Paper Mache casting experiments for RA Show Submission

I'm feeling fairly confident that I want my RA Submission to be a paper mache cast of my face, papered with a 'letter' from me-now to me-before-bereavement. I've tentatively reached out to other people to see if they want to take part, but it's a big ask, so I'm cautious to even ask. I'm thinking there will be elements that imply sacrifice - the innocent victim, about to be sacrificed to destiny... Probably flowers around the temples. I had a good (if slightly creepy (my fault)) conversion with Google Gemini about different flowers with symbolism of sacrifice, but the main one, hysslop, has biblical connections what don't really fit for me.

I did some experiments on casting paper in the face mould. I decided to go for layers, not a pulp. I initially checked the PVA wouldn't stick to the silicone, which it didn't. I first experimented with newspaper soaked in diluted PVA. This worked fairly well, although the newspaper adsorbed a lot, meaning that the mask was soon awash with glue, and secondly that it took an eon to dry... I then tried a layer of printed paper which I smeared with undiluted PVA. This was much 'dryer' while still being quite workable, but the PVA working time was quite small, so it made more sense to pour small amounts at a time.]

I was planning to build up a lot of layers, but in the end I caved in and demoulded it after just two layers so I could experiment with using the smearing approach for all the layers instead, plus starting with the paper layers (which will more closely match the final version).

The result was actually pretty awesome! There's a lot more detail than I feared there would be. The challenges with the nose are clear on inspection (it's very narrow and deep and the nostrils make it very hard to get paper in) but not obvious unless you look. It was quite floppy with only two layers, but is stiffening up more now that it can actually dry properly... I clearly need more than two layers, but I was quite worried about how limp it was initially.

I've now done the first layer of paper smeared with glue, which is sticking well to the mould (hopefully not too well) and looks much more solid than the newspaper. It's drying much faster too, but I'm going to let it dry out well overnight before I add more - firstly because I want it to be quite robust before I risk a second layer, and secondly because once the second layer is on, it will be almost impossible for the bottom layer to dry before it's demoulded.

Write Drunk, Edit Sober

Came across the quote, attributed to Ernest Hemmingway -  "Write Drunk, Edit Sober". Looking it up, the internets seem to agree that Hemmingway didn't say it, and that glorifying addiction is a bad thing. Clearly as literal advice, it's terrible, but surely most people understand that it's better taken metaphorically... Surely?

As metaphorical advice, I think it's interesting - it validates a few things I've concluded over the last year. Firstly, that the process is broadly about expansive creation, but also reductive curation - and that these are somewhat separate processes - clearly this is considered obvious in writing, but seems to still be up for debate in visual art? Secondly that the expansive creation process is better undertaken with a relaxed, non-judgemental mindset. Tomgos and Tathos strike again!

Past Tom entered me into the RA Summer Show, the arsehole

To be clear, Past Tom is the arsehole. I'm not calling the RA an arsehole (yet) nor is "Arsehole" the title of my intended submission, although I wouldn't rule it out... 

Sometimes Past Tom does stuff that he thinks will be good for me, knowing that Future Tom (from his perspective) is going to hate him for it, but Future Tom (from Future Tom's perspective) will forgive Past Tom later when it all works out in the end. It's a sort of deal Past Tom and Future Tom have with each other. In this case, I think Past Tom thought it was my last chance to enter the RA Summer Show (although who knows) so why not... It's £40, which is a lot of money to blow, but I'm a miserly bastard, so I should afford myself the occasional indulgence.

For those who haven't been foolish enough to blow £40, basically the way it works is that you buy a chance to submit (from a capped number of 'tickets'), pay your wonga, and then submit at your leisure before the deadline in Feb. If somehow you don't get rejected at that stage, you are then summoned to deliver your piece to the RA, for a second round, and if you somehow STILL don't rejected, you get the honour of having your piece crammed in with a bunch of other people's work, and maybe the chance to make a slightly cringe breathless video about what it all means to you... I've never got past the paying and being rejected stage and almost certainly never will...

