Dead bees?! A Thousand Tiny Deaths

 I really want to collect dead bumblebees and put them in little vials. I feel a strange sense of sorrow and outrage when I seem them - I guess because they are such gentle creatures that hurt nobody. I know everything has to die... I want to call it "A hundred tiny deaths". I really wanted to call it "A Thousand Tiny Deaths", but that's a shit tonne of dead bees...

I was reflecting on where this 'sudden' idea came from, but it has a bunch of precedent on reflection - it's connected to 'Secrets' = things in vials and to the (as yet unnamed) dead foxes (celebrating 'small' deaths), it also probably has a nod to 'Awkward Thoughts" since that incorporates an insect as a representation of life and death.

I think the idea is not actually 'ready', but I'm starting to do my usual buzzing (ha) around looking at what it would take... Even if I collect a few bees (to everyone's disgust no doubt), I think it will almost certainly evolve. Although it can be 'read' in a few ways, the 'meaning' is clearly (for me) about the futility of life and the sad unremarkable-ness of death... Millions of bees die ever day, millions of people die every day... Hmmm, I wonder how many people die ever day? About 150 000, according to Wikipedia. It COULD be interesting to use this number, although I suspect 150000 would occupy most of a room in my house (and take 410 years to collect if I find one a day, every day...). That's a lot of dead bees, let alone dead humans. Maybe every second? Ok, only 2... Every minute? 106... Interesting. Already this could be evolving... I wonder what other interesting stats are out there...

Would people think I killed the bees myself? God, I hope not... People are weird though.

"Artmin" vs Art

 Realising that a lot of what I am doing at the moment is 'art-min' - admin for art... I guess there's a spectrum in my mind from most to least creative:

• Being inspired to create artworks e.g. imaging a mask
• Early stage artwork drafting e.g. designing the features of a mask
• Crafting, making and refining e.g. building the features of a mask
• Less-creative making - e.g. Adding layers to a mask, writing a shader, casting wax heads
• Buying supplies, filling in exhibition stuff, ordering prints

All these things are a bit creative, and actually the joy of having several pieces on the go at the same time is swapping between - when I'm feeling creative, I can work on something that's in the early stages, when I'm tired or in a rush, I can just do something more art-miny like adding one layer to a mask. Likewise when my mind is occupied by other things like essays...

That said, I need to be careful not to confuse art-min for art - I need a balance of things, and while the things on the list do require some creating thinking, they are much less taxing, but also much less stretching.

Research Paper: Humour and blah blah Pope.L and Folka Wolf... Smashed it

 Asked JK a broad question around primary research vs literature-based research and his advice confirmed my own bias - the primary research needed to do an AI thang would be too much for this... He actually said it sounded like the sort of thing you do in a PhD, which rekindled a secret yearning to do a PhD but... Ironically he also said that interviewing an artist would be quite a lot of work... Sigh, that settles it, as I was imaging a bunch of interviews and some experimentation and and... Nah. I THINK I'll do the Pope.L/Folka Wolf thing... and I'm still hoping to get an interview (albeit by email I suspect) with Folka Wolf... Let's see...

So what specifically could I look at? I need to do some digging, but I think how they use humour to deliver a serious message in a compelling way. Another angle would be grief or death related, but I don't know if I have the stomach for that... And actually I think humour is more interesting to me as an artist. I need to go and think and maybe start an outline... Ideally I'd have some sort of angle I guess...

Possible titles for my research paper, the quest begins

INT - a small greasy-spoon cafe off a suburban street. TOMGOS sits at a table drinking a cappuccino and taking occasional bites from a pain-au-chocolat. Enter TATHOS.

TOMGOS (looking up): Hey Tathos, thank you for coming!

TATHOS (pulling a chair out noisily): Hoooowdy! How are you?! Why are we here? Can I order one of those?

TOMGOS: Yes, they sell them there by the annoyed looking bloke in the apron. I'm not buying you one.

TATHOS: Didn't say you were... Although... Anyway...

Tathos returns with a pain-au-chocolat, a packet of Salt-and-Vinegar Crisps and a latte.

TATHOS: So why ARE we here?

TOMGOS: We need to decide on a topic for the research paper, I think I have an idea, but I can't do this alone. I wanted to explain the topic I think we should do.

TATHOS (eating his pain-au-chocolat messily): Sounds good... Ideas are cool. What ideas do you have?

TOMGOS: Well, I looked at our previous blog posts and I think we should look at humour in art.

