DEGREES UNEDITED

Richard Taylor in conversation with Karen Howse

Negotiating the ‘final-piece’: titles as entitlements to move on

Introducing Karen Howse, final year student of a two-year part time MA in Fine Art at University College Falmouth: residing in Launceston, North Cornwall the artist and mother of two spends her time in the locale of The Woods: finding what is to be found and then deliberating what she can do.
How does this relate to a research based practice?
And what if all that is produced is documentation of goings on?

Join in and comment: visit Karen's blog

A meditative practice unravelled: Karen in her own words:

My practice is site responsive, often in marginal natural places. I use ink drawing, book making, photography and sited work. The artwork process becomes a way of shedding light on what is: being in one environment I become aware of change in myself and in the place itself:

Quote from the blogs (# 7 [30 September 2009])

I love this quote by Joseph Campbell in The Power of Myth

"People say what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think that what we're seeking is an experience of being alive..."

These words struck me. With my artwork I am exploring this experience of being fully attentive to the everyday experience of What Is. This reflects my interest in meditation and Taoism. I have begun the practice of making Chinese ink drawings in the woods of boundaries, paths, the marginal and the in-between. I think this could be a rich area for me to cultivate. I'd like to make 52 drawings!

I am making the drawings on site then re making them in the studio, adding colour. This is an experiment in memory and mark. By re-making the drawings am I adding to them in any way? What is added and what is lost?

The beginnings of debate

Richard Taylor (30-09-2009):
Hello there.
Your process of image making is really interesting! I like how there is an element of transition in the development of each work: and how you also seem to be focused, almost scientific with the 'field research' and the bringing back to the lab to 'add colour'.

Also how you limit your self or set your goal for 52 drawings, why 52?

Karen Howse (01-10-2009):
Hello Richard.
Thanks for your comments, never thought of my work as scientific! 52 because there are approximately fifty-two weeks in a year ...I am just as interested in observing my own creative process as observing the forest I am working in. I see it as a process of learning and coming to knowing rather than setting out with a clear goal or aim: tricky when you are doing an MA and need to justify your actions.

Anyway, I look forward to hearing from you, and thanks for taking the time to add a comment, I am really enjoying the blogging and would like to further debate.

The editor and the blogger: in conversation

RT: Which title do you think suits you best: Artist or Experimenter, and does such self-perspective have anything do to with the process of choosing titles for your work?

KH: Artist of course!
But then the second part of the question prompts me to think about titles and I realise that lately they seem superfluous. I am in the flow of an experience, an experiment, Kaprow's "Life-like Art". I am too busy doing the work and moving from one experiment to the next to stop the flow and name each element, even if there was one. Maybe it is because I am in the midst of my MA, I see these two years set aside as time to think, play, experiment, not necessarily produce finished titled works.

A recent site-responsive work for my interim show was entitled "Making the Bed", situated in a farm milking yard: I was not entirely happy with the result but in making a piece with a title, I had a resolved idea that could be criticised ...used as a stepping-stone.

Maybe my current forest experiments will lead to finished pieces. My worry is I have no inclination to resolve them and that this is a failing: is a sketch any less valid than a finished drawing? Or is that unresolved, open ended feel to a body of work a good thing, leaving the work open to possibility and allowing room for the imagination.

RT: You use the notion of a title as a form of constraint, in specifying the 'entitled-work' as a definitive point, from which you move onwards. Does this restrain you as an artist / experimenter or do you utilise it?

KH: Boundaries can be useful in creating the artwork, as too much freedom is scary. I need parameters to work within; the constant conditions of an experiment that allow comparison and visible change.

My site of inquiry is a singular Wood. In the beginning I didn't know why, I just knew it was important to stick with it. Now I understand, only by being in one place can you see process in detail. Change in yourself and in the place, patterns and relationships. I think I like both titles of Artist and Experimenter, but being an "Artist" keeps open the possibilities and allows space for poetry to happen.

RT: In answer to some of the rhetorical questions that you ask yourself: the negotiation of process driven art (and the interjection of experimentation) involves having to set aside smaller 'untitled' pieces. It is this that is self-generative about your site-specific practice. The boundaries you speak of seem physical entities as well as mental constraints; it's an interesting way of working.

But how do you consider the exhibition of your work, will there ever be a final-piece, and will this necessarily happen after your MA? Is the practice you're involved in now not how you see yourself working continuously - whether in or out of institution, or in or out of the woods?

