UCS

DEGREE SHOW LOOMS

The Degree Show feels very close now and decisions about what to use are looming. I’m still debating. Also there is pressure to attempt a proposal for Snip. A field trip to Aldeburgh helped to find inspiration for that.

Enjoying making videos. Still not quite ready to go public yet but getting closer. Have been looking at Bill Viola again plus a few other video artists.

LONDON Thursday

After 1st session with our technician, began to edit and join my video clips. Found I could actually do it !!! massive technology confidence boost!! Also got an Apple iphone which is beautiful. Am I becoming a technology geek ??!?Will find out how to post a video here next week. So exciting !!!

Today …. going to London … Manet first and if we have time on to Courtauld – Becoming Picasso.

Work on the Catalogue seems to be going well. Had lunch with another student yesterday who’s thinking of submitting to the Snip exhibition. We’re both very keen on the idea. There’s lots happening. Love it.

VIDEO CLIPS

Have been reviewing my video clips. I need to drastically edit. After my tutorial with Jane I looked at them with fresh eyes.

Have been playing around on Picassa with some of my Aldeburgh photos. Starting to envisage what I might submit as a proposal for Snip. Also thinking about my Degree Show work. Must be careful not to let Snip dominate my thoughts. The Degree work is the most important.

Sunday March 10

But is that true? ‘Making art’ as we are encouraged to do, can sometimes feel unreal. Art and Life are the same thing. I see potential paintings all around me all the time. Is it right to have to squeeze these into a format that fits with ‘thedegreeshow’ or ‘thesnipproposal’?

Even as I write this, I’m thinking, ‘must ask questions on my blog; must be critical, not descriptive’ Ahhhhh!! my ingrained ‘teacher training, organising ability’ is getting in the way of just expressing my thoughts and feelings through my art.

I am constantly editing my blog. Trying to meet ‘The Criteria’. Is this good or not??? Don’t know.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

1. Have been too caught up with organisation of Auction lately.

2. This is not what a Fine Art Degree is about so am trying to get back to thinking about art.

3. Reread The Death of the Author. by Roland Barthes today. Enjoyed it. It promoted thoughts.

4. Since my brother died in Oct 2010 my practise has reflected the utter impossibility of understanding death. Someone who has been always present is now NOT present. The fact of their absolute existence is undeniable, but what is so hard to take on board is ..you can’t see them smile;hear their voice; ask their opinion; tell them your thoughts. He will never see my paintings again; will not be at my Degree Show. It’s just the little things which are so impossible to understand.

Death is completely bizarre.

5. My paintings, I now see, reflect this inner sadness. It’s why I’ve been so caught up with de Stael’s suicide, the beach in Dorset. Even water and swimming has an element of forgetting, ignoring the realities of life. Swimming is an escape into another world.

6. I want to portray emotions, feelings, a sense of place, connection, permanence where there is actually no permanence. I choose subjects which express this and endeavour to evoke these feelings in the viewer.

‘…a text’s [paintings] unity lies not in its origin but in its destination’ (Barthes : The Death of the Author) This is the quote which gave rise to this post and made me start thinking about whether an artist should have a ‘voice’ (origin)or should the viewer simply make what they will of a painting(its destination)?

WRITING ABOUT ART

After reading a lot of other students blogs from both UCS and various other places I’m struck by the amount of ‘artspeak’. Much of it I don’t really understand. It was interesting to compare the style of writing in the books and articles I read for my dissertation too. Some writers words are succinct, clear and true, while others are so pretentious and contorted that it is almost impossible to decipher what they are trying to say.

I find it hard to write clearly about painting or to express in words precisely what I am trying to achieve. Painting (for me)has become a very intuitive business. A painting is a way of conveying an emotion and in some cases a sense of place. It is a visual image of a thought. I don’t want to talk about it but instead to leave the viewer to think their own thoughts; feel their own emotions. These do not have to coincide with mine necessarily. The paintings are simply arrangements of pigments and shapes. My work will mean different things to different people and that’s just fine with me.