Longing……For……For……For……

What new project was in mind?

• Real Life English People Playing Mahjong – An English and Chinese Cultural Understanding.

Well just to reflect back on my Time Mahjong that I built for my degree show, I wanted to try out something beyond that and thought about the idea of using real English people playing a Chinese Traditional Mahjong game.

I did think about this for several months now in figuring out ways in how I can successfully do this like getting the right setup, camera gear, english people to play it and so on…… So it just basically crossed my mind with a chance to ask Dr Tsang if he will collaborate with me.  Tsang is the film lecturer of my University in Ipswich who is fully qualified within the subject  and he also has film students that could help do the whole setup plan for this project.

Reflecting back to the last post of the meeting with Film students.

Yeah… it was nerve racking at first to meet with his level 5 film students to whom I had never meet before and wondered what they thought of this Mahjong idea. So even though they looked a bit stunned and unsure about this idea, the meeting became a success and that we were due to start this filming process in a week’s time by Friday 20th November. So the only thing left to do now was to gather the Mahjong game and table to play on and to confirm by email with Dr Tsang that I was up for this project to commence on Friday.

How did me and Dr Tsang organise everything before the shoot?

So basically once my attendance was all confirmed for Friday I just kept on going through my mind in how to present this the best possible way like what table we would use and what kind of people will play first… In the end I just grabbed a nice wooden style table from Room 1 cafe which looked the best idea mahjong table to use. And then when the day finally came I was introduced to everyone and then they introduced themselves to me just so that we can know a little about each other first before we proceed.

Then after that half of the level 5 film team grabbed the filming gear whilst I setup the mahjong and help Tsang grab the table, everything was now prepared and ready to film…

What did I feel about this whole experience and the final outcome at the end?

I really felt excited about this already as soon as I went through them filming doors, all I wanted to do was just try to make this happen and work the best way possible. I felt more welcomed by other film students once we got rolling and setting things up like cameras and stuff and got to really know them more as we were going through this filming process. It was a very cool and exciting experience to work with them and seeing them holding up the take 1 or take 2 clip board was funny.

It felt as though I was on a proper filming set but then the more I teached them how to play mahjong the more I seemed to forget other people with cameras around me. It felt as though I soaked up so much of this experience that we became the Iconic stage with others to watch us play at the same time. I certainly needed good patience for this kind of thing because Tsang and 3 film students who were playing did not know how to play this game at all and I felt really good about myself in teaching them successfully how to play it in the end.

I felt like I had achieved something very good and at the end of all of this we even thought about starting the Mahjong club which sounded really nice and one guy said that this was the most fun he had in 8 years so it felt like one of my best experiences that I had also. We had a small break in between the two hours of playing and when that was all over we just sit back and wait for the filming and voice recordings to be transferred over to their hard drives and my computer. The footage looked very high quality in my eyes and everyone elses and one camera got some good close ups while another camera got other angles and they basically done a very ace job of it so was very pleased with the end result.

What will I think about doing next?

Well… After all of this Dr Tsang mentioned to me and other film students if we would like to collaborate again to do this same idea but only next time we do it in a restaurant or a theatre which sounded like a very cool idea to me and others too. So maybe after Christmas time I can have a proper chat with Dr Tsang to see how we can go about organising this exciting event and should hopefully cross over some good ideas with each other to plan for the next shoot. Hopefully we will be able to take this so many steps further in making a successful experience in playing Chinese Mahjong with English people.

Please feel free to watch or browse through this short interesting version with Level 5 students in teaching them how to play Chinese Mahjong.

Here is the Link to the Movie file if movie does not load…Enjoy!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u3k9magjpsjkic4/Alex%20Woolcock%20-%20Teaches%20English%20People%20How%20To%20Play%20Mahjong.mp4?dl=0

How did the third layer of Chairman Mao finally come out?

Umm… I have to say that this third time round of attempting to print the third layer of Chairman Mao has finally payed off very well… I could not ask for a much better result with my new mixed version of photo emulsion and it really did do a good job within the detail image of the third shadow layer. The shadow layer is the third layer that goes on top of the main Chairman Mao’s face skin colour and I thought that the alignment of the layers has turned out as good as I could possibly get it.