TATHOS: You make that sound so boring, it's like a skill... We could, or grief? Or death? Or like, animals with death in their names, like the Deathwatch beetle... Death's Head Moth... Like the Silence of the Lambs...

TOMGOS: Focus!

TATHOS: What about masks? Maybe grief and masks?

TOMGOS: I looked at that, there's not much to go on, and it's very tangled up with death masks... I looked at Noh and grief - there was some interesting stuff about the dead, but again, not enough for...

TATHOS: AI!

TOMGOS: ... a pa... What?

TATHOS: We should so a paper about AI and how it will change art. Like the camera did! Are we on the cusp of a new era of art? We could interview people from Tom's previous life

TOMGOS: Hmmm.... That could be interesting...

LITTLE TOM: You don't know enough, you'll fail

TATHOS: Fuck off

TOMGOS: Who? What? Who was that?

TATHOS: Little Tom, but you can ignore him

TOMGOS: Ummm, oh... Umm... Ok

TATHOS: We are interested in value in art, there could be an angle there too... NFT art creates a dialogue between the audience and the artist, we could put that in

LITTLE TOM: Not gonna work...

TOMGOS: Is there a Big Tom too?

TATHOS: We don't talk about him, ok?

TOMGOS: Like we ignore Little Tom, here?

TATHOS: No, very not like Little Tom. Please don't mention him ever again.

TOMGOS: Ummm, ok... So, we could do the AI thing, or we could do the humour thing. I'd love to do something with Pope.L

TATHOS: Have you heard of Folka Wolf? The pound shop Banksy... He uses humour a lot

TOMGOS: You saw that in The Guardian!

TATHOS (laughing): Tell anyone and you die!

LITTLE TOM: So lame

TATHOS: I really like Yoko Ono's stuff, I wonder if she had anything to say after John's death?

TOMGOS: Just Googling it, and there's some interesting looking links...

TATHOS: Sounds like we have some ideas, let's go and do a pros-and-cons and meet up again?

TOMGOS: Sounds good, give us a crisp?

TATHOS: No

"Guilt" done (again)

 So I eventually went with the revised eyes for "Guilt" - they look a bit wide, but I am generally happy with them, and I think they are a marked improvement on before

I think I will go with this type of eyes for those masks that have them... "Regret" doesn't really have eyes, and my current plans for "Crushing Despair" will either! About to start work on that - need a better name - I can't call it 'Despair' because there's also Manic Despair. I have the sculpting mesh cut, I just need to shove my face into it...

Pieces, series, derivations, and themes? Self-curating my own multiverse of potential exhibitions?

I think I'm on a cusp of maturity from thinking about each piece as an individual self-contained entity, to thinking of each as part of a wider context. Is this what JK was thinking when he urged me to revisit the 'closure' step in my art process? Probably!

I think of something as an individual piece if appears finished on it's own. However, a piece may not be a completed artwork, nor stand-alone. 

It might:

• Be a component of a larger artwork which doesn't make sense alone - e.g. the individual heads in "An month in my head"
• Be a semi-standalone 'piece' of a larger artwork whereby each 'piece' makes some sense alone, but is intended to be displayed as part of a set, the artwork comprising the 'set' as a whole - in this case I would resist displaying any piece without the others. An obvious example of this is the rivers-of-silver masks - I share them as I make them, but the artwork isn't finished or ready for display until all 5 masks are made - I've done 2 now, I need to make 3 more. Each mask makes more 'sense' in the context of the other 4, and the last one 'acceptance', only makes real sense in the presence of the others, and adds new meaning to the others - they are hopefully reflected in it, and it in them
• Be an item in a series, whereby each piece can standalone, but is significantly enhanced by the others, and shows a journey of development. I'd want to display them in complete series, but would consider displaying them in sub-sets, or individually. I don't think I have produced any series yet. I can't the designs in 'wish you were hear' a series, but I think I misspoke - they are all components of a single artwork 'wish you were hear'.
• Be linked to other artworks through common elements or by derivations - they would be stand-alone artworks, but the connections between the would be fairly obvious - e.g. the masks in rivers of silver, and the faces in my as yet unmade series of casts of my face. Or the wax heads in "a month in my head" and identical casts in other materials used for future projects like casting in ice and letting them melt. These links might involve a similar visual 'vocabulary' (e.g. cast heads, faces, mask) and/or might be linked more by derivation e.g. one would be inspired by the other and might borrow visual elements from it, but might also just be related conceptually e.g. works related to allowing literal decay of materials)
• Be linked thematically - form part of a larger body of work related to e.g. mourning and mental health

Of course, over time I think each piece will share more-and-more of these links to other pieces - they may be thematically related to some, use visual elements from others, and be derived from yet others... There are probably other ways things can be related too... I guess this increasingly becomes a case of 'curating' my own work, and finding ways to bring them together to have more impact. Huh!

