University of Kent

The week hasn’t exactly gone the way I’d planned it. But seeing as I didn’t actually plan it, I can’t really complain.

I did tackle most of the tasks on my list, and some I only tickled, apart from that curation essay, which I swerved… which does make me feel a little guilty, but I figured out which tasks were higher priority because of approaching deadlines and which were just so intrinsically onerous as to deserve putting off. So working by a simple system of “Yeesh, I’d better do that now” and “I just can’t take it any more!” I managed to spit out a few thousand words between a few projects. So whilst only one is entirely finished, that was the one I needed to have done by the end of this week. The others are all well on their way, just a bit of tarting up needed really. And I can always manage a bit of tarting up during the week when the nipper’s in bed.

Although I’d said today would be my dedicated dissertation day, it’ll probably end up being a bit of everything thrown in and stirred up day. I may even get the vacuum cleaner out, but I have to pace myself of course. I put the washing machine on just now – I don’t want to wear myself out eh? I’ve got a few great new references to drop into my dissertation research pot, but I’ve been fairly lazy about doing the ‘re-framing’ that was suggested. Perhaps because I’ve been told that I’d be ok with handing it in as it is just in case I had a nervous breakdown scheduled – I don’t – but naturally I want to tune it until it’s as tight as a snare drum. Which makes me think that I should probably use my snare drum as a coffee table since I haven’t played on this kit since October. Something else to feel guilty about. I haven’t played my bass since the end of October but I don’t feel too guilty about that because someone “liberated” the plug for my amp, so it’s not entirely my fault.

A bit more drawing while I still have the light, working on the illustrations for my exhibition proposal and tackling the painting I really don’t feel like doing but I feel guilty about not doing. When did I get so blasé about topless men?

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Nobody needs to see another ‘woodcarving in progress’ or ‘mould being cast’ shot, so I’ll spare you the pain this week.

Strangely, there’s more to see on that front now than before, as the carving is suddenly starting to take shape and the first plaster cast is curing upside down over a bin in the sculpture room. One tutor was excited by the prospect of casting Phil in some frilly, floral, fragrant material, as a counterpoint to his masculinity, which immediately brought back memories of standing behind a table at some farmer’s/craft market or other, surrounded by ladies peddling their chi-chi handmade soaps. Hence why I then said I didn’t know how I felt about rubbing a soap Phil into my armpits. For this very reason, it must now happen.

I do like the idea of setting up a stall at the local farmer’s market with extravagantly expensive, extraordinarily creepy life-sized soap busts complete with a bit of raffia around their necks for that ‘country’ touch.

What I’ll actually do isn’t yet set in soap (had to do it!) but I’ll see how the first plaster casts go and fiddle around with their placement. I’m so glad to have started carving again though, I didn’t realise how much I’d missed it! I’m still slacking with my painting, but half term’s approach means the chance to hole up in the house and actually paint myself into a corner. Kid-free time means time to concentrate, and I only get a significant chunk of it during these half-term breaks. I’ve got plenty lined up to fill the time, and here’s a bit of it –

Assembling a document for the Professional Practice module containing 3 CVs, 2 artist case studies and a summary of my own activity;

Creating a slide presentation about my practice as well as a portfolio for the aforementioned module;

Writing an essay on curation to accompany the heavily weighted Identity, Synthesis and Exhibition module;

Writing a proposal for the same module outlining work to be made for the exhibition;

Completing a tight second draft of the dissertation;

Finishing the statement for my MA applications.

Apart from doing the actual paintings, of course. And some other domestic stuff I can think of now but I know won’t get done.

It’s also occurred to me that after getting frustrated and backing away from the fundraising aspect of the degree show preparation, there’s been next to nothing done by anyone else, apart from saying they’ll get everyone showing on site to cough up £20. On top of that, getting the funding together for the show is a part of the unit brief. It’s making me itch a bit… I want to set up a site for the show and ask the others to contribute their content to that, and at least that should give us a bit more momentum. I’ve had to admit that this wasn’t what I had in mind for our show, but I’ll make the best of it. We do have our catalogue to be getting on with at least. My job in that sphere is as editor (best possible job for an apostrophe pedant) and I’m supposed to be liaising with our ‘graphics girl’ to set up a template to make it as easy as possible for everyone to pitch in. The problem is, I don’t want to end up with too much more to do, but if I don’t do it, I’m not sure who will.

