorial – let me make the notes! Otherwise it will waste your time and mine! Had I not got the final paragraph in notes I would not have had the building blocks to work with!
Saturday, 8 December 2018
Donald Schon, The Reflective Practitioner
Two theories of action:
theories-in-use - are implicit in what we do and on what we call when describing our actions to others, ie not actually stated; and
espoused theory - the words we use to convey what we do, or what we would like others to think we do.
The difference between these is important.
Why? Not sure why there is a difference. Is it that we like to inflate the importance of our reasons for action? So for me, I think a theory-in-use that is implicit in my practice is that I make most of my art in a classroom setting. I like making artwork in a social setting, and find it very difficult to make it alone. So am I reluctant to state that part of my practice involves art class, because I am embarrassed or shy to reveal that I can't make artwork on my own, therefore I don't draw attention to the social environment of my making?
And for espoused theory, is it that when I went to New York to see The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, supposedly to research feminist making practice, I wanted others to see that I put effort into seeing famous artworks for real, rather than that I wanted a jolly, in the depths of winter, or that I wanted the status of being able to take a luxurious trip at a time that avoided the crowds.
Argyris and Schon (1974) wrote about Theory in Use. This requires:
Governing variables (dimensions to be acceptable)
Action Strategies (moves and plans in line with dimensions)
Consequences (results of actions - intended and unintended).
Leads to Learning - with the subsequent detection and correction of error. When error occurs, it results in finding another strategy to address the error, while working within the same variables. However it means goals, values, plans and rules are not questioned. This is single loop learning. Action - error - more action - error - more action - error.
Double loop learning leads to better learning because questions are raised possibly leading to changing the variables.
...
Reflection in and on action.
Schon starts explaining Technical Rationality. Uses single loop learning - goals, frameworks, values and strategies are taken for granted. The focus is on techniques and making these more efficient (Usher & Bryant 1989:87). Reflection is aimed to make the strategy more effective (not the outcome). Questions are not asked of the goals, frameworks, values and strategies. Double loop learning 'involves questioning the role of the framing and learning systems which underlie actual goals and strategies' (Usher and Bryant, 1989:87). I think this means double loop learning aims to revisit the purpose, and ask is the goal or strategy appropriate for the purpose? Goes back to an earlier stage of the concept.
Reflection in Action
Goes beyond Technical Rationality - this is the positivist epistemology of practice. Technical rationality addresses rigour of learning but does not address relevance (which changes according to circumstance and context).
Schon enables an alternative epistemology of practice 'in which the knowledge inherent in practice is understood as artful doing' (Usher et all 1997:143).
'The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomena before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. ..... When someone reflects-in-action he becomes a researcher in the practice context. He is not dependent on the categories of established theory and technique but contracts a new theory of the unique case. His inquiry is not limited to a liberation about means which depends on a prior agreement about ends'. Schon 1983:68
In my sampler, Migrant Worker Woman, the glove demonstrates Reflection in Action quite well. Cross stitch is taught in two main ways, when using Technical Rationality. Either each stitch is completed, one cross at a time, with every cross having a left diagonal stitch oversewn with a right handed diagonal stitch, before the next cross is commenced; or, a whole row of left handed stitches are completed, sewn left to right; followed by a whole row of right handed stitches sews right to left. This makes most economical use of thread, but does require knowledge of the amount of thread required to cover the required area. Stitching previous samplers, when I had misjudged the amount of thread required, had led to me identify methods of extending a colour by using two closely toned threads in the needle or stitching a slightly different colour on the top layer of stitch.
When stitching the yellow glove, I did not know how much thread would be required. I stitched the base layer of left handed cross stitches to cover the area required, and calculated the number of threads required for the top layer of right handed stitches. This indicated I had enough of the right colour. This thread had some colour variation within the skein, which gives natural colour movement and makes colour panels less flat. I did not want a flat block of colour, as a rubber glove has some moulding and this needed to be apparent for it to read as a representation of a 3D object. While stitching the top layer of the cross stitches, I started by working horizontal rows, which gave flat horizontal lines of more intense colour where the colour variation occurred. This was contrary to the required effect of moulding. However, while stitching, it occurred to me that if I stitched the more intense colour up and down the edge of the fingers of the gloves, I could give the impression of moulding, and avoid the streaks of intensity in the wrong place.
This shows two stages of adaptation of the working of cross stitch - working one layer at a time, rather than one stitch at a time; and stitching directionally in order to use colour variation where it is needed.
Reflection On Action explores why we acted as we did. This creates sets of questions and ideas about activity and practice. So does Reflection on Action lead to praxis, rather than practice. Praxis is informed, committed action. Schon appears to be more focussed on informed action, than committed action. He does not interrogate his own method. (Usher et al 1997:149). He talks about framing one's practice, to inform it, but 'neglects the situatedness of practitioner experience'. (id ib).
