ARTISTS TALKING

# 56 [11 May 2012]

The mechanism formulated to explore my online image archive is largely beyond my control. Commissioned participants define my direction and create new frameworks for reorganizing the original archive.

Recognition of two themes in my own archive – images involving shadows and stacks of correlated paper – began with selections made by participants in 35 weeks. In several cases, image selections seemed to be in dialogue with selections made by other participants. These incidental image dialogues made by participants accessing the original archive did not seem to require a newly-posted reply as dictated by the image-dialogue mechanism.

Recognition of the extent to which image themes involving shadows and correlated paper permeated my existing archives, led to the isolation of these image types in the original archives and experimentation with material representations of these in studio practice.

In the spirit of bottom-up project design, I am now asking anyone who can, to 'like' as many images as appeal to them by visiting my open album PAPER STACKS on Facebook.

Thanks in advance for your distance-curatorial work. Feel free to add your efforts to your resume. Letters of reference can be provided.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150821...

http://imagesinformingthought.carbonmade.com/

# 55 [1 May 2012]

We had a studio warming recently at Inkspot followed by Karaoke at the Cliffton Arms. Just as guests were about to arrive, Alison and I, who had been working diligently for the better part of the day and had not yet eaten, decided to order pizza across the street.

Responsible drinking starts with a full stomach. Especially when Karaoke is involved.

I love the feeling of being in a new place. I love how even on Cliffton Street were my studio has been since the start of the new year, I can manage to exit a shop and head in the direction opposite to the one which I assume I'm heading.

I love the turning about in one's head, the repositioning of the self, the disorientation and surfacing exhilaration when the world rights itself and you realize you are not where you thought you were.

While we were waiting for pizza, I got a text from James saying he was outside Inkspot, but was unsure which door to use. Since he wasn't outside our entrance across the street, I realized he must be at the front of the building.

There was a man standing on the corner with a green bag and I instructed James to to walk towards him where, from that vantage point, he would be able to see me.

When the man showed signs of leaving I was dismayed - the lighthouse on the shore was in transit and James was in danger. As I moved up the street to rescue James his voice on the line said not to worry, he had seen me.

It was only then that I realized that the man previously standing on the corner with a green bag was James, himself. The world - my place in it, and James' place in it from my perspective - righted itself.

In my current work exploring online personal image archives and memory, I am realizing how pervasive is the perception- even when one knows otherwise - that memory objects are mysterious, personal-portals to a static past.

We find it difficult to accept that with each act of remembering,  we position ourselves anew.

We turn in our heads, reposition ourselves, are disoriented.

Maybe the exhilaration when we realize we are not where we thought we were accounts for our attachment to memory objects - even if we think they are something other than what they truly are.

# 54 [27 April 2012]

Exposed Materials and Processes in Art Practice:

I love it when art-bloggers write in detail about their materials and methods.

Very helpful, indeed.

Stephen B. MacInnis from Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island is very, very good at communicating regarding this aspect of his work.

Very helpful, indeed.

http://sbmacinnis.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/paintin...

# 53 [27 April 2012]

Yesterday I visited Andre Stitt's studio in Cardiff with MA and MFA candidates from CSAD. We talked about the role of the studio in art practice.

During the tour, we discussed rituals associated with studio work. Sifting, sorting, prioritizing and making ready (tidying, cleaning, sharpening pencils etc.) seemed entrenched in method regardless of an individual's medium of choice.

It was agreed that these habits were a form of 'working while seemingly not working' - in the case of the painters in the group, a form of mental preparation for their ultimate confrontation with the canvas.

I currently have work spaces in three locations and regularly move between Bristol and Cardiff. On the tour, someone suggested that my studio is in actual fact, the suitcase, itself.

I have been thinking a lot about my method. Exposed materials and processes in art practice interests me. I have been watching the sifting, sorting, prioritizing, piling and decision-making.

