How is my previous work contributing towards my degree show?
I would say that I have really tried out many ideas when it comes to installation and making art work. All the work that is shown in my blog not only reflects my working process and finished work but it also reflects upon the way I have shown some of my works. In a few of my works, I have already been planning my degree show at the time when I was making the Mahjong house installation and I wanted people to see it and to write down what they thought about it.
This was also great research for me when people can view my installation works and other works that I have on show to try and get some positive feedback from the viewers. This will give me crucial evidence to what the viewers may think of all my work when it comes to giving a show to the viewer. This kind of research will enable me to piece my ideas together carefully ready for the degree show.
Can all the works that I create on the blog give me a possible degree show?
I would say that I am very confident with what I want to do because seeing all my ideas and works on the Blog gives me a better clue to what I want to do for my degree show. Just seeing all my recent and past works together in my Blog makes it easier for me to pick out ideas from all the works to put together a nice degree show and I will still keep developing more ideas to perfect my end of year show.
Any degree show in mind?
I would say I pretty much have a nice idea for my degree show which shows some sketches that I made in my previous posts of my possible degree show. There are infact two possible degree shows that I could go for which is either The Time Mahjong or the Chinese/English Vase shop. Because I am good at lensed based media and printing, I have had to come up with two possible degree shows for both of them.
This way, I have more opportunities and ideas for my degree show and its good to have more than one direction just incase one idea fails. I am very certain that I will still carry on to try make The Time Mahjong as it was my first choice and I believe this will be a stronger image towards me and the viewers. With the Chinese/English Vase Shop of my prints I will treat this as a side exhibition for other people to see and still make this idea in a few weeks time.
Next steps to make for my degree show?
Now that everything is drawing closer and closer, I have to start thinking about what I should plan and do in good time to make The Time Mahjong become a reality! I have already shown previous Blog posts of my Chinese and english roof ideas and I will use them as part of my degree show to resemble the two different cultures. The Mahjong House installation has given me ideas to add the people with the mahjong game into my degree show.
I will also build my own dark space room and have the mahjong game inside with the two different chinese and english roofs on the outside of the dark room. next thing I must do is buy the big wooden panels to make my own dark space and then all I have to do is put all the other objects together with the dark space. Then hopefully The Time Mahjong will workout the way I want it. Will always keep updated of any new works and ideas.
How did I feel about using a Blog as a sketchbook?
Well… it was certainly an interesting new piece of software to learn and it wasn’t easy to learn straight away because there was a lot of technical issues and problems with uploading videos and images but after a few weeks I was ok. Once I properly understood how to use at least most of the technicalities of the Blog I was more than happy to get going with posting. I began to first post some old works to reflect on and how this inspired me to creating some new works in which I posted after.
How did the Blog help me?
It really did feel like a 21st century sketchbook where you can put anything on such as videos of process and videos of artist research. In normal sketchbooks you cannot do this which I find a bit annoying because when it comes to showing off the process of work to a teacher or anyone, They do not know the full story. But now I am happier than ever for people to see more of my working process and seeing everything in great detail.
Is the blog a good way of keeping a portfolio of work?
Yes I would say it is a magnificent way of showing off all the work that people have ever done in their whole life and the good thing is that it will always be there safe and sound. Sometimes there might be some works of mine that are not relevant anymore towards what I am trying to make but at least it is documented in the Blog. This way nothing is lost at all and at the end of the day I have this bid portfolio of work which I could use for interviews for a job or a course instead of carrying all my work with me!
What will I do in the future after Critical Review ends?
Hopefully I can still carry on using this blog like a sketchbook but obviously I will still do a normal sketchbook because its all part of the practical creativity as well. Hopefully when I start my masters degree, I can use this blog for that and keep producing more work to show on the blog for people to see and to help myself understand my practice more as an artist. using this blog really helps me understand myself more as an artist because it is a lot easier to see all my work on the blog than it is in a sketchbook.
What have I learnt from all of this?
well… I have certainly learnt a lot more skills when it come to uploading images in the right formats and scales and also how to create more nice videos to show for people to watch. In research terms it has enabled me to understand other artists work and what other artists do as an artist. Seeing what other artists do gives me a bigger insight of how I can make my work more unique and making myself better.
seeing how other artists do their work makes me wanna just be more free and make me wanna express more personal feeling into my art work. Despite having my laptop stolen at the time when I was doing this module, I have still enjoyed this critical Review very much and made me wanna just keep going to producing more ideas and work despite anything going wrong. This module had taught me something very valuable for my future and will always have something nice to show to anyone and I will always keep going!