Does this fit with my thoughts about Situated Knowledge artefacts?
theories-in-use - are implicit in what we do and on what we call when describing our actions to others, ie not actually stated; and
espoused theory - the words we use to convey what we do, or what we would like others to think we do.
The difference between these is important.
Why? Not sure why there is a difference. Is it that we like to inflate the importance of our reasons for action? So for me, I think a theory-in-use that is implicit in my practice is that I make most of my art in a classroom setting. I like making artwork in a social setting, and find it very difficult to make it alone. So am I reluctant to state that part of my practice involves art class, because I am embarrassed or shy to reveal that I can't make artwork on my own, therefore I don't draw attention to the social environment of my making?
And for espoused theory, is it that when I went to New York to see The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago, supposedly to research feminist making practice, I wanted others to see that I put effort into seeing famous artworks for real, rather than that I wanted a jolly, in the depths of winter, or that I wanted the status of being able to take a luxurious trip at a time that avoided the crowds.
Argyris and Schon (1974) wrote about Theory in Use. This requires:
Governing variables (dimensions to be acceptable)
Action Strategies (moves and plans in line with dimensions)
Consequences (results of actions - intended and unintended).
Leads to Learning - with the subsequent detection and correction of error. When error occurs, it results in finding another strategy to address the error, while working within the same variables. However it means goals, values, plans and rules are not questioned. This is single loop learning. Action - error - more action - error - more action - error.
Double loop learning leads to better learning because questions are raised possibly leading to changing the variables.
...
Reflection in and on action.
Schon starts explaining Technical Rationality. Uses single loop learning - goals, frameworks, values and strategies are taken for granted. The focus is on techniques and making these more efficient (Usher & Bryant 1989:87). Reflection is aimed to make the strategy more effective (not the outcome). Questions are not asked of the goals, frameworks, values and strategies. Double loop learning 'involves questioning the role of the framing and learning systems which underlie actual goals and strategies' (Usher and Bryant, 1989:87). I think this means double loop learning aims to revisit the purpose, and ask is the goal or strategy appropriate for the purpose? Goes back to an earlier stage of the concept.
Reflection in Action
Goes beyond Technical Rationality - this is the positivist epistemology of practice. Technical rationality addresses rigour of learning but does not address relevance (which changes according to circumstance and context).
Schon enables an alternative epistemology of practice 'in which the knowledge inherent in practice is understood as artful doing' (Usher et all 1997:143).
'The practitioner allows himself to experience surprise, puzzlement, or confusion in a situation which he finds uncertain or unique. He reflects on the phenomena before him, and on the prior understandings which have been implicit in his behaviour. ..... When someone reflects-in-action he becomes a researcher in the practice context. He is not dependent on the categories of established theory and technique but contracts a new theory of the unique case. His inquiry is not limited to a liberation about means which depends on a prior agreement about ends'. Schon 1983:68
In my sampler, Migrant Worker Woman, the glove demonstrates Reflection in Action quite well. Cross stitch is taught in two main ways, when using Technical Rationality. Either each stitch is completed, one cross at a time, with every cross having a left diagonal stitch oversewn with a right handed diagonal stitch, before the next cross is commenced; or, a whole row of left handed stitches are completed, sewn left to right; followed by a whole row of right handed stitches sews right to left. This makes most economical use of thread, but does require knowledge of the amount of thread required to cover the required area. Stitching previous samplers, when I had misjudged the amount of thread required, had led to me identify methods of extending a colour by using two closely toned threads in the needle or stitching a slightly different colour on the top layer of stitch.
When stitching the yellow glove, I did not know how much thread would be required. I stitched the base layer of left handed cross stitches to cover the area required, and calculated the number of threads required for the top layer of right handed stitches. This indicated I had enough of the right colour. This thread had some colour variation within the skein, which gives natural colour movement and makes colour panels less flat. I did not want a flat block of colour, as a rubber glove has some moulding and this needed to be apparent for it to read as a representation of a 3D object. While stitching the top layer of the cross stitches, I started by working horizontal rows, which gave flat horizontal lines of more intense colour where the colour variation occurred. This was contrary to the required effect of moulding. However, while stitching, it occurred to me that if I stitched the more intense colour up and down the edge of the fingers of the gloves, I could give the impression of moulding, and avoid the streaks of intensity in the wrong place.
This shows two stages of adaptation of the working of cross stitch - working one layer at a time, rather than one stitch at a time; and stitching directionally in order to use colour variation where it is needed.
Reflection On Action explores why we acted as we did. This creates sets of questions and ideas about activity and practice. So does Reflection on Action lead to praxis, rather than practice. Praxis is informed, committed action. Schon appears to be more focussed on informed action, than committed action. He does not interrogate his own method. (Usher et al 1997:149). He talks about framing one's practice, to inform it, but 'neglects the situatedness of practitioner experience'. (id ib).