Pseudo-science as art?

Working on "A month in my head" has made me think again about this urge to present art like science.

I really like the idea of making art that 'looks' like science - I think it's the aesthetic of 'Victorian' science - it reminds me of my childhood for some reason - wooden cases, brass label holders, little inked labels. It's weird because I think it's about the 'trappings' of science, not the rigour - it's not about the urge to approach the art scientifically, it's about the urge to present the art as though it's science. I guess for the topic of mental health, it can make sense, but it goes wider.

Examples and potential examples:

• A month in my head presents my mental health on wax heads each day for a month. The wax heads and the process of recording each day both evoke scientific method. I am making an oak case for them, and I'm tempted to label them with the notes I took each day
• The 'blank' guilt mask is like a psychology model
• "Secrets" (if I ever make it!) uses little glass vials like biological specimens
• ...

Maybe it comes from my science background? À la recherche du temps perdu perhaps? There is something interesting and engaging (to me) about documenting things fastidiously, especially things that don't warrant that level of fastidiousness. It makes an interesting statement. I also love maps and diagrams.

Let's see where it goes.

Virtual Interim Show Board in three.js

 I'm keen to ensure the postcards from my piece at the interim show are not 'lost' - they feel quite precious to me, and I also like the idea of making them accessible to other people. I've been keen for a while to build some sort of 'virtual' board, where the cards could be read. I would allow people to post their own, but I might as well say "write bad shit here" if I do that... I really like the idea of creating some form of 'immersive' experience that could be used at exhibitions in the future, so I figure this could be a great chance to learn VR...

In practice, I think 'VR' here means 'WebXR', and 'WebXR' means three.js... I've messed about briefly with three.js before, so I had the basic set-up, which made it easier. I'd forgotten, however, what a PITA it is to test VR apps, even in a browser - they require https, so you can't just spin up a local server for testing... It can be done with tunneling services, but it's annoying... So I decided to bite off a smaller mouthful, and make an ordinary 3d version of the board, and then faff about with making it VR-enabled once I'd solved the basic stuff like managing setting up the cards, the textures etc

Got the very basic start of something:

Currently working on navigation (VR-style navigation would be really annoying for a non-VR experience), once I'm happy with that, I'll start faffing around with automatically generating the correct number of cards based on the number images available. I suspect I'll have to juggle images somehow - maybe with MIP mapping - I doubt they will all fit into memory, but let's see...

Roadkill... Dead foxes as mini-sculptures for grief?

 For some weird reason, I have the urge to make wax models of roadkill... Specifically foxes. They definitely represent grief to me, and I did use them in that way in "Brave Mr Fox". On reflection it makes sense in some ways - they represent hidden nocturnal lives of adventure, cut brutally short in a very random/impersonal way, and then laid bare as a grisly spectacle for passing traffic to inspect, or ignore. Mostly likely ignore - overlooked in plain sight. They are also in pathetically heroic poses like fallen warriors or martyrs.

I imagine making little dioramas of the context - kerbs, drains, verges. I feel strongly I have to ensure they are at least heavily based on real roadkill, so I'll probably have to invoke the artist licence to act like a weirdo and take some photos.

Practically I haven't a chuffing clue how to do this... My initial idea was to cast wax foxes from a toy and modify them. Then I thought that's going to give poor results, because unlike a person, the shape of the fox's body is quite dependant on their posture. So then I thought I'd pose them in Blender, and then 3d print them... But now I'm coming back towards casting from a toy... But rather than cast the whole fox and then try to deform it to my desired position, I think I'll dismember the toy (which I will buy specially, and which I will butcher when my daughter isn't around!) and create a sort of 'toolkit' of 'fox parts' which I can then hopefully pose/deform and assemble back into the final piece... Let's see... I'd then make a very simple base (somehow?!) and put it all in a clear plastic display case, ideally around 10cm cubed. 

I want to make sure the final pieces look like tributes or precious objects, statues to fallen heroes, not trophies!

Ritual and violation

 The half-dozen people wait, nervously, in the small entrance hall, silent, avoiding each other's gaze. The main hall, an ordinary community space, is visible through a glass double door. They wear their ordinary clothes, some clearly having come from work, other perhaps retired. They don't understand why they are here, what draws them to do this, despite the feeling of danger.

