MYTHOMANIA

It’s funny looking back on the previous blog posts; it’s been ages since the first couple of posts and it’s quite interesting to see how things seemed in the early stages of the project. The project is almost finished now, after an incredible and intense amount of work – and now I finally have time to actually write about what happened.

The first month of the project (as outlined in the posts below) were mostly involved with technical issues – in particular determining exactly which materials and methods I would use to produce my new fabric sculptures. As mentioned below, a major turning point came when I decided to buy a digital embroidery machine (using my own funds, not the project budget) – which theoretically would allow me to produce my own iconography in the form of embroidered patches.

The original plan had been to print whole sections of the sculpture directly onto ‘tarpaulin’ vinyl – then simply sew it together. But my worry about this process was the surface quality: it would be flat, slightly blurry (due to the quality of printing machine used for vinyl printing) – and surprisingly expensive. And although I had seen handbags constructed from tarpaulin materials, I worried slightly that the sculptures wouldn’t evoke the feeling of handbags and other fashion accessories – which was one of the key effects I wanted to evoke with in this project.

So when I discovered that I could create my own imagery and have it embroidered as patches – with all their textural qualities – I knew it was the path to take. The next question was: what to embroider onto? The usual solution is to embroider onto twill, the material often found on patches. But it’s problem is that you either need something called a Merrow machine (in order to stitch around the edge of the patch to prevent fraying) – or else you have to iron a special plastic onto the back of the twill after embroidering – then melt the edges with a soldering iron. The Merrow machine was too expensive – and the plastic seemed too time-consuming.

That’s when I decided to embroider onto artificial leather. I’d already decided to use artificial leather for the main bodies of the sculptures – to create the texture of handbags, running shoes, furniture, and other contemporary fashion goods – but I realized that it also works well as a support for embroidery. The added bonus is that it doesn’t fray, so all I needed to do was cut the shape out after embroidering and sew it onto the sculpture. I performed some experiments with the embroidery and leather, to figure out how to affix it tightly within the hoop – then began creating the ‘patches’ for my sculptures.

Depending on the size of the iconography, I could print multiple images on a single sheet of leather – helping to keep costs down somewhat. I worked out the cost of a square of artificial leather the size of the embroidery hoop…so it meant I could calculate how much the iconography alone would cost, based on the number of images on the artworks.

I also did a “mock” layout of all of the sculptures onto artificial leathers, to see how many metres of leather I’d need in order to build the artworks. I was often shocked how much was needed! I should have realized though: sculptures have tons of surface area, even if you can’t always see it. One of the fabric sculptures required over 15 metres of artificial leather (not including the material needed for the patches).

All of this meant I could roughly calculate the production costs early on in the process. Unsurprisingly I suppose, the costs proved far higher than I’d initially anticipated. This meant that some of the artworks I’d initially hoped to produce would be infeasible within the project budget. There was quite a long period of time where I desperately attempted to rejig the designs in order to fit them all within budget – but in the end I had to make some hard decisions about which pieces to sacrifice.

One of the artworks I’d originally intended to create wasn’t going to be made of fabric at all. It was going to be created from Dibond – a material created from plastic sandwiched on both sides by aluminum. It’s a great material that I’ve used before on several mural projects, such as the one below at Oxford University Museum of Natural History:

In this case I was planning to create digitally printed panels (similar to what I usually do) then have it cut into shapes that would get bolted together into a sculptural form. However, what I didn’t realize was that the manufacturer could only cut broad, large shapes – not small, intricate designs. In other words, I would have had to find a separate workshop that could CNC cut the designs after printing (and hope that they didn’t ruin the surface design in the process!). The cost of this became prohibitive: the single Dibond sculpture I wanted to create would have consumed half of the entire manufacturing budget!

So I had to omit it from the project – something I’m glad I did in the end. The fabric sculptures were proving such an interesting new medium to work in, and now they could become the primary focus of the project. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize just how long they would take to build. Unlike my cardboard sculptures, which take weeks to design, but only a few days to built, the cloth sculptures ended up taking weeks to design AND weeks to build. At that point I didn’t realize just how much work I was in for – but I would soon find out.

After my last post I realised I should probably give some background about my work, to provide context for my current project. I’ve been a practicing artist since 2008, when I took part in my first exhibition in Southampton. The show was archaeologically-themed, and in response I created a series of contemporary ‘Greek vases’ in the form of hand-painted cardboard boxes. I wanted to make a connection between the stories illustrated on Greek amphorae (which reveal the myths, current events and social beliefs of the ancient Greeks) and the similarly revealing surfaces of contemporary packaging. Using black and red paints, I decorated discarded cardboard boxes with visual ‘artefacts’ from the present and past, creating intricate surfaces that merged modern news events with pop culture, art history, and ancient cultures. The goal was to create something that reflects our current Information Age with its eclectic fusion of data from across time and space.

I produced several more pieces in this style, using found cardboard boxes, until 2011 when I decided to create my own custom boxes – a development that really opened up new possibilities for my work. I began creating my artworks digitally, which allowed me to engineer the sculptural forms with high precision – then have them manufactured industrially.