Does this fit with my thoughts about Situated Knowledge artefacts?
Linda Candy, transformative spiral of research
Linda Candy, Leonardo Vol 35, No 1 (2002) pp55-7 MIT Press. Cognition Pt 1: Perspectives from 3rd Symposium. https://www.jstor.org/stable1577076
Knowledge is a key dimension of thinking of the creative process. ... (but also needs) perception, cognition, emotion and the way we learn to represent our world internal. p55
Creativity research often assumes the central activity is a mental one. This is a partial view of the creative process (p56) whereas activities such as handling tools; exchanging ideas in discussion and accessing and transferring domain knowledge are often not represented.
Knowledge of the world, including the tools and devices we use, can affect the way that creativity develops. Research creative acts by considering the whole rather than the parts.
Need to understand the interactions between the different attributes of creative practice.
Informs our understanding of larger issues concerning how the tools we use affect creative practice.
E Edmunds & L Candy. Creativity, Art Practice and Knowledge Communications of the ACM October 2002, Vol45, No 10 pp91-96.
Creativity can be characterised as a process towards achieving an outcome recognised as innovative. p91
Outcomes of creative work that are exceptional may be evaluated (and valued) by others, usually the domain experts, but are not necessarily recognised as such outside that knowledge group.
Creativity does not come out of a vacuum in a sudden and mysterious flash. Typically the creative step is based on significant knowledge and serious creative activities, including art practice, are best understood in the context of knowledge work. p91
Conditions for creativity are very important, and creative people arrange it, eg complex tools. (I do - but mine are classes with conducive fellow artists). Exploration of ideas, knowledge and tools. p91
Creative process: p95. Exploration, Generation, Evaluation
Exploration - access source data (different types of knowledge) relevant to creative knowledge worker. Open process may lack observable direction ... but thorough and selective. Comprehensive knowledge sources readily available are a huge advantage. Important to know where to look and how to select.
I think I'm quite good at this. I'm prepared to use things I enjoy and find easy, as well as the more difficult. I love a trip out, which means I'm prepared to travel (UK and abroad eg NY). I have the funds to do this. I can be thorough - documenting where I've been and what appealed, which comes in useful later (blog and exhibition book; some catalogues). Not sure about how selective I am. Some exhibitions I don't attend because the just don't appeal (Claude Cahun) and later wonder whether I missed a trick. Yet other times, I've been to events that were a let down, yet dismiss it with 'You have to give it a try - if you don't go, you don't know'. I've joined the National Archive in Kew, which I discovered was an amazing resource (and easier to access than Coventry!).
Generation - problem formulation is more important than problem solving. Define purpose to get the best outcome. Creativity is demonstrated by generation of many potential solutions, not gravitating to the single familiar outcome.
I'm not sure how competent I am at this. I don't think I formulate the problem before I start the artwork. I may do it before I start the stitch. Or as I work the stitching. I definitely generate a lot of artwork before I decide which one to take forward, or select which artwork to interpret in stitch.
Evaluation is conducted afterwards.
Knowledge work involves the assimilation of existing knowledge and its interpretation for the benefit of others.
Not sure how this fits with Scrivener's view that art works cannot be Knowledge artefacts.
Knowledge is a key dimension of thinking of the creative process. ... (but also needs) perception, cognition, emotion and the way we learn to represent our world internal. p55
Creativity research often assumes the central activity is a mental one. This is a partial view of the creative process (p56) whereas activities such as handling tools; exchanging ideas in discussion and accessing and transferring domain knowledge are often not represented.
Knowledge of the world, including the tools and devices we use, can affect the way that creativity develops. Research creative acts by considering the whole rather than the parts.
Need to understand the interactions between the different attributes of creative practice.
Informs our understanding of larger issues concerning how the tools we use affect creative practice.
E Edmunds & L Candy. Creativity, Art Practice and Knowledge Communications of the ACM October 2002, Vol45, No 10 pp91-96.
Creativity can be characterised as a process towards achieving an outcome recognised as innovative. p91
Outcomes of creative work that are exceptional may be evaluated (and valued) by others, usually the domain experts, but are not necessarily recognised as such outside that knowledge group.
Creativity does not come out of a vacuum in a sudden and mysterious flash. Typically the creative step is based on significant knowledge and serious creative activities, including art practice, are best understood in the context of knowledge work. p91
Conditions for creativity are very important, and creative people arrange it, eg complex tools. (I do - but mine are classes with conducive fellow artists). Exploration of ideas, knowledge and tools. p91
Creative process: p95. Exploration, Generation, Evaluation
Exploration - access source data (different types of knowledge) relevant to creative knowledge worker. Open process may lack observable direction ... but thorough and selective. Comprehensive knowledge sources readily available are a huge advantage. Important to know where to look and how to select.