At some collectively understood prompt, they carefully pull red hoods over their faces, tying them beneath the chin, then pull gloves up to their sleeves, covering every inch of flesh. They turn to each other for the first time, each ensuring the others are completely covered. They don't know what it is, only, somehow, that it cannot abide the sight of human skin.

After one last glance around the small space, the figure nearest the double doors, slowly pulls one open, and they file reluctantly in. The hall is almost empty, the chairs spaced in orderly stacks around the walls. However, in the centre of the expanse of stained and patchy carpet, stands a rough, irregular, but rounded granite boulder, as tall as a man's shoulder. It's surface is unmarked, but curiously free of any moss or lichen.

The line of people circle around the boulder, keeping a respectful distance. Their breathing is clearly rapid and their steps shaky. An alien presence saturates the space, rumbling in their chests, like a sound of great intensity, too low to be heard. A slight feeling of nausea washes over them, but they do not react. They stand around and face the boulder, but they are not clear if that is where the alien presence originates, in fact, it feels clear it seems to originate from everywhere except the boulder. Nobody knows how the bounder was placed there, why, when, or by whom. 

They do this every evening at sunset, but they do not know how long for, nor feel able to even speak to each other about this part of their lives. Their presence feels required, but barely tolerated. If they remain covered from head-to-toe, and do not speak, they will be allowed to leave unharmed when the moment comes when they somehow know they are dismissed, and they file out with dignified haste.

"Hey!"

The voice explodes across the space, the hooded figures startle, and turn to the door. A large group of people pour into the space. Their faces are not covered, and they exchange delighted glances as they expand into the space, encircling the boulder.

"Your faces..." a hooded figure exclaims in horror, his voice unnaturally pitched, the others hearing it, they realise, for the first time.

"It's fine!" laughs the leader of the incoming horde, several of the others nearest him exchanging glances, and laughing too.

The oppressive nauseating atmosphere in the room changes.

The "eyes" have it! Sorry... Better eyes for Guilt

Building on my previous post, I took the improved eye shape and tried adding it as a sticker over "Guilt" to see what it might look like:

Ok, so I could have done a better job on blending it in etc, but I already feel strongly that I prefer the original eye shape, even if it's not strictly optimal. I suspect if I had planned it in from the start (next time!), it might look better, but for now I'm letting Tathos run things, and he likes the original... Tathos says the new eye looks like the kids's expressions when Tomgos cracks another unfunny dad joke.

One of the interesting things from the noh masks was that they have 'irises' implied by showing the white of the eye, and only leaving the iris as the hole. I attempted to simulate this by sticking a white piece of paper, with a hole cut in it, behind:

My cutting and sticking skills clearly leave a lot to be desired... But I already REALLY like that - it looks so much better than the empty socket. Child 2 saw it and said "ahhh! why have you done that", which I count as a win.

Spurred on, I had another go at using the half-shell 'glass' (read 'cheap plastic') eyes I bought before:

It still doesn't quite look right - firstly perhaps because the eye doesn't fit very well (there's not enough of a 'socket' despite the mask being quite thin there), and secondly because the creepy-factor is probably so high, it distracts from the actual expression...

So I think I need to don my big boy pants, and add a 'white' (sclera) to the eyes - not sure yet exactly how, but I'll probably cover the entire eye, and then find a way to very neatly cut the hole (I see myself buying a craft knife soon).

Cast 'wax' doll heads in other materials?

 I've been thinking of getting a cast made of my face (it's a very expensive and involved process it turns out) and then casting that in different materials and recording my experiment with them. While I think about that, I was thinking I could try casting the doll heads in other materials. It would be a good place to start. However, I think I should wait until I'm definitely done with "A Month in my Head"

Noh masks, more expressive eyes, and a change of direction for the masks?

Part of the suggestions in my Unit 1 feedback, was to look at noh masks. At the time I thought it was a by-the-by type suggestion in passing. However, like a lot of things JK says, I found myself coming back to it with new understanding... I'm pleased with 'Guilt' but the eyes are troubling me... and not in a good way. They look straight-ahead, but one of the things that makes an expression 'guilty' is downcast eyes. At the time I sort of convinced myself I couldn't do that, and so didn't try too hard... Also I was probably quite stressed by the making process - which seems to turn out well, but often seems to hover on the verge of disaster! 

Anyhoo... I know a bit about noh masks from my teenage obsession with Japan, and I thought I'd do some casual research into how they achieve expressions... Cue a deep cut scene with me swimming through the internet and Google Arts and Culture, only to emerge, with a gasp, like the infamous toilet scene in Trainspotting...