Last week I was starting to worry. After losing a day in the studio to the drive back down from Derbyshire, by this point I should be pulling hair out. However… I’m not. I’m behind, but I’m not worrying. I’m concerned, of course, but I know I’ll do something about it. In the meantime I’ve at least considered doing something like paperwork. I’ve been preparing a document for the Professional Practice unit, so I assure you that there has been some work going on as well as playing dress-up. I could always say that the dressing-up was part of an investigation into cultural heritage, the post-colonial, feminism and the role of the creole in Antillean history. Right now I’m more disposed to say I just had fun. Although whilst doing some research (by now you should know that I would be one to research my fancy dress costume for authenticity) that in Louisiana after 1786, black and creole women were forced to wear their hair bound in a ‘tignon’ or kerchief as a sign of subjugation… and naturally, the restriction was fought by wearing more and more colourful and elaborate tignons. Seeing illustrations of women in Barbados and the Antilles wearing these headwraps gave me the initial idea, but I’m not sure how this custom related to the American law. I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.

Actually I have a feeling that this new, more laissez-faire attitude is a good thing for me, as long as I can manage it. Coming back from a weekend full of belly-laughs, silliness and old fashioned fun I feel prepared for all manner of calamitous eventualities. The fact that the casting process has taken over my life in the studio still bothers me, but now I trust in one of our tutors’s words last week – “You’ll be fine.”

In fact, that’s what I took away from today’s brief conversation with my art history tutor in the refectory; I mentioned not knowing exactly how to re-frame my essay in the light of her feedback, but she said to sit on it for a week and carry on as I saw fit. Then she said, “I trust you.”

She trusts me! I could have squeaked inappropriately at this statement, but I didn’t, fortunately. It means a heck of a lot – just knowing that you have the confidence of experienced lecturers. So tomorrow I’ll go in to pour the last part of the vinamold, and the week to come will be full of wondrous events which will hopefully have something to do with paint and nothing to do with sculpture.

So while the new boyfriend is undoubtedly a distraction, I’m softening him up to the idea of sitting still for long periods of time while I draw him, so ultimately I shall benefit from this… and it seems that the suggestion of an increase in beardage and the addition of a handlebar moustache has met with approval! Watch out for a visual pogonology – now this is my idea of even more fun!

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I’ll be honest: I’ve struggled with how to approach this week’s blog. I do have something to say, I’m just not sure whether I want to say it. Also I feel as though I haven’t made any work to show, although I’ve worked very hard in the studio. I dunno.

The crisis comes in how much of my personal life to include in my blog; the theme is, true to the name of the site, the degree course and the run-up to the final degree show. So I write about the work I make without going into what I had for breakfast, although for some that might make it all the more interesting. The thing is, my portraits of others are really a kind of self-portrait, products of the way I see other people; as Richard Taylor said to me, it seems that there is a lot of me in my work. So particularly regarding my investigation of men, there’s no doubt that my recent acquisition of a boyfriend is going to significantly affect the work I make. There, I told you. Aside from the obvious aspect of having a ready and hopefully willing model, and the wacky prospect of visually charting a relationship through paint, this will probably have some kind of effect on subsequent depictions of other subjects – possibly adding an element of distance, or perhaps bridging a gap. Maybe I won’t look quite so shifty now – “trust me, I’m an artist”… I don’t know. I do think it’ll add an interesting element – recurring models always hold a fascination for me, like Paul Rosano in Sylvia Sleigh’s paintings. Whilst I thought earlier that I’d met my Paul Rosano, it turned out I hadn’t. At the end of last year I ended up with three recurring subjects, and started this year with a list of four new candidates. So far I’ve done no paintings at all! Right now I have more to worry about than how/who to start with; I just have to start.