I think I'm quite good at this. I'm prepared to use things I enjoy and find easy, as well as the more difficult. I love a trip out, which means I'm prepared to travel (UK and abroad eg NY). I have the funds to do this. I can be thorough - documenting where I've been and what appealed, which comes in useful later (blog and exhibition book; some catalogues). Not sure about how selective I am. Some exhibitions I don't attend because the just don't appeal (Claude Cahun) and later wonder whether I missed a trick. Yet other times, I've been to events that were a let down, yet dismiss it with 'You have to give it a try - if you don't go, you don't know'. I've joined the National Archive in Kew, which I discovered was an amazing resource (and easier to access than Coventry!).
Generation - problem formulation is more important than problem solving. Define purpose to get the best outcome. Creativity is demonstrated by generation of many potential solutions, not gravitating to the single familiar outcome.
I'm not sure how competent I am at this. I don't think I formulate the problem before I start the artwork. I may do it before I start the stitch. Or as I work the stitching. I definitely generate a lot of artwork before I decide which one to take forward, or select which artwork to interpret in stitch.
Evaluation is conducted afterwards.
Knowledge work involves the assimilation of existing knowledge and its interpretation for the benefit of others.
Not sure how this fits with Scrivener's view that art works cannot be Knowledge artefacts.
Steven Scrivener Cognitive Surprise
Steven Scrivener, The Art Object does not embody a form of knowledge. Working Papers in Art & Design. 2002. http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research
Knowledge artefact - designed with the intention of communicating knowledge, not that knowledge is stored in these artefacts.
Artefacts embody knowledge which can be extracted. Knowledge - that which is true, justified belief.
Knowledge artefacts represent by the intention by a subject to inform an audience and the audience can recognised it is intended to inform.
"The idea of the viewer finishing the work is important ... meaning is always shifting, anyway you can't control the meaning of a work" (Pirman, 1997: 21)
The viewer completes the work by postulating meanings.
Generally art objects are not understood as knowledge artefacts. There is a requirement for high level of shared understanding from knowledge artefacts.
Scrivener believes art objects give more about insights into emotion, human nature and relationships. Artworks enable sensations and feelings regarding how things were, are, or might be. Artworks provide both ways of seeing and ways of being.
Research --> knowledge and understanding
Artmaking --> artefacts for interpretation
My work ?
Original investigation --> knowledge of what was/is the experience of specific women's lives
Art Making --> ways of seeing and being in relation to what was/is/might be the case
Art research: original creation undertaken in order to create novel apprehension - ie ways of seeing, rather than knowledge.
Therefore Scrivener states the art object cannot be a knowledge artefact because it does not store knowledge (one right answer?) but enables information to be seen anew from the perspective of the viewer.
I think I agree with this. My artwork/samplers are trying to enable the viewer to see the value in ordinary woman, by using textiles and narrative to demonstrate it. There are several of them, as there is more than one right answer. As the artist and maker, the attributes I choose to portray, show I am trying to get the viewer to see the value of women from my perspective. So it's not a knowledge artefact because I'm not saying there is knowledge (in the one right answer sense) but is trying to give a different perspective to that usually given. Additionally my work is pushing the viewer to have 'sensations and feelings regarding how things were, are or might be'. Maybe even identifying their own women, and interpreting them differently.
However my thoughts from my bike ride, are that art objects could be Situated Knowledge artefacts. If Situated Knowledge is about "understanding some things from somewhere", and that knowledge in the domain of a minority group is as valid, as that in the domain of a majority group, then the requirement of a situated knowledge artefact is to give a high level of shared understanding to a specific group. Much political art could be in this category. Additionally I think it is arguable that the artwork from any ethnic group, which can be read and understood by them because of their cultural visual literacy, could a Situated Knowledge artefact.
Knowledge artefact - designed with the intention of communicating knowledge, not that knowledge is stored in these artefacts.
Artefacts embody knowledge which can be extracted. Knowledge - that which is true, justified belief.
Knowledge artefacts represent by the intention by a subject to inform an audience and the audience can recognised it is intended to inform.
"The idea of the viewer finishing the work is important ... meaning is always shifting, anyway you can't control the meaning of a work" (Pirman, 1997: 21)
The viewer completes the work by postulating meanings.
Generally art objects are not understood as knowledge artefacts. There is a requirement for high level of shared understanding from knowledge artefacts.
Scrivener believes art objects give more about insights into emotion, human nature and relationships. Artworks enable sensations and feelings regarding how things were, are, or might be. Artworks provide both ways of seeing and ways of being.
Research --> knowledge and understanding
Artmaking --> artefacts for interpretation
My work ?
Original investigation --> knowledge of what was/is the experience of specific women's lives
Art Making --> ways of seeing and being in relation to what was/is/might be the case
Art research: original creation undertaken in order to create novel apprehension - ie ways of seeing, rather than knowledge.
Therefore Scrivener states the art object cannot be a knowledge artefact because it does not store knowledge (one right answer?) but enables information to be seen anew from the perspective of the viewer.
