Gone Postal

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…

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?

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

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…