A vase prints installation?
I been thinking of the things I could do once I have printed enough different designs and colours of my vases. I been planning on doing some research into ways I could sell them online to see how many people would be interested in buying them but it seems that I don’t want to do that just yet! I thought of a way of using my vase printing works as a combined installation piece which I think could look good.
How will this work?
Well… during my travels in China I have seen many different vase shops and seeing all the different vases that I have been printing has given me a nice idea into making my very own English vase shop that hold Chinese vases. Again for me, it’s like another China and English connection within the new work and I think could work very well together, not only that but it brings back a few memories that I discovered in China too.
Materials needed?
The white space room is where I am thinking of installing this work because I think that it is a good enough size hence why most china vase shops are almost the same size but some can be very large. Next I basically just have to get hold of some normal pine wood to use as the shelves and then maybe I can treat them with some varnish or stain to give it that oldness look.
Then we will have the modern day vase prints that I have hopefully completed by this time and then we got the bond between old and modern looking which is what china faces with today. The vases won’t stand on the shelves but they will be hanging on the wall behind the shelves and the vases will look like they are almost sitting on top of the shelves. I really strongly believe that this will be a great idea with the China and English culture bonding together again and also a good way to display my Chinese vase prints.
Why look into Grayson Perry’s vases?
Well… I thought about the way I design my vases with Chinese cultural patterns on them and wondered if there was any other artist who does something similar to me. I started to research Grayson Perry’s vases when I was doing the printing of my vases and how he puts his feelings onto his vases. He puts his feelings on the vases in a way that he expresses mostly about what the children in the world go through and how they suffer and combines these feelings onto his vases.
How does Grayson Perry relate to my vase prints?
With my Vase prints, I am expressing the English and Chinese culture bond together within my printing and also a memory trace of the experiences of seeing vases shops in China. There were so many real nice quality vases that I wanted to take home with me but were too expensive and delicate. So when I was walking around I noticed how people like cutting out stencils and putting that as a replacement for a drawing or a painting or whatever.
I wanted to make my own vase stencils which I did and in a way I am expressing the Chinese culture by printing these Chinese style stencil vases. I am trying my best to bond the two different cultures together with two different types of art because Chinese has their stencil art and I have my English printing methods. Like Grayson Perry, I am expressing my feelings and experiences that I went through to get these ideas of printing vases and the results are shown in my previous posts.
Can Grayson Perry relate to my vase Readymades?
I would say it can because each one of his vases tell a story of different previous life styles of what children have gone through and other matters. My vase Readymades do tell a memory trace within inside and the surfaces of my vases and acts as a life recorder of an old couple who have lived around these objects for years. These vases reflect upon their absence and act as a replacement of the old couple who use to live in the apartment.
The couple vases are slightly different in each other but really they were made for each other just like the old couple were made for each other. So yeah I guess Grayson Perry is a good influence to look into how he makes his vases and what stories lay behind the surfaces of them. Vases can tell stories and so can my prints.
Moving on to another vase design?
I would say that now that I have mastered the printing formula of my vases with using the right colour inks and papers and techniques, I can now try out other vase designs to see what they will look like. Today 25/03/2015 I wanted to make a good start by asking Glen – the favourable technician to help me make up some new vase stencil silk screens.
As I have explained previously in the other vases that I made, Glen makes up the same process in creating these silkscreens through projecting my stencils onto emulsion. This is what makes my printing abilities possible and workout really well for me and is one of the best printing methods I have ever come across in my life.
What will I gain by moving onto other vase designs?
Basically… I will gain more inspiration by producing other vase designs that I currently have and waiting to use and I believe in having a variety of different printing designs so that I can workout what works best for me as a printmaker. I want to see how other vase designs turn out and compare them all together and maybe produce more of some and less of the other and it also depends what other people may think of them.
I sometimes think its hard as an artist to be the viewer and sometimes i feel that I should step back a little and become the viewer being critical and questioning my work more. Luckily enough I have had quite a few interesting and nice comments so far about my first set of vases that I made and with any luck it would be nice to try getting feedback for my next set of vases. This will help me a lot towards my research in developing better vases in the near future.
Next plan of action!
mmm keep printing until I perfect and will keep you updated on any new discoveries and ideas that cross my mind which may come sooner than I think lol.