I think I agree with this. My artwork/samplers are trying to enable the viewer to see the value in ordinary woman, by using textiles and narrative to demonstrate it. There are several of them, as there is more than one right answer. As the artist and maker, the attributes I choose to portray, show I am trying to get the viewer to see the value of women from my perspective. So it's not a knowledge artefact because I'm not saying there is knowledge (in the one right answer sense) but is trying to give a different perspective to that usually given. Additionally my work is pushing the viewer to have 'sensations and feelings regarding how things were, are or might be'. Maybe even identifying their own women, and interpreting them differently.
However my thoughts from my bike ride, are that art objects could be Situated Knowledge artefacts. If Situated Knowledge is about "understanding some things from somewhere", and that knowledge in the domain of a minority group is as valid, as that in the domain of a majority group, then the requirement of a situated knowledge artefact is to give a high level of shared understanding to a specific group. Much political art could be in this category. Additionally I think it is arguable that the artwork from any ethnic group, which can be read and understood by them because of their cultural visual literacy, could a Situated Knowledge artefact.
Stream of Consciousness writing.
Reading and writing not going well. Difficult to access range of documents on Coventry library system, from home. However, on Google have found one useful piece of writing by Scrivener, doubting the possibility of knowledge artefacts, because of the debate about 'what is knowledge?'. But while I agree with his conclusion (can't remember the details) from a presentation given at a symposium at Herts, I do think a Situated Knowledge artefact is possible. In fact, I think my works are situated knowledge artefacts. I think much political art could be deemed to be situated knowledge artefacts.
Need to create Progress and Plan document for Jill and Imogen before tutorial on Wednesday. I have progressed slowly on reading and writing - need to go to Coventry on Weds, might stay with Darren/hotel overnight, read in library Thursday, go to FAH Christmas do in the evening, then come home. Need more key phrases to look up. This is what I find difficult - to find the right phrases to search. And I can't seem to get the Coventry library system to work in the same way from home. I come up with nothing when I search phrases at home, but quite a lot when at uni. Frustrating. I know I have to do the reading. It always takes me forward.
Need to revise writing on Homemaker Woman and Migrant Worker woman, before sending to Jill/Imogen. Not sure what to put in it. Migrant Worker Woman is definitely my favourite of the series. Jill says there is more in it than I have written about, but I'm not sure what. I think there is an honesty in depicting mundane objects that toilet cleaners use. I like the high colours, and am really annoyed at myself for putting a blue grey in the toilet brushes. Should have kept them black. Jill said there was more in the glove than I had written. Not sure what. I can talk a lot about how I used the variation in the colour of the hand-dyed thread - to greater and lesser effect. Not sure about the significance of the glove itself. Really, to me, it is an artefact that they use. Symbolises manual work? Symbolises the hand?
I could also write about the threads I choose to use. I very much like the Amy Mitten threads. Unfortunately they are from Canada. As I'm ordering them online, I can't see the actual colours until they arrive. I like how they handle - they are less tightly spun (28tpi) than some others (eg Mulberry Cottage that I used on Homemaker Woman). Amy Mitten threads are pliable, easy to sew with, sit well once stitched, and give the right coverage for the linen count that I am using. But they are a heritage range of colours, and have very few high colours. The yellows in particular are only available in the richer gold tones, which meant I had to work the glove and warning triangle in the Ghanaian gold rather than hi-vi yellow. Taking this forward to my Manual Worker woman sampler, I don't think I'm going to be able to get a Ford blue from Amy Mitten, so I need to source other threads - preferably with the same pliability. Although I have not done the artwork, I foresee the main colours being black and blue. It's a gritty factory environment, so dirty oil black seems appropriate and Ford blue is quite a nice colour! And this colour way would sit well with the series of samplers. Thinking more about this colour way, brings me to my place on the waiting list for Richard McVetis class at West Dean. I had an idea for using the Ford Cortina Haynes Guides, with their oily thumbprints for inspiration, when learning his style of stitching. I'm third on the waiting list and West Dean say they get cancellations at short notice. So I made it clear that if they get a cancellation on the morning of the class, they can ring me and I'll be there for the first evening session. It seems a bit naughty to wish flu on someone ... but that's exactly what I'm doing!
So that's what is not going well. But have made progress in other areas. Went to Gaydon Motor Museum earlier than planned - had permission to look at Ford Anglia in detail from curator, but only when museum was quiet - their Christmas programme started on 6 December so I had to get my act together. I only realised this on Monday 3 Dec, so Jim and I drove up on Tuesday 4th so I could do my research in peace. Museum very helpful. OK with me having the Ford Anglia car door open and measuring all different bits.
