Oh my word - Vanda's making us raise our game at The Granary! Our classes have been restructured. We're now doing two consecutive days per month, designed to get a more robust body of work from each two day class.
We started working to our individual interpretations of fragility and strength. We were advised to start an artist research file. I know I'm meant to keep one, but it's very intermittent. I am much better at going to exhibitions and recording what I see, but generally browsing the internet, finding relevant artists, printing and filing it - does not fill me with joy! However, Vanda provided examples which fitted the specific interests of everyone in our group.
This term's work for me, will be about the Ford Machinists. I'm discovered that artwork using the tools and media of my subject can be jolly good fun. Last term, I was working with identity cards and tampons as these were appropriate for toilet cleaners. So over the summer, I've been thinking about machinists, sewing machines, car seat patterns, thread, oil etc. I read one article where the machinists bitterly noted that a man, who supervised the computerised cutting machine (the cutters jobs had been computerised) and whose only responsibility was to put out a job when the computer failed - was still in the skilled C pay band, whereas they, who could use and maintain their machines and create idiosyncratic shaped forms,were in unskilled B pay band. A quote was "he can't even thread a sewing machine". So I started free machining with the sewing machine, working on pattern paper.
I've also been thinking about my friend Darren's Phd thesis, about the selfie - and he says the gesture of the selfie is important. So I thought about the gesture of threading a sewing machine. Vanda suggested I should find out how many machinists there were (160 or 134) and repeat this gesture drawing that many times. With thread and without, different scales, different papers. Etc. Maybe a little job to have completed by next class! Vanda added that we were all expected to have a body of work to present back next month. Hmmm!
I have to say, that I think the people in the Studio Group are a singularly talented bunch of people. Each of us has a specific artistic field of interest. I'm looking at narrative about specific women (at present, Ford Machinists). So my work looks at repetition, using the objects used by this group, and materials and media appropriate to them. Jane is working with highly coloured, heavily worked landscapes, often from spiritual places she has lived - Tibet - but also home, Maldon, focussing on horizons, on paper, using acrylic, and water soluble/oil pastels. Karin also works landscape but explores space in a much more subdued palette, often using paper collage and acrylic on canvas; inspired by found objects from the natural landscape. I can't remember much about what Sheila was working on - she's at the other end of the room to me - but it was considered, experimental and about landscape (I think! - I was focussing rather a lot on my own work!). Donna is an amazing colourist, working freely, yet controlled, in watercolour, simplifying from the natural landscape, and attracted to plants and animals. Claire is a new member to this group, and her work really appealed to me. She is working her way through family bereavement by investigating her family history. Her MA work was pressing crochet made by female relatives into porcelain tiles (stunning) and she is now working with pit tokens from the Durham area. She spent time drawing in monochrome. I loved the narrative in her work. And finally Lori is working with coloured abstract prints made with a gelli plate, which she then reassembled into collage to create wide shallow landscape.
I'm really looking forward to next class.
Actions:
Expand artist research folder - seek artists by considering those who use:
- Materials like textile, or which carry a resonance with the message
- Archives relevant to their narrative (Kaur, Fitzwilliam museum)
- Narrative about the types of women I am interested in
Get colour swatches from Ford cars/textile interiors in 1968 and 1984.
Get second hand Haynes manuals from 1968/84 for Ford cars.
Find vintage car societies to look at old Ford cars.
Create 160/134 gestural drawings.
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