Six cuts so far. Not that bad for a week’s wood carving as a complete novice, and they’re no worse than paper cuts. Starting from scratch in a new medium has been terrifying, frankly, and I’ve started to recognise a fair amount of arrogance in myself in assuming that I could jump straight in and get the results I wanted. What results? Why, sheer stunning brilliance of course. I’m such a control freak, but at least I know it. My art may be based in a formal way of working but I have to train myself to learn patience. The methodology is important to me; it’s something about myself I want to understand better.
After several days I still suffered from a high level of trepidation towards cutting into the block, and was left with a mocking square lump which made me think of Kryten from Red Dwarf made into a totem pole. But a week in, my little practise man has started to emerge, and now my head is slowly swelling back to its previous, disproportionate size. What keeps me tethered is the unresolved eventual outcome for the sculpture, and its relation to my painting. It’ll come, she said overconfidently.
On Friday night the Pushing Print festival got under way in Margate, and I trotted over to see my prints on display in the exhibition at the Pie Factory. As I had the young man with me, I couldn’t go all around the town to the other galleries and events, but on 7 year old sufferance I was allowed to see a few more. Next door in the Pie Factory Pop Up Shop was an exhibition entitled BIG ASS Linoprints and Linomations, and not far away, Steve McPherson was exhibiting some screen prints as