Were there any problems at all during this printing process?

If I have to be majorly picky, I would say that either do your ink mixing on the day or be faced with re-mixing the pigment again within your mixed inks. Because I always have this problem every time I am ready to print and suddenly another colour starts showing through the already mixed colour. So I will remember to always make sure that my inks are well and truly mixed properly before starting to set up my printing process so that there is no delay. Lesson learned!

What did I feel about my third layer print?

Every time I do one layer on my Chairman Mao print I feel relieved and feel like I am taking one step forward to achieving a good print. This layer I thought had turned out very well for me because it looked clear, there was not any splodges ‘which is like a curse to me’ and also it was perfectly aligned with the other two layers.

I really felt that I achieved something good and I think that it only can get better and better now that I have managed to overturn my problems within printing though silk screens.

Reflecting back on the problems I had with this print

I did feel like I have just leaped over a month’s worth of obstacles to finally get this far and what a journey this has become… First I had the problem with getting hold of some larger acetate sheets for doing my large stencils for printing which I finally have now so that I can always do large prints. Then secondly, it was the Photo emulsion problem becoming out of date because some of it stuck to my prints when I tried printing on them and also the image was not exposed enough, resulting in splodges through the image.

This cost me money and time because of how long I have waited to do each layer and also costs money for the special fabriano paper. The photo emulsion does not last longer than 4-5 months but now have managed to finally resolve it by mixing my own version which has proved to become very successful along with many other future prints yet to make.

What is the next part for this print process?

Now by monday morning I need to get Glen Toner – the technician to print me out my forth Chairman Mao layer and ready to expose onto silkscreen. Hopefully this will turn out good the first time round with my new improved photo emulsion and should look crisp and dry enough to print through. This will be one of my tasks for next week at the utmost earliest that I can do.

Feel free to watch my short 3 minutes of commentary of my successful third layering of Chairman Mao

What new updates do I have for the chairman mao Print?

Well… actually this time after waiting quite a long time to get the third layer stencil prepared, I have now managed to get a successful third layer done in the end.

How did I manage to successfully get the third layer working?

The main problem was that the universities photo emulsion was out of date and was no longer working anymore to expose stencils to the silk screens. So… what did I do? I decided to buy my own photo emulsion on ebay which was the same photo emulsion I used before when it was working at the time and cost me around £27 plus the sensitizer that you would have to add with it in order to work so was a very good price.

Once I did manage to get it I just follow the instructions carefully for the mixing process to try get the formula of the new photo emulsion just right because it has to be a nice green and no more blue colour showing. So after about 5-10 minutes of mixing it was mixed and ready to go on the silkscreen.

Glen Toner – the technician gave me a tutorial on how to lay the photo emulsion across the silkscreen properly without any problems so this would enable me to be more free and do it myself when Glen is not available. Once my stencil was transferred onto the silkscreen I thought that it looked 10 times better compared to the other two unsuccessful attempts with the old photo emulsion. So really to me it was such a great result in comparison and it just taken away that pressure off my shoulders knowing that this time will finally work properly again.

What will I do next?

Well… its not that hard to guess but I will certainly continue the process of my Chairman Mao print and try to get the third layer out of 8 layers completed so then would be 5 more layers to go until finished. At the same time I will be very careful in how I will align my last two layers with this layer making sure it will be a direct print with no miss-alignments. Will keep you updated very soon on how the third layer went.

Meanwhile, please feel free to watch my short 4 minutes on making my new stencil screen and the result at the end compared to the last 2 unsuccessful stencil screens.

What latest updates have I produced for my illness sculpture?

I have managed to make a very interesting start with this project as I have managed to get hold of some more materials which crosses off one of my tasks for this week that I have set myself. I needed to have found a way of making a plinth like foundation that will go under the Chinese squatting toilet that will also cover the sides of it. So I thought about the idea of using bricks which are English so that it would act as a narrative of myself of the cracking and erosion of the insides of my body.

How did I get these bricks?