On to what I have started – the wooden sculpture has taken a back seat to the casting process, and I do feel pushed for time there as well. After last week’s disaster I did manage to claw back some success – the vinamold cast didn’t go as planned (it was a disaster) but it was salvageable in the end. This week with the help of Vicky, the country’s nicest art school technician, I successfully cast the back third of Phil’s head (here’s hoping that his ear stayed on after having to be superglued) and next week I’ll move on to his face. And after that? I don’t have a clue and I’m not ashamed to say it. There’s so much left to do that it’s starting to look daunting, but I’ll manage.

I did omit some of last week’s events regarding the actual show preparation in favour of nostalgia. In the intervening period there seemed to have arisen a faction standing in opposition to the fundraising ideas I’d put forward last year. Only two out of nine, but enough to take the wind out of the sails. I’m not saying mutiny… Nope, I’m not the captain and I don’t need to be. So I’ve decided to pull out and delegate the fundraising issue whilst I get on with my actual jobs and save my ideas to be realised as a stand-alone project, or whilst I’m doing my MA. See, no stress! Can this really be me? And this week we also had a talk about the exhibition catalogue, which was very productive; our tutor put forward a great idea that I’m determined to see through, and I’m on the hunt for someone to contribute an essay about the group.

So here’s the pitch: if you think that you’d like to take on the task of writing about the work of nine very different artists making up the B.A. year at K College, do get in touch. We’d love to have reviews of the show of course, but a brief foreword to the booklet is what I’m fishing for at the moment… And right now, I’m off to get ready to go to Derbyshire for the weekend, where I shall hike around the hills and swan about in a large and slightly smelly reproduction Georgian gown, although sadly not at the same time. But enough about my personal life.

Today’s post could be about the work in the studio, but that would be too depressing. An entire day preparing to make the first of 3 sections of the rubber mould of Phil’s sculpture gone to waste. All my smugness evaporated when the first dirty green leak sprang through the clay walls, and the rubber poured over the table. We stopped the hole and debated whether to carry on, but after a long, tiring day of preparation I wanted to give it another shot. Another leak put an end to that. So back I go tomorrow to do it all over again. Sigh.

Instead, I might as well share something a bit less depressing. I was thinking about the paintings and my new models, and remembered one friend I saw recently in Barbados who had sat for a drawing many years ago. In the intervening years we’d both gotten married, and haven’t had much contact. I thought I’d go looking for that drawing in my old sketchbook and see if it could come out with the other boys.

I struggle with the concept of keeping a sketchbook, especially one for an academic course. To me it’s like showing the working in the margins when you’ve already got the answer because of doing it in your head. I do do lots of preparation and experimenting, but I tend to scatter it here, there and everywhere … so I have to rethink that attitude and go about it properly, because I do feel like I’m missing a trick there, and apart from that, the powers that be want to see the work in the margins. Damned powers.

Looking through my A-Level sketchbook was partly funny and partly sad. After 15 years I could still remember how unhappy I was at times, and some of the stuff in there made me cringe at how melodramatic and overwrought I often was. The first pages seemed to be a totally artificial construction of a step by step sketchbook for the examiner, things stuck in to look like they were leading up to a final piece. Towards the middle the drawings got more personal as my home life unraveled and became complicated. Of course, I know the strange story behind the pictures but you all will have to buy the book. (Names will be changed to protect the guilty.)

I found the drawing of Garvin I was looking for, and no wonder I remembered it; it was the best thing in there. It’s my memory of him, precisely – not just the look, but the feel. I will admit that a lot of what was in the sketchbook was absolutely dire. The best was the work I did for myself; the worst was what I was doing for school. At least flicking through it I got to reconnect with my 17 year old self (what an awful thought), and reassess my current work through that. The subject of the work I make now has always been not just the model, but my relationship with him, and the idea was to have the relationship dictate the image. The paintings I’ve got planned for the next few weeks will probably be more successful at this than the last set.

So looking backwards for a bit, it’s been interesting to see just how much of my art has unconsciously been the same. And it’s interesting how the friends, boyfriends and exes, (they tend to merge, I suppose) have featured over the years. What was the most interesting was just how much I’ve changed, as well as how I haven’t. I’m just overjoyed that I wasn’t making art whilst getting divorced, good grief – I wouldn’t want to have to face a sketchbook with that much drama, not even after another 15 years.