KH: How to exhibit my work is the question I am wrestling with at the moment.
My philosophies are strongly influenced by Taoist philosophies of flow and intention-less, intuitive actions: simply noticing and being.

This meditative process fits well with the small experiments I have been making in the woods, moment by moment; it doesn't fit so well with goal orientated work for exhibition. I am searching for a form or vehicle, to show the process as the artwork. I am not keen to make a finished piece that is separate from the experiments. As far as I am concerned the experiments are the true artwork. The journey I have been through to make the art is as interesting as the end results. I see the 52 coloured ink drawings as finished works that show the process. Maybe these will be shown with a long stick from the woods to which I tied the brush to make the work, giving some context to their making.

Richard Long said the photos in the gallery of his 'Lines Made by Walking' feed the imagination and the actual stones in the gallery feed the senses. I like this dual experience in a gallery context.

I have always worked in a similar way; Sensing and feeling and listening to a place, coming to know it before making or responding in any way. It necessitates a time-consuming way of working. The work emerges from the conditions of that experience of place. I can see myself continuing this way of working post-college, and trees are a continuing obsession. I just need to concentrate on finding honest ways to show my process. A recent Arnolfini exhibition "The cover of a book is the beginning of a journey" has led me to begin to use the book form. I like the fact that reading a book is a one to one experience, which reflects my solitary journeys to the woods.  I am not a book artist and I have a lot to learn, but I have a feeling the intimate, tactile experience of turning the pages of a book could be one way to encounter the work. Maybe my MA show will consist of book work installations? I am trying not to pin down the final outcome, and keep things open to possibilities and experimentation; a scary but interesting way to work.

RT: So talking of dual experiences: you have the exteriority of your work that in fact has its own locale within 'The Woods', and then you have the potential context of the gallery / exhibition.

So in order to keep things open would you ever turn this relationship on its head and begin to use an exhibition-site to govern the happenings in the woods? I think that the dual relationship works well, is this something you may build upon?

The recording of a mark-made may also result in presenting work in its location: like the work of Hamish Fulton and Richard Long. Would staged photography then come in to this?
Sorry that's three questions at once but I think they tie together...

KH: It is an intriguing idea to use an exhibition-site to govern happenings in the woods. Looking at your blog I am guessing you don't necessarily mean a white cube space? I like the idea of translating and cross-referencing site-specific work with its exhibition-location, something I have been pondering on for my MA show, better to work with the existing elements of the exhibition space if I can. Another advantage to shifting sites is the new perspective this gives.

When I bring material into the studio the work can appear out of place, sometimes giving it a stronger meaning and direction: that's why I'm making 52 ink drawings in the studio, directed by marks made in the woods, to see how repeating / re-making those marks in a different place adds to an understanding. I will also be using a project space at college to install the forest letters: writings and drawings made on site and rolled into bark tubes. I have resisted relocating the forest material wanting to leave no trace. My tutor argues that you learn more about relationship to place by your absence from it? Maybe this dual relationship is something I need to build on in order to find an effective way to present the work.

I don't work, like I imagine a scientist works, following a fixed methodology. I am evolving a shifting set of methods for getting to know a place, from which a methodology emerges. In the same way maybe I need to put myself in a presentation situation whilst testing ideas, to experience the dualities of woodland-site and exhibition-site.

As for presenting work in its location, earlier in my course I used thread to create mini contour lines in the forest and to temporarily trace my walked pathways. I may go back to this in my search for a form to show my work from the forest in a gallery context. Photography is traditionally used for this sort of documentation. I prefer to use drawing to record these marks made. A photograph shows everything, a drawing has the advantage of being able to edit out and emphasise the concept and feeling behind the act, it is also hand marking a surface, there is a human touch involved.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Is the blogosphere a possible catalyst for Karen to present her ongoing work? Does it work as a forum for exhibition with no title?

Want to start a debate of your own? Get in touch and get profiled: let's have our own mini-discussion, exposing your ways of practice, making the Degrees unedited experience more qualified and relevant.

Start your own run of posts making the community more discursive: tackling hurdles, getting advice and giving support in context of studentship. When else will you have access to such people who are facing the same adventure? You may find yourself on the same path.

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First published: a-n.co.uk October 2009