Well… I always thought that if you do not ask for things then you do not get anything and I just had to ask some of the builders who were renovating the building next to the Ipswich college. I explained to the builders what my work was all about and explained to them its for good causes because I believe that my illness narrative within my sculpture would reflect awareness for the viewers who will see it. I also explained how many bricks that I would need to use to make my plinth that will hold and surround my Chinese squatting toilet.

In the end they agreed to let me use about 40 of their used bricks which was quite a relief for me as I knew from this point on that I could continue my progress with my Chinese and English illness sculpture. So to me this was a good result in good hard work in negotiating and trying to carry all of the bricks back to my MA studio and after all of this it payed off really well and was most eager to start my work.

Were there any problems during this process of using the bricks?

umm… yeah… I think there was a slight miscalculation  within the number of bricks that I needed and I must have needed at least 8 more of the used red colour bricks to complete the setup of the plinth that surrounds my Chinese squatting toilet. So……. I had to return back to the construction yard to ask  them for 8 more but they said no to me :( which was a bit disappointing but I guess that I was asking for too much than I can chew, if that makes any sense?

Anyway…… they did say to me that I could use some other bricks which were 3x the size of the normal red bricks and these bricks that they said I could have were black colour. This made me think very seriously about the way I change my concept and looks of my sculpture and in this way, it had given me another insight into a new meaning for my work.

What new ideas have I gained since having to make do with the black bricks when there were no more red bricks to use?

They let me have the black colour bricks and I got about 7 of them incase I did not have enough and by using these bigger blocks this made me think about in terms of how our body is like the foundation that keeps us standing up strong. The bigger bricks I thought could act as the stronger foundation such as my legs and the smaller red bricks will act as the top half of my body and the cracks will resemble my inner body eroding and breaking down, if that makes sense?

So I thought that this would be an excellent narrative to the intestinal illness that I suffered from and by using this new idyllic concept seems like it makes bigger sense than the original idea that I had in mind and not so obvious towards the viewer .

Does this mean that I will stick to this idea or still try out other methods of presenting this sculpture piece?

Umm… I will still try out other concepts and ways in trying to point out the narrative of my work the best way possible but I do not want it to be too obvious towards the viewer. I want my work to always have a narrative within my work but not in an obvious way and want the viewer to be able to engage with it further. If I did decide to hang some objects about my Chinese squatting toilet it has to be able to work for me but not to be seen as ‘obvious art’ meaning I don’t wish to give away the answer behind my work straight away if this makes sense?

So the answer really is yes, I will try out some different concepts and ideas within this sculpture piece but no idea of mine is for definite until carefully examined to what works best for me as well as the viewer.

What will I do next for this sculpture?

I will certainly experiment more with trying out different concepts within my work, at the same time changing the context of it slightly. By doing this I will start by doing some more drawings in my sketchbook to workout new ideas. I will also keep gathering materials that I will need in order to try out these new ideas from my sketchbook.

Please feel free to watch my short 4 minutes of commentary of putting together my sculpture and the ideas that I have currently in my mind.

What updates are there with my Chinese and English illness sculpture?

Well… the good news is that I have managed to come by some nice used bricks from the construction site right next to the suffolk college. They were renovating this big building into a new student accommodation or hotel place and they were chucking out the used bricks that once supported the old walling. I asked them if I could have about 30-40 of them bricks and they let me have them for free which was nice of them.

Once they gave me the go ahead to take the bricks from their construction yard, I had to get hold of a trailer thing and put a piece of thick hard wooden board across it. After that I then managed to successfully load the bricks onto it and took some strength pulling it back to the university but managed to successfully do it in the end.

What did I do next with the used bricks?

The next thing was to unload them carefully and stored them inside under the stairs of the MA building before beginning the next process. The next process is to use a chisel with hammer to help knock or take off the cement remains that is left stuck on the bricks. By taking the remains of the cement off will be like making the bricks almost like brand new but still have that nice old age added to them seeing the cracks and worn edges to them which is what I want.

After 2 hours of taking away the cement remains off the bricks I then decided to place them once again under the MA arts building ready for use with my sculpture. Once I get round to using the bricks for my sculpture I can keep you updated of my progress in making it happen.

Please enjoy these short 2 minutes of commentary of how I taken the remains off the bricks and my intention for doing it.