Some conclusion from my swimming trip:

• I do a fair amount of research for my art, but it's very practical/technical - I don't generally do enough inspiration trawling for a specific piece - I look for inspiration, but once I think I have it, I sort of lock myself away from other influences like I'll be corrupted
• Maybe JK's suggestion to look at noh masks was his subtle but effective way to say "pull your finger out of your fanny hole, and actually look at all the things like the thing you are doing that have gone before! You aren't the first reasonably clued up human on earth"
• Noh masks are amazing
• Masks are amazing
• People are amazing
• Google Arts and Culture is actually a cool tool for 'inspiration surfing'
• I need to revisit 'Guilt' and see if I can do MORE to make the eyes work
• I need to revisit the masks in general and consider if the current sort of 'magical realism' approach is the way to go

Noh masks are very cool - all masks that exist are examples of a set of named masks, which in turn belong to families of masks - there's a really neat database of them. The masks are very cleverly designed so that changing the angle of the mask, changes the expression - look up and the mask looks 'happy', look down and the mask looks 'sad' - there's a paper (which I have yet to read) that tries to analyse exactly how this is done.

Meanwhile, I've been doing a bit of experimentation, taking two photos of myself, one neutral, the other 'guilty' and trying to extract the features involved:

Yeah, I had no top on, but I was wearing underpants, so it's ok. I was focused on the eyes when I was pulling the expression, so it's perhaps not representative, but it's amazing how little of the rest of the face moved, and yet it looks guilty. The eyes really change shape, A LOT! I think there's couple of things at work - firstly the eyelids are more lowered, but secondly, the face is probably tipped forward slightly, exposing more of the '3d shape' of the eyes, so the lower lid become more 's-shaped'.

The 'Guilt' mask does have any eyes, just holes, so I tried removing the irises:

It still works, but much less well... Interestingly, the noh masks DO have irises - or rather they have the whites of the eyes and the irises are the 'holes' - making them almost impossible to see out of, but offering a direction for my mask.

So I want to experiment with making little 'test' inserts for 'Guilt' to simulate having the changed eye-shape, and the white. If that looks like it works, I'll commit to some 'surgery' on the mask itself to change the eyes for real... I'm sweating, but I have to be prepared to kill my darlings to make them better!

ALSO

I'm really drawn to the idea of doing something radically different... While I was looking for inspiration, I found this mask from Africa (thought to be Ivory Coast):

Seeing the simplified shape, and the use of incised lines to depict features opened my mind - why am I trying to produce colourful realistic masks? I mean I still want to do that AS WELL, but this plus the experiment above gave me an idea - make a very simple white mask, and then draw on the lines above - it would look almost like a piece of medical training material. I'm drawn at the moment to making art that has an acetic inspired by science - the wax heads will probably end up with little hand-drawn labels like scientific specimens. So after my experiment with 'Guilt', rather than make 'Despair', I'm going to experiment with a minimalist version of 'Guilt' based on the drawings above.

Submitted "Missing Worker" to "Who Cares?" at Fringe Arts Bath

 I was pointed to the "Who Cares?" Open Call by Lucy, who curated the "Bill of Health" exhibition at CSM. I thought it was worth a shot to take the "Missing Worker" poster, and do MORE with it - something site-specific! Let's see... Too much risk for all concerned, perhaps...

Reflections from Fiona Carruthers's Presentation to our MA Group

Fi was one of the original cohort of MA Fine Art Digital students, and came back to give a presentation to our current cohort. She makes beautiful fragile sculptural pieces from natural materials:

I was particularly taken by a few particular comments she made, and afterwards asked her for the speaker notes, which she kindly supplied. 

I've reflected on extracts (in italics) from these notes below.

I’m preoccupied with survival. ‘Speculating about what this might look like for our species, for other species and for the environment. That adapting to change will require social, political and emotional transformation is well understood now.

Typically, my search for understanding manifests as transience, fragility and precarity.

I really like the way that Fi's broader concern with the fragility of the environment translates into the fragility of her work. She is able to translate cleanly and intuitively. I have an overriding purpose to my MA work, and I have recurring themes in my work, but I don't have such a natural link between the two. I committed previously to try to think of my work more holistically, and I have begun to make the links clearer, but I would love to find a natural translation of my own - my work lacks a typical style or material, or really ANY sort of consistency of form or process, but I think I can find non-physical translations - conceptual translations, I guess. For instance, themes that might relate directly to taboos around death would be 'the hidden' and 'the transient' - I could make pieces that degrade naturally over time? I was thinking I'd love to make a natural sculpture in the woods and add to it and watch it degrade over time.