So I am now in the first interbellum period between successfully purchasing the right to enter, and actually making the submission... The theme is 'dialogue' and the tone is one of art-for-social-good - starting dialogues between different social groups etc To be fair you are expected to interpret as freely as you like, but there is definitely a bit of an agenda. I'm in a rather grumpy mood about art-for-good at the moment, as I feel like the quality of the 'good' often outweighs the quality of the art, and secondly because I feel like it's all a bit of a desperate bid to make art seem 'worth something' that's not money for rich collectors... It smells a bit tokenistic and apologetic, but maybe I'm just a knob... So that's not a great place to start, which was partly why I thought I'd agreed with myself that I wouldn't enter... Hey ho.

After much walking and thinking and humming and haring, I think I know the direction I want to go in. I want to explore the 'dialogue' between Tom 2.0 and Tom 3.0 - that's to say Carolyn's Tom, and current Tom. What would I say to my pre-bereaved self? What would my pre-bereaved self say to me? More generally, for all of us that have undergone some life-changing trauma (and that might be most of us), what could that dialogue be? Could there even be a dialogue? Beyond "I'm so fucking sorry", at least? This interpretation fits with my practice, fits the theme, and broadly fits the expectation to have a social element to the work. Boom... Great... So now what? What could that actually look like?

Cue more walking and thinking... I don't want to submit anything digital if I can help it - AI has pissed in that pond now. I can't draw or paint, so that's out... So photography or sculpture? I thought about using my frosted faces (which I haven't written up, but basically I left my wax face cast outside to get covered in frost) together with my living face to make a montage... But I'd like to avoid photography since I think sculpture would be more 'RA-like', plus (and don't tell anyone this 'hack') sculpture seems to have a higher chance of being accepted to open calls since fewer people do it, and curators need something 3d to fill the middle of the exhibition space...

So now I am thinking about a sculpture involving my face cast... After yet more walking and thinking (ok, I might be exaggerating a bit at this point), I've come up with a few ideas, but the leading one at the moment is to use one face cast to represent the past or future viewpoint, and imply the viewer as the other viewpoint. This ticks some boxes technically and aesthetically too. 

I'm thinking paper mache to save weight, and cover it in something that represents the 'message' to be shared with my pre-bereaved self (or from my pre-bereaved self, not sure yet). I'm now (assuming I don't decide I hate this idea and go back to the drawing board) trying to work out what form that 'message' might take. The obviously answer is a letter. I could even, perhaps, expand the work by inviting other to participate and have the cast covered in many letters from many people, overlapped, fragmented, crying into the void of time.

Open Casket Ideas v04

 REMOVED

ADDED/AMENDED

Motivation

The over all idea is to create an impression of sadness, mixed with humour and tranquillity - people should feel at rest with the 'body' not disturbed

Is this a tomb effigy? Or a burial? Or an autopsy? Or an museum display? Or some combination? What vibe do I want? I think that whilst this is a 'burial', that is perhaps the least helpful since I want an element of examination.

Effigies are designed to be viewed, and to be a tribute to the deceased (or to invite prayer for the deceased). That doesn't feel right - I want a sense of intrusion and examination - dissection of life in death.

I think then, that this WAS a burial, but that burial has been disturbed and placed on show for the viewer's consideration (and perhaps in some senses, gratification). No crime has been committed, so I think this is more akin to a museum piece or an archaeological find. What is on show then, is in the spirit of a reconstruction of something found 'in situ', not the original condition.

Aesthetically, this pushes me towards more of a spartan look - this is not a sumptuous burial, but the slightly 'cold' display of one. It pushes me towards more of a 'scientific' look - harsher lights, designed for examination. It suggests that the elements should be display in a more simple 'frame', against the idea of an elaborate 'casket'. It suggests glass, and dark victorian wooden frames. It suggests, perhaps, in extremis, some form of pseudo-scientific paraphenalia, like moist monitors. It suggests broken and fragmentary and pieced together.