Margaret has offered the Monday class a free flow session at the Granary on Monday 17 Dec. I will take all my car seat measurements up to class to create pattern pieces. Plan is to use these shapes for artwork. Need to have a plan for what to do with them. Thinking about words and quotes from Scamp Inquiry. Also quotes from Ford women. Layering. Cover-up. Leather seats/leatherette feel and texture. Quilting lines. Angry women. Can't find women machinists to talk to - they are fed up of people taking their time for information given many times.
Enjoying artwork with repetition. Would like to do more print. City Lit, has a Saturday class starting in Jan for a few weeks. This would fit - does not mess up bike riding on Sundays; is a whole day class so makes it worth travelling all the way to London. Slamsey's farm (in Braintree, yippee!) has print classes but not starting until late Feb. Rather too late. Both venues would enable larger scale works.
Need to talk to Vanda. Would she do an art tutorial for me? - so I get ideas to work up at The Granary on 17th. I work better in a group.
Went to Eastside Community Heritage 20th anniversary event at Stratford Library. Judith Garfield - director. Have built good relationship with her. She's a good woman working with many, many different groups. Has had 30 internships over the last few years - of whom 90% went on to real jobs in the heritage sector. I've seen her managing an intern while I've been transcribing at ECH. She's a busy woman, and does not have much time available for them - but uses it to best effect. Takes no crap. She's supportive, encouraging, directive, focussed, no-nonsense. I wish we'd had more people like this on the Underground! She floated the idea that if I can't get space in Herbert Gallery, she will find a way to organise an exhibition for me somewhere in the East End. And I think she'd do it. She was encouraging of my idea to talk to Rachel Crossley, the newly appointed Director of the East End Women's Museum, about trying to get my work shown when the new premises opens 2019/2020. Also thought my idea about a Valuing Women theme would work well with workshops for interested parties.
Jill wanted me to write about my process as this is not fully explored in academe. I wonder if my swim thinking is relevant? I might write this up, and see whether it is what they want. It is definitely part of my process. I came up with the idea about using the sampler border as a production line of machinists car seat progress, and Aunt Joan's Sissinghurst borders while swimming, and the idea about Situated Knowledge artefact while riding my bike. Keri Smith's advice 'move your body' works for me. Yet, I feel a bit embarrassed about thinking that this is sufficiently worthy of academic interest to actually write it as part of my artistic process. But it definitely is part of my technique.
Have made good progress on making archive quality storage case for samplers. Two layers nearly complete. Should be 5 layers deep when finished. But at present I can put 2 samplers in each layer, separated by acid free tissue, to store the 4 already made. Need to get more acid free tissue.
Also had email from Lewis Jones, with call for papers that he thought was on topic for me.
'Private Textiles and Dress: Domestic and Intimate Textiles and Dress in Museums and Historic Houses'
Thursday 13 June 2019
University of Wolverhampton, UK
https://retailhistory.wordpress.com/2018/11/28/private/
CHORD invites submissions for a workshop that explores private, domestic, intimate and / or secret textiles and dress in museum, historic house, archive and other collections.
Papers focusing on any historical period or geographical area are welcome. We define 'private' broadly, and also welcome papers that challenge simple categorisation, including domestic objects or collections that might be intended for public view, or 'intimate' items that might also have a political meaning. Both textiles and clothing are of interest, as are all aspects of their acquisition, care, display, interpretation or conservation.
This might fit quite well with my work. My sampler are a domestic textile, bridging the private/public environment, as the format was designed for private learning/recording of stitches in a domestic sphere, although I'm using them to give narrative in a public, exhibition type space. I should definitely apply for it, even if I only get to the application stage. Practice at these submissions is always worth the time spent.
Need to create Progress and Plan document for Jill and Imogen before tutorial on Wednesday. I have progressed slowly on reading and writing - need to go to Coventry on Weds, might stay with Darren/hotel overnight, read in library Thursday, go to FAH Christmas do in the evening, then come home. Need more key phrases to look up. This is what I find difficult - to find the right phrases to search. And I can't seem to get the Coventry library system to work in the same way from home. I come up with nothing when I search phrases at home, but quite a lot when at uni. Frustrating. I know I have to do the reading. It always takes me forward.
Need to revise writing on Homemaker Woman and Migrant Worker woman, before sending to Jill/Imogen. Not sure what to put in it. Migrant Worker Woman is definitely my favourite of the series. Jill says there is more in it than I have written about, but I'm not sure what. I think there is an honesty in depicting mundane objects that toilet cleaners use. I like the high colours, and am really annoyed at myself for putting a blue grey in the toilet brushes. Should have kept them black. Jill said there was more in the glove than I had written. Not sure what. I can talk a lot about how I used the variation in the colour of the hand-dyed thread - to greater and lesser effect. Not sure about the significance of the glove itself. Really, to me, it is an artefact that they use. Symbolises manual work? Symbolises the hand?