At its most effective, the work quietly interrupts, rather than disrupts viewers’ passage through space - and because of the fragile and delicately balanced nature of the work, viewers’ movements, speed and behaviour, have to change. Even children’s.

To avoid damage, the viewer is quickly obliged to pay closer attention to themselves, others and their surroundings.

I really really admire this. My work is still quite angry (although it's not a conscious anger I feel or could articulate verbally), and so tends to arrest and disturb, rather than being quietly hard to ignore. I could learn a lot from this, although perhaps I have to get the anger out first? Prior to Carolyn's death, my work was quite gentle and understated, I feel, so I guess I have it in me, I just need to work through the need to show people the pain. I think, for me, this look like creating work that is intriguing and rewards inspection - the mental health postcards were a rather raucous version of that - it was clear as you passed that something was 'going on', and when you got close, there was lots to see. "A Month in my Head" (if I ever get the chance to show it :( ) might be a more refined version of this - 31 wax heads in little boxes ought to be enough to entice people over, and once there, there are 31 things to see, and (hopefully) a lot of meaning to reflect on. I guess I don't work with spaces in quite the same way, but I would love to do this with people's attention - imagine creating a tiny object that occupies people in a room filled with large and looming pieces. Is it just me, or is there a tenancy for art to 'go big'?

Consciously - and unconsciously, I realise - I am on the lookout for everyday materials and objects, that have the potential to generate intrigue, and, if I am lucky...even surprise or anticipation.

Curiosity and anticipation, are both powerful feelings and behaviours key to survival.

This definitely resonates with me, although for me it's centred more around ideas than materials. I'm constantly reflecting (whether I mean to or not) about ideas I hear or dream up, and how they could become art. I'm constantly mulling them over and trying to connect them in unexpected ways. Perhaps ideas are my 'material'? Or perhaps that's an affectation too far! 

I do like the idea of 'intrigue' - it's a word that comes up a lot in art, and I think it's very important - art is supposed to make you ask questions, and to do that, you have to be intrigued. I wonder if some art forgets this? It offers too little up-front? Or worse, offers too much?

Again though, why no love for materials, Tom? I guess I've only just started making physical things, and actually, to be fair, "A Month in my Head" makes much of the texture and translucency of the wax, albeit not directly towards the meaning.

The potential for significance is also important.

...what this significance is - is not at all always evident until much later on in the creative process. But, the materials I gather typically have no perceived value. They are simply not noticed in their natural locations. They are invisible in that they are ‘unseen’.

[..]

On show, assembled together, ‘up-close and under the spotlight, however, their ‘voice’ - their characteristics and behaviours (their nature) become ‘visible’.

Although unseen, the materials I collect are mostly gathered from very familiar everyday locations, the no-land, edge-land between the beach and car park - and roadsides for example... or the shortcut across an unused piece of land by the pub or the bus stop.

By examining and exploring the qualities of these materials and sites - by seeking out coalitions and connections with them - something new - always emerges

Ah, significance, how I love thee and hate thee... I think this is one of the most compelling and explicit descriptions of how 'the process' works that I have seen. I said before that the bad artist thrashes around and claims good outcomes (hey, there's a bit of that with my wax heads!), the good artist explores for a known goal... But I guess the good artist also knows what 'good' might look like, and sets off with the 'equipment' that will likely get her there. She may not know where she's going even, but she knows what she will need to get there, and she knows when she's arrived... Huh. I maintain (for now at least) that a deep connection to the topic and the goal remain important - they are on your mind, they obsess you, and perhaps your subconscious does the rest? Undoubtedly I've had my better ideas not by 'brainstorming' for some fixed outcome, but by 'soaking' in a rich brew of ideas, with some strong but fluid aim in mind. Or am I holding on to some last thread of the comfort-blanket of rationalism?

Submitted to the "This Homeland" competition

I submitted the following image to the "This Homeland" competition, to have it exhibited in London hospitals. I submitted it as a joint entry between myself and Roz, as it uses her scan and is inspired by her work:

I created it especially, but it was a good excuse to play with the 3d scan, as discussed previously. I also created the following writing, as required, on the subject "This Homeland":

How can we know you so well, and yet so little? You stride, filled with glorious pride, and skulk heavy with shameful secrets. You pit and burn in the words of the fanatic, yet give quiet strength, hope, and resolve to the repressed. You fling your arms wide, fingering the knobbled barrows in the chalk, exploring the ancient rough-granite-lined tunnels of unfathomable purpose. You caress the weathered concrete of the inner-city tower block’s peak, brush the gleaming golden dome of the suburban mosque, tease out the spring leaves, linger in the hot exhaust of the crematorium. You fill, heavy but comforting, the heart of the old woman mulching in a care home, rest lightly on the brows of the children lost in the games of the school playground. You touch, and ring, and resound, and glow, and before we really know you, we are gone.