Shroud torn open to reveal elements inside? Like it has been forcefully revealed for study

 Base

• A box? Or flat? Really want people to have to peer in so maybe a box? But weight will be an issue again
• Shaped or rectangular?
• Solid or mesh?
• Covered in something in the shape of my body? Spines of some sort?
• Shallowly moulded to impression my body (somehow? Weight!) - I'd really like to do this - but how? Some form of foam? Needs to be light, stable, cheap, and ideally environmentally friendly. Considered corn starch foam, but would have to experiment to see if it's suitable
• What the hell is the background going to be?? Becoming a limiting factor! Maybe look at real archeological displays of skeletons? Doing so, suggests something very plain - a board with some sort of backing, together perhaps with 'sides' and/or a sheet or perspex raise up as a lid

Life Casts

• Face, hands, and feet
• Face deformed in some way? Skull? Partial? Too much!
• Make sure to cast wedding ring, and guild it afterwards

Body fragments

• Fabric casts - Swags over key areas (e.g. chest, thighs, ankles, neck etc) or more fitted 'garmets' like a shroud? 
• If I make thin casts of enough of my body, do I need the fabric casts? Maybe fabric casts for the trunk, thin life casts for the limbs? Do I want to deliberately break any of the casts?
• Definitely want to keep them white and unstitched (e.g. no actual clothes)
• Some form of 'rib cage' - more interest, and a clearer message that this is a 'body'. Could also bring natural elements in if made from sticks
• "Wear" ribcage over ribs while taking fabric casting so it sits over the 'ribs' but also has the shape of my body
• Lily's fist in epoxy as a 'heart'
• Hole over the position of the heart, as those it has been torn out, but also to allow the epoxy "heart" to be seen
• Threads or wire binding together? Nimbus of thread from back of face? Fragmentary face? Fabric background, with faded outline? Stitched into body?

Grave Goods

• An acorn in one hand
• A book of Time Management under the other
• Flowers on head?

Unity/Harmony vs Diversity/Contrast, thoughts on Schiller's 4th Letter

Making good progress with Schiller's "On the Aesthetic Education of Man" - the prose is quite hard to follow at times (requiring me to concentrate carefully, and often re-read paragraphs), but the 'letter' format is quite readable, and they are short enough that I can read one or two each morning before getting out of bed. I'm on the fourth letter, and was struck by this passage:

When therefore Reason introduces her moral unity into physical society, she must not injure the multiplicity of Nature. When Nature strives to maintain her multiplicity in the moral structure of society, there must be no rupture in its moral unity; the triumphant form rests equidistant from uniformity and confusion.

Schiller is again talking about 'reason' as the rational rules of society vs 'Nature' as the passionate, impulsive, individualism of society's members. So although he's talking about the aesthetics of society, as it were, it's still interesting to read it more generally roughly thus (warning, my interpretation!):

When logical rational impulses drive towards a unified coherent artwork, they must not injure the idiosyncratic, characteristic elements driven by the passionate irrational impulses. When passionate irrational impulses drive towards the incoherent and idiosyncratic, there must be no break in the overall coherence of the artwork; the triumphant form rests equidistant from uniformity and confusion.

I think the implication can therefore be taken, in other words, that the ideal is to balance between the boring but coherent, and the confusing but interesting. Just as Schiller is suggesting that society must balance the need for conformity and 'common rules' with the needs of individuals to be true to their own nature, so the artist needs to balance universality/accessibility with the need of their personal need to express their own character and quirks. The extreme of universality is the bland and formulaic, the extreme of personal expression is the obscure and self-indulgent.

Open Casket Ideas v03

 REMOVED

ADDED/AMENDED

Motivation

The over all idea is to create an impression of sadness, mixed with humour and tranquillity - people should feel at rest with the 'body' not disturbed

Is this a tomb effigy? Or a burial? Or an autopsy? Or an museum display? Or some combination? What vibe do I want? I think that whilst this is a 'burial', that is perhaps the least helpful since I want an element of examination.

Effigies are designed to be viewed, and to be a tribute to the deceased (or to invite prayer for the deceased). That doesn't feel right - I want a sense of intrusion and examination - dissection of life in death. 

