When I came back into the studio the next day to look at the resin after 24 hours it looked like the resin had not quite covered the fish and there was a small gap at the top and the resin had formed an imperfection above the fish.
As you can see from the photo this caused the fish to be barely visible as the ripples caused in the resin obscured its clarity.
The fish had changed from bright orange to a white colour and you could now see the innards of the fish therefore this made it les visible.
After applying another small layer of resin this leveled out the imperfection and made it completely clear again.
I am particularly interested in the way that i have immortalised my memory of the goldfish. I also like the way the piece is almost grotesque, due to a cup of tea being an object associated with comfort, yet inside is the deceased goldfish which would be unnerving if you were served this in a cafe.
The rosemary used was initially picked to be the plant in the “fish bowl”, however rosemary tea is actually renown for its benefits on short term memory.
I bought my first goldfish recently. It died, so I bought another one.
Since I’ve had the fish I’ve been thinking about memory span and how fish supposedly only have a 3 second memory.
This one also died!
I’ve wanted to put a fish in a teacup, alive, as a piece since last year, when I was working ona project about domestic violence. This would have been unethical to keep the fish in a confined space, but I felt that now that the fish wasnt alive there wasnt anything stopping me from giving the idea a go – the idea that the fish is frozen inside the teacup is interesting as it has memorialised a moment.
I effectively constructed a mock fish bowl inside the teacup. I used some stones from outside as gravel and a sprig of rosemary as a plant, which is also significant as rosemary tea is said to improve short term memory.
The first time I tried this was with a resin kit bought from the range and the catalyst percentage was very low and was not hardening as quiclky as I needed it to, as when resin turns to a jelly consistency it is then that it it easiest to position items in the resin. I used the correct type the second time which made it much easier to do.
I used a piece of thin wood to spear the fish with and put the bottom of the stick in the gravel to keep the fish upright and look as if it is swimming.
I had some resin left over which I used to put in one of the key vaccum formed plastics as an experiment.
I had my second Group Crit, and it was much easier to talk freely about my work this time.
I talked about what I had been doing since the last meeting and showed everyone the MRI images in the clear bags with the silver clips on them. The group were really enthusiastic about the idea.
I showed the group the stop motion MRI scan video I have made so far. I had some really good feedback about this. Some peoople said how it would be interesting to record the noises the MRI machine makes and play these in the background. Another person said that they felt this would be too obvious. This started a discussion on whether the whole image should be visible, and whether i could transform the image to detach & distort the familiarity of the image upon viewing.
I have always found the image of the human brain fascinating, and of course what goes on inside it. In my first year at UCS I created an etching which was a line drawing of a brain and used different inks to create a rainbow.
I explained to the group how I would like to use some of the images from the MRI to make a digital silkscreen, and perhaps make some more etchings, or a lino cut. I plan to spend a day in the print room and experiment!