I very nearly submitted a much more stylised version:

But after a lot of swirling, decided I actually liked the colour version more, and that it was a better fit for people in hospital. I might print myself a postcard-sized copy of the image anyhow, as I really like it!

Finished "Guilt", second "Rivers of Silver" mask, plus lessons-learnt

 I'm calling my second mask in the "Rivers of Silver" series, complete. Meet "Guilt":

On the whole, I'm very pleased with it. Having allowed it to 'settle' a bit, I decided I had the same 'spam' problem as "Regret" - because the masks go quite far back, and don't have hair (I did once drape my daughter's hair over "Regret", something I can't unsee), they end up with a massive forehead or 'spam' as we used to call it in my cornish secondary school. In this case I fixed this by adding some detail which I love - I used dried conifer leaves to create find branching 'capillaries' of gold:

I like the way they seem to grow over and into the forehead. 

The other problem I had was that the mouth looked wrong... I generally work on a 'lazy' principle in life, and especially in art - I do the minimum to obtain a good result ;) Albeit I have a high standard for 'good'! Here that backfired in a way that was suddenly obvious with a bit of 'distance', but wasn't obvious at the time - I'd let the (now unused) holes in the corners of the mouth remain. The way I worked this out was quite useful to remember - I felt the mouth looked good in the newspaper stage, but bad in the painted stage... So something must have changed, and I eventually realised it was that the black holes now looked like part of the dark blue lips. I stopped them up with a mixture of toilet tissue and PVA, which forms a magical putty-like substance, which takes about 2 years to dry... I waited as long as I could bare, crossed my fingers, and painted over them!

Once I was completely happy with everything, I painted over it all with a black wash, taking care to apply more in the darker areas (to complement the existing tinting) and wiping it away from the highest highlights over the nose and brows.

Overall I like the branches, although they are perhaps not as evocative/viseral as I hoped, I'm not sure why, and I'm not beating myself up about it, but i have it hanging on my "finished mask on probation" nail in my dining room, and I'll try to reflect a bit more on it emotionally once the angst of the technical production has faded a bit.

Lessons learnt (trying to do this more systematically):

• Poster paints are the work of satan
• Gloss or egg-shell house paint is wonderful stuff
• Incorporating materials to add detail (string on Regret, plant material on Guilt) is a great way to add more detail than I could ever hope to model, and also helps to tie my work to a sense (albeit private to me) of place and material
• I am still afraid to let the materials show (huh!) and want to cover everything in paint - I wonder why? Nature represents peace and the escape from pain (see "Quenched") so it makes sense here, but seems to be a general trend, perhaps... Something to consider for "Acceptance" when I eventually get to it
• The consistency and parallels between "Guilt" and "Regret" tie them into a series, which will hopefully be stronger than the sum of the parts, especially as I add more, and should be extended to new masks, most obviously the use of gold to represent pain, silver for sorrow, and the presence of some form of head-gear
• Black washing at the end adds a lot of texture and interest and character that is hard to get by applying tints by hand - interestingly it highlights the flaws in the surface ("your finger prints are literally all over it")
• I can build up fairly naturalistic features, although I can get better at this
• I can build up fairly convincing, if exaggerated expressions, which might be an interesting thing to explore further (viz JK's feedback to look at noh)
• The branches DO capture a sense of the ingrowing, painful, messiness of guilt, although the branch up the nose might be distracting?
• I'm still somewhat producing the masks in three broad stages - concept, initial execution, refinement... I think JK was pushing me to think more holistically at each stage (huh!) - execution should flow with concept - think of the mask as a living thing AS you make it, not a project to be completed AFTER concept
• I really do like doing series, I didn't think I did, but I do!
• When I wear the mask (it's quite hard to wear because I stupidly extended the neck area making it very tight against my throat), the branch that's in "Guilt's" mouth is in MY mouth - while I didn't do that on purpose, it did it itself and I had the sense to keep it!

When I have the full set, I want to get help to do a photo-shoot of me wearing all the masks, sitting at a table, composited together - I want to act out each mask's character as I wear it. I would LOVE to get permission to do this in an interesting space like an old building (great suggestion from a friend).