The necessity of packing and the move itself play a role here. In some ways the suitcase and the need to pack it, makes even more transparent the seeming attrition and subsequent resurfacing of ideas, themes and imagery in my work.

All I need now is a canvas to confront. What will be the viewers' share in all of this?

# 52 [23 April 2012]

C O - E V O L U T I O N 

T H E O R Y & P R A C T I C E

I am an east coast Canadian currently on sabbatical in the United Kingdom completing my MFA at Cardiff School of Art and Design in Wales.

My current practice-led research involves distance collaboration in the form of online image exchange. I am interested in the role transparency - in the form of exposed materials and methods - plays in engagement for both artist practitioners and viewers of completed works.


Here online image dialogues form a catalyst for thought – a mechanism whereby comparisons can be drawn between experiences in virtual and real-world landscapes and the images (digital and analogue) which are traditionally associated with each sphere.

My project explores the interplay between the virtual and the material, but because the image exchanges involve revising my personal digital image archives and a former work involving them created in 2007, memory and our perception of time are clearly implicated.

'How do memory and our perception of time function given the pervasiveness of online experience in the everyday?

http://imagesinformingthought.carbonmade.com/about

# 51 [21 April 2012]

In 2007 and 2008 I photographed virtually everything I did and posted the digital images in weekly albums on facebook. A total of 1,537 images were posted over the project's duration.

The impetus for the original '35 weeks on facebook' project stemmed from the realization that digital photos in my online archive seemed able to elicit in me a palpable, body-centered memory of exactly how I was feeling when I took a particular photograph. Since this memory did not appear to change with time, new knowledge or new experiences, this attribute proved particularly useful in monitoring my mental health at the time.

I have asked 35 facebook contacts to select a favorite image from each of the collections. I have responded to each with either a new photograph or one which has surfaced as a result of my current MFA studies.

I want to explore if my original beliefs about the capacity of on line images still ring true.

In a sense, the image dialogues represented here are conversations with my former self.

http://imagesinformingthought.carbonmade.com/proje...

# 50 [20 March 2012]

From today's journal:

Laura's image holds up a mirror to my own to reveal what is outside the frame, namely me, the photographer. For me, seen together, the diptych asks, “Where are you?” What is your position within the photographs you take? What is your position within the collected personal images which form your on line archive?

'As far as spatiality is concerned, […] one's own body is the third term, always tacitly understood, in the figure-background structure, and every figure stands out against the double horizon of external and bodily space' (Merleau-Ponty 1962)

Notions of place and identity feel central to my practice-led research at the moment. As a Canadian studying abroad I am in the real-world landscape foreign to my own and in addition, the images I am working with are part of an often foreign-feeling virtual landscape.

On line image exchange with Laura O'Brien here:

http://imagesinformingthought.carbonmade.com/

# 49 [19 March 2012]

Images from recent weeklong project in cooperation with Buren College of Art, Ireland.

Solarplate workshop and 'time and location' exploration organized by David Ferry and Laura Lillie, Cardiff School of Art and Design.

# 48 [19 March 2012]

I am very excited about the self portrait image dialogue I have undertaken with Becka Viau at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Canada.

Among other things, I enjoy seeing how the same project can feed into completely different research paths.

Check out Becka's current tact and I will keep you posted on mine.

self portrait image dialogue with becka on flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/69299829@N08/

other images in dialogue - donnalee:

http://imagesinformingthought.carbonmade.com/

becka's current research as it relates to in our place:

http://proximityanddistance.wordpress.com/studio-r...

# 47 [19 March 2012]

Forgetting and remembering.

I am fascinated by Sam Firth's current project as discussed here at an

http://www.a-n.co.uk/artists_talking/artists_stori...

and reading her blog

http://staythesamefilm.com/

led to some interesting reading on memory and related contemporary practices. For this I am most greatful.

I also found something interesting in my sketchbook this weekend. I was astounded by the fact that one of the few notes I made during my recent trip to Ireland was not consciously remembered when I wrote post #44 upon my return.