I could also write about the threads I choose to use. I very much like the Amy Mitten threads. Unfortunately they are from Canada. As I'm ordering them online, I can't see the actual colours until they arrive. I like how they handle - they are less tightly spun (28tpi) than some others (eg Mulberry Cottage that I used on Homemaker Woman). Amy Mitten threads are pliable, easy to sew with, sit well once stitched, and give the right coverage for the linen count that I am using. But they are a heritage range of colours, and have very few high colours. The yellows in particular are only available in the richer gold tones, which meant I had to work the glove and warning triangle in the Ghanaian gold rather than hi-vi yellow. Taking this forward to my Manual Worker woman sampler, I don't think I'm going to be able to get a Ford blue from Amy Mitten, so I need to source other threads - preferably with the same pliability. Although I have not done the artwork, I foresee the main colours being black and blue. It's a gritty factory environment, so dirty oil black seems appropriate and Ford blue is quite a nice colour! And this colour way would sit well with the series of samplers. Thinking more about this colour way, brings me to my place on the waiting list for Richard McVetis class at West Dean. I had an idea for using the Ford Cortina Haynes Guides, with their oily thumbprints for inspiration, when learning his style of stitching. I'm third on the waiting list and West Dean say they get cancellations at short notice. So I made it clear that if they get a cancellation on the morning of the class, they can ring me and I'll be there for the first evening session. It seems a bit naughty to wish flu on someone ... but that's exactly what I'm doing!
So that's what is not going well. But have made progress in other areas. Went to Gaydon Motor Museum earlier than planned - had permission to look at Ford Anglia in detail from curator, but only when museum was quiet - their Christmas programme started on 6 December so I had to get my act together. I only realised this on Monday 3 Dec, so Jim and I drove up on Tuesday 4th so I could do my research in peace. Museum very helpful. OK with me having the Ford Anglia car door open and measuring all different bits.
Margaret has offered the Monday class a free flow session at the Granary on Monday 17 Dec. I will take all my car seat measurements up to class to create pattern pieces. Plan is to use these shapes for artwork. Need to have a plan for what to do with them. Thinking about words and quotes from Scamp Inquiry. Also quotes from Ford women. Layering. Cover-up. Leather seats/leatherette feel and texture. Quilting lines. Angry women. Can't find women machinists to talk to - they are fed up of people taking their time for information given many times.
Enjoying artwork with repetition. Would like to do more print. City Lit, has a Saturday class starting in Jan for a few weeks. This would fit - does not mess up bike riding on Sundays; is a whole day class so makes it worth travelling all the way to London. Slamsey's farm (in Braintree, yippee!) has print classes but not starting until late Feb. Rather too late. Both venues would enable larger scale works.
Need to talk to Vanda. Would she do an art tutorial for me? - so I get ideas to work up at The Granary on 17th. I work better in a group.
Went to Eastside Community Heritage 20th anniversary event at Stratford Library. Judith Garfield - director. Have built good relationship with her. She's a good woman working with many, many different groups. Has had 30 internships over the last few years - of whom 90% went on to real jobs in the heritage sector. I've seen her managing an intern while I've been transcribing at ECH. She's a busy woman, and does not have much time available for them - but uses it to best effect. Takes no crap. She's supportive, encouraging, directive, focussed, no-nonsense. I wish we'd had more people like this on the Underground! She floated the idea that if I can't get space in Herbert Gallery, she will find a way to organise an exhibition for me somewhere in the East End. And I think she'd do it. She was encouraging of my idea to talk to Rachel Crossley, the newly appointed Director of the East End Women's Museum, about trying to get my work shown when the new premises opens 2019/2020. Also thought my idea about a Valuing Women theme would work well with workshops for interested parties.
Jill wanted me to write about my process as this is not fully explored in academe. I wonder if my swim thinking is relevant? I might write this up, and see whether it is what they want. It is definitely part of my process. I came up with the idea about using the sampler border as a production line of machinists car seat progress, and Aunt Joan's Sissinghurst borders while swimming, and the idea about Situated Knowledge artefact while riding my bike. Keri Smith's advice 'move your body' works for me. Yet, I feel a bit embarrassed about thinking that this is sufficiently worthy of academic interest to actually write it as part of my artistic process. But it definitely is part of my technique.
Have made good progress on making archive quality storage case for samplers. Two layers nearly complete. Should be 5 layers deep when finished. But at present I can put 2 samplers in each layer, separated by acid free tissue, to store the 4 already made. Need to get more acid free tissue.
Also had email from Lewis Jones, with call for papers that he thought was on topic for me.
'Private Textiles and Dress: Domestic and Intimate Textiles and Dress in Museums and Historic Houses'
Thursday 13 June 2019
University of Wolverhampton, UK
https://retailhistory.wordpress.com/2018/11/28/private/
CHORD invites submissions for a workshop that explores private, domestic, intimate and / or secret textiles and dress in museum, historic house, archive and other collections.