What else could I, should I, do with them? Do they have a life with me (weirdly the opposite of something Roz said to me - she wants her work to live without her, here I need to make my work live WITH me)?

Right, I'm off for a wee before I wet myself.

Started "A Month in my Head"

 I finally cast my 31st head a couple of weeks ago - I think I was maybe subconsciously putting it off? Or maybe just lazy! To 'celebrate' I made an impromptu artworks with them:

Before piling them into a tray for my daily use:

I decided april would be "the month' that I would document mainly because of practical considerations - I need to produce a piece of 'art' every day, so I need to be at home (not away) all month.

So far I have made and shared three heads:

The process of 'having' to make a piece each day has been slightly stressful, but mostly fun - it's a good excuse to make art, which I love doing as it distracts me from some of the more difficult/tedious aspects of my 'real' life. I made the smart decision to share the photos on Insta a day late - doing so gives me a chance to reflect on them overnight and course-correct if needed. I guess I COULD change them later, but that seems very against the spirit of what I am trying to do - which is some ways is more a piece of performance art than 'sculpture' - even if the performance itself isn't seen directly. I've been trying hard to FEEL what the head should look like, not come up with direct symbolism - e.g. the first head felt right for the happy feeling I had, it's not attempting to symbolise happiness directly. The third head is much more literal - I felt 'business-like' and struggled to show this - the head went through a couple of iterations before I had to 'stick'.

Speaking of iterations, yesterday should have been an easy one - I was already anticipating the fact that  I would have to 'mask' for a kids easter party, and had already got an idea to show the head wearing an easter bunny mask - humour, but with a slight sting. To give myself credit, I did consider on the morning if that still felt 'right' and it did. Modelling the mask went well - I've got a lot of unmelted cheese casings, which are actually a great source of flat smooth pieces I can cut and build up. However, I felt like the mask wasn't distinct enough from the face - it wasn't clear enough that it was a mask, so I made the disastrous decision to paint it:

Oh my good - it's Donny-fucking-Darko... Ok... So I waited till after the party, to check I didn't feel Donny Darko, and I didn't, so I painted the entire thing white, then painted the mask with poster paints. POSTER PAINTS SUCK BALLS - do not use them. 

So I painted over the poster paint with gold:

On the plus side, it's more obviously a mask, and it looks silly and light-hearted, which isn't so bad... But firstly it's sort of TOO silly - it looks like a cheap easter decoration, and secondly the project was supposed to be about the colour and quality of the wax, and this will be the third head out of four that's painted... So I'm going to thank myself once more for giving myself a day between making and posting, and I think I'm going to make this one again, just in wax, with a simpler design...

Started "Modern Art" edited by David Britt

 I've started reading "Modern Art" edited by David Britt. 

I got a used copy for 50p in the local library book sale! While it's not core to my study statement, I think it's worth reading as background - goodness knows I need the grounding! And it was only 50p. Fifty pence! Result!

Progress on "Guilt"

Having completed "Regret", I've been cracking on with "Guilt". Bit shocked how little I've posted on it, but I guess I've been mostly repeating the processs from "Regret" for the initial build:

This one was a bit more tricky because I want it to be more naturalistic, aside from the holes, which are for two twigs, which I planned to have growing into the face, to represent the way guilt hurts and grows and corrupts. I used on-line references to try to get a 'guilty' expression, which worked well - mainly indicated by the low-brows, the downturned eyes, and the pouted lip...

Adding the branches was fun, if a bit stressful - I had a fun 'shopping' trip to the local heath, finding two big branches with lots of twigs that would give me the best hope of finding something I liked. I was focused on finding two 'hand-like' sets of twigs at this point.

(Tomgos: It's sideways! Tathos: So what! Tomgos: You need to rotate it Tathos: Pffft!)

However, when I came to place them on the mask, I found it quite hard to find ones that felt 'right' coming up, and eventually decided to have them coming from the forehead, more like horns:

I then gave everything a coat of white household paint as an undercoat, and tried to use poster paint:

Yeeesh, it didn't work out. I knew I hated it, but I couldn't work out why... I realised eventually it was two main things 1) the rosy cheeks make it look like make-up and 2) the finish was horrible! After some teeth sucking, I decided to bite the bullet, and buy some household gloss - I don't know why, but I love it as a paint - great coverage, tough finish, fairly cheap... Two coats of that, and I think we are back on track:

I really like the colour and the texture! Next step is to refresh the gold (gold seems to symbolise pain in my work, just as silver represents sorrow) and tint the mask (i.e. add shading to emphasise the contours).