I think then, that this WAS a burial, but that burial has been disturbed and placed on show for the viewer's consideration (and perhaps in some senses, gratification). No crime has been committed, so I think this is more akin to a museum piece or an archaeological find. What is on show then, is in the spirit of a reconstruction of something found 'in situ', not the original condition.

Aesthetically, this pushes me towards more of a spartan look - this is not a sumptuous burial, but the slightly 'cold' display of one. It pushes me towards more of a 'scientific' look - harsher lights, designed for examination. It suggests that the elements should be display in a more simple 'frame', against the idea of an elaborate 'casket'. It suggests glass, and dark victorian wooden frames. It suggests, perhaps, in extremis, some form of pseudo-scientific paraphenalia, like moist monitors. It suggests broken and fragmentary and pieced together.

 Base

• A box? Or flat? Really want people to have to peer in so maybe a box? But weight will be an issue again
• Shaped or rectangular?
• Solid or mesh?
• Covered in something in the shape of my body? Spines of some sort?
• Shallowly moulded to impression my body (somehow? Weight!) - I'd really like to do this - but how? Some form of foam? Needs to be light, stable, cheap, and ideally environmentally friendly. Considered corn starch foam, but would have to experiment to see if it's suitable

Life Casts

• Face, hands, and feet
• Face deformed in some way? Skull? Partial? Too much!
• Make sure to cast wedding ring, and guild it afterwards

Body fragments

• Fabric casts - Swags over key areas (e.g. chest, thighs, ankles, neck etc) or more fitted 'garmets' like a shroud? 
• Definitely want to keep them white and unstitched (e.g. no actual clothes)
• Some form of 'rib cage' - more interest, and a clearer message that this is a 'body'. Could also bring natural elements in if made from sticks

Grave Goods

• An acorn in one hand
• A book of Time Management under the other
• Flowers on head?

"On the Aesthetic Education of Man" by Schiller - interesting parallel with Tomgos and Tathos

 Slowly (I'm a slow reader at the best of times) making my way through the intro to "On the Aesthetic Education of Man" by Schiller, but already seeing surprising and interesting parallels with my own thinking. This is not to suggest I have reinvented Play Drive, but rather than it suggests I am on the right track, and that reading this book will be instructive.

In particular, in the introduction by the translator, Snell, he states:

In his theory of the two fundamental impulses, Schiller connects Man's sensuous nature with the material impulse, and his reason with the formal impulse. The former, which rules him as physical being, lays upon him the shackles of physical necessity, and seeks to make him (in Fichtean phrase) pure Object; the latter comes to his rescue from the Absolute, and is capable of leading him back to the Absolute. So Man is a creature of two worlds, urged in two opposite directions at once to the empirical, the contingent, the subjective on the one hand, and to the free, the necessary (the necessity of the autonomous moral law), the objectively valid on the other. He has to satisfy the demands of both capacities and somehow bring them into harmony with one another; and this he does through the aesthetic, which unites matter and form, sensuousness and reason. Not until he has achieved that harmony is he free; he is a slave so long as he obeys only one of the impulses. How he sets about this in actual practice, Schiller finds it difficult to say. Elsewhere in his writings he emphasizes the importance of the relaxation of Man's powers, especially when they have been one-sidedly employed, and claims that such relaxation is given in its purest form by aesthetic contemplation, which occupies the whole of his powers in the same way that play does; he stresses the opportunity afforded by art, and especially by tragedy, for the exercise of moral power; and he believes that art is capable of introducing that condition of contentment (if the word is not misleading; equipoise might express it better) which is conducive to his physical and spiritual well-being alike.

The two impulses correspond well to 'Tomgos' and 'Tathos', but that's perhaps to be expected, since they derive from the greek ideas of logos and pathos. What's more interesting is the idea that these ('sensuousness and reason') need to be balanced through the aesthetic. Doing so involves relaxing of the power, in my case, letting Tathos lead when my background and training to date is in logic. Ultimately the aim being balance, or rather equipoise, which corresponds somewhat to the 'null point'.

Of course, the aim here is 'moral living' and contentment, not art production, but I was nevertheless struck my the parallels, and I am intrigued to see what I might further learn.