Papers focusing on any historical period or geographical area are welcome. We define 'private' broadly, and also welcome papers that challenge simple categorisation, including domestic objects or collections that might be intended for public view, or 'intimate' items that might also have a political meaning. Both textiles and clothing are of interest, as are all aspects of their acquisition, care, display, interpretation or conservation.
This might fit quite well with my work. My sampler are a domestic textile, bridging the private/public environment, as the format was designed for private learning/recording of stitches in a domestic sphere, although I'm using them to give narrative in a public, exhibition type space. I should definitely apply for it, even if I only get to the application stage. Practice at these submissions is always worth the time spent.
Tuesday, 4 December 2018
British Motor Museum - investigating a Ford Anglia seat
Jim and I had a very interesting day out at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon, Warwickshire. I had contacted the Curator a few days before, to check it would be ok to do some detailed research, and realising their Christmas events started on Saturday 8 December, decided to drive up there promptly. I wanted to work out the actual pattern piece shapes of Ford car seats between 1968 and 1984.
First the staff showed me a Ford Cortina Ghia, 1984. It looked far too modern! It was a top end model, and I wanted something much more utilitarian. The seats had moulding and thigh supports - not what I had in mind. Then they showed me a Ford Anglia, 1968 - exactly what I was after. It was the Super model - thus top end of the range. It appears it is often the high end models that get conserved! Utilitarian stuff gets worn out and thrown away.
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| Ford Anglia 1968 |
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| Ford Anglia 1968 |
These seats had the simple quilting lines that I associated with the era. Black leather seats (as it is top end), but on closer inspection, it was leather on the seat tops but leatherette on the side panels. When the car door was opened, the air smelt of leather, which on a 50 year old car is quite impressive. After discussion with the staff I was allowed to lean in, and measure the seats, in order to get enough data to create a seat pattern. For the front seat, I sketched out the horizontal seat top and sides; and the vertical seat back, front and sides.
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| Front seat |
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| Front seat |
Then I leant in (leaning on the front seat!) and measured and sketched the rear seat. This was a bench seat style, no moulding as in later years.
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| Originally made in Dagenham, but production soon transferred to Halewood |
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| Pattern in centre of steering wheel |
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| Fan control |
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| Windscreen wiper control. Lovely icon! |
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| Gearstick base cover |
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| Pedal patterns |
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| Bonnet release |
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| Looking at lettering |
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| Looking at shapes and numbering |
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| Looking at pattern and texture |
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| More lettering |
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| Numbering |
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| Shapes and lettering |
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| More shapes and lettering. |
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| Photo of poster. Note the length of the bottom part of the black car seat. This was the bit I could not measure from the actual seat. |
Thursday, 29 November 2018
Tutorial with Jill, 28/11/18
I told Jill of my activities over the last 2 weeks – Visit to National Archive and East End Women’s Museum celebration for Women and Factories project. My visit to National Archive reading the Scamp Report had incensed me because of the incompetence of the investigation, but had inspired me to make artwork about my findings. We identified working within Archives could something I would take forward.
I attended the EEWM Women and Factories celebration, and met the newly appointed Director of the EEWM (missed her name). This was a useful contact. The East End Women’s museum is planned to open late 2019, and she is planning funding streams first. While swimming I had an idea about an exhibition of my work. My samplers are all about women in the East London, so the EEWM is the optimal venue. Additionally, I could run workshops with interested groups, to identify women who they value and make artwork about these women. Jill said to follow up this idea.
Jill advised me to do the reading suggested last time:Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project; Steven Scrivener, Cognitive Surprise; Donald Schon, the double loop of learning; Linda Candy, the transformative spiral of research. (I’d focussed on writing and visiting last week; reading will be done next week). Expand Csikszentmihalyi. Insert reflective reading/analysis throughout text. Show evidence of understanding of reflective practice. Jill liked my writing to date – more needed about rubber glove. Consider what others can see/interpret in my work, as well as my point of view as artist. Also use time to reflect on work and review them from a distance. Use a mirror to look at work, from a different perspective (similar to flipping photos on phone).
Jill liked the image The Caring Hand of Mother. Since starting work on Intellectual Woman, my work has changed, and in part, simplified. Advised to reflect on why The Caring Hand of Mother is effective as it is so simple. Read Steven Scrivener – cognitive surprise. Compare and contrast Intellectual Woman – Home Maker Woman and The Caring Hand of Mother. Identify how it is so potent, with simplicity. I identified that Intellectual Woman used too many words (telling), whereas The Caring Hand of Mother was simple, did not use words, and allowed the viewer to come up with their own meaning – further analysis required.
Stack images together; identify similarities/differences; identify how I have achieved the effect.
Actions:
Lots of reading.
Contact EEWM with idea for exhibition at museum after opening date.
Reflect on evolution of work from Intellectual Woman, through artwork, to Migrant Worker Woman.
DONM- 12/12 with JJ and IR;
- 9/1/19 tutorial, + presentations from Jen and Darren.
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