My first digitally designed piece was a sculpture of the Tate Modern that I created for a show in Montreal. Because of the expense of shipping it at full size, I designed it so it could ‘transform’ into a smaller, simple box – allowing me to send it to Canada more affordably. The curators then quickly assembled it at the gallery in a few simple steps (see below):

The other advantage (and challenge) of this process was that I could create imagery digitally – meaning it could be scaled, repeated, and modified. This meant that I had a body of icons – or hieroglyphs – that could be used in various artworks, but adapted if necessary. The use of glyphs has become a regular part of my artwork ever since. If you look at the first of these pieces, and the most recent, you will likely see many glyphs that have been recurring over several years now. The meanings of these icons changes depending on the context, and depending on the other graphics nearby. I enjoy using them similar to how poets use words in a poem, full of double-meanings and ambivalent symbolism that can be read multiple ways.  Here’s a detail from a recent sculpture called ‘Fisher King’:

The new series of artworks I’m making as part of my current Mythomania project are no different. The only distinction is that I’ve got the time to create more imagery than usual. This will add plenty of new narrative potential to my work over time, while also giving me a chance to experiment stylistically. I’ll post some images of these new glyphs soon but in the meanwhile, here are some views of the completed ‘Fisher King’ sculpture:

It’s been a busy few days, now that I’ve finished a sculpture commission for Our Big Picture in Grimsby, leaving me finally able to work pretty much full time on my Arts Council Project Grant. It’s been years since I’ve just had time to create my own self-directed artwork (i.e. outside the constraints of a commission or exhibition brief) and it’s been an amazing experience so far.

For me the most rewarding part about it is the opportunity to experiment with new materials and processes – something you rarely have the chance to do as part of a typical commission. I’ve been working with packaging materials such as corrugated cardboard for several years now, alongside a few commissions involving Dibond and stainless steel…but what I’ve been wanting to explore for some time is fabric. I’m particularly drawn to the architectures of handbags, running shoes, and other ‘sculptural’ cloth forms typically made from stiffer fabrics. So that’s the core of what I’m going to be experimenting with over the next three months.

The first major thing I did was take the big step to buy a high-end embroidery machine. It actually wasn’t part of the grant proposal to involve embroidery…but while shopping for a sewing machine (which was part of the budget) I discovered that they weren’t quite as expensive as I’d thought…and could open up tons of possibilities for me. After all, my work typically involves ornate surface designs – so the capacity to translate my iconography into embroidery will hopefully really open up some exciting new creative possibilities.

Here’s a couple images of my first test design; I used a program called SewArt to translate my logo into an embroidery file, then sent it to my Janome 500e for stitching:

Here’s a shot of the result:

After this initial try I realised a few issues that need to be addressed, such as the alignment of colours and the incorrect stitch type used on the outer border (it should have been something called a ‘satin stitch’). But for a first try I was happy, and glad that I’ve got a whole new range of possibilities to explore over the upcoming months…

The above image is a screenshot of the acceptance letter for my MYTHOMANIA project grant. It was an amazing moment to click on the button within the Arts Council’s Grantium system and see the word “Congratulations”. Once you see that word, you know it’s good news, and suddenly everything changes.

I’ve been wanting to submit an Arts Council application for several years now. I’ve actually started, and nearly completed, at least two other applications…but for some reason the project didn’t seem right, or circumstances changed – so I never submitted them. So it was with great relief that this project, which DID feel right, was given the go-ahead.

The project itself didn’t begin with the Arts Council application; it actually started a few months earlier, in October, when I was approached by Janine Parrish and Dominic Mason of 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe, who asked if I would be interested in presenting a solo exhibition in one of their galleries. Of course I said yes – but in order to make it happen it was necessary to get a significant amount of funding.

The funding was for the three key things necessary to creating new work: materials, an artist’s fee, and all of the peripheral elements such as transport, promotion, etc. I’ve created lots of artwork with very little (or sometimes no) money…but to really make the best work possible, it’s inescapable that you need to have a decent amount of funding. This is especially true when you’re making new, exploratory work, with lots of experimentation, trial and error.

So with help from Janine and Dominic, I spend about a month and a half putting together the Arts Council submission. Earlier, I had written a project proposal for 20-21 Visual Arts Centre, explaining what I wanted to do, and sketching out some of the artwork ideas. Once their committee agreed to the plan, I used this as the basis for the Arts Council application.

For those who have never written one before, the application process requires a significant amount of time and work; each individual question asked is relatively short (often as little as 1500 characters) – but cumulatively it is a lot of writing. What’s more, the writing of the application itself forces you to think through the many aspects of your project, clarifying the ideas, costs, outcomes and benefits…so that by the time you’ve completed the application, the project is actually much stronger than what you started with. This is something I hadn’t really anticipated, and although I found the writing of the grant very time-intensive and at times frustrating, it was definitely worth taking the time to really think carefully through each aspect of the project and make it as strong as possible.

It also helps to have support from other people when putting the application together. I had tons of support from Janine and Dominic at the gallery, who were able to provide detailed figures on previous visitor numbers and other impact statistics, as well as offering ‘in kind support’ and cash funding. My wife Sara was also invaluable, and read (and re-read) my application – suggesting changes that made it stronger, or clarified aspects of the proposal to make it easier to understand the ideas and intention. As an artist I’m often putting together proposals and applications…so I’m used to just writing and submitting them myself – but I can definitely say that, in the case of the Arts Council application, it helps to call on the support of others.

…And it all paid off.  It suggests on the website that applications take 6 weeks for a decision – but I got my response in 5 weeks. During that time, I was still preparing to create the proposed work (since the show was going to move forward with or without the funding)…but the Acceptance Letter made a huge difference in terms of my feelings towards the project. On one hand, it provides a kind of validation for your work and project: it suggests to yourself (and others) that your project is meaningful. And on the other hand, it has real, practical benefits – namely it means you can take the time to make the best work possible, and finance the production of work that would be impossible otherwise.

So – although the MYTHOMANIA project theoretically began in October, when I first met with Dominic and Janine at 20-21 Visual Arts Centre in Scunthorpe, it actually started on 7 February, when I clicked on the decision button, and got the letter above.

I’m really grateful to Arts Council England for seeing the value in my project, and for having selected it for funding. I’ve been enjoying the early stages of work on MYTHOMANIA over the last three weeks, since the project officially began – and I’m incredibly excited to spend the next few months immersed in the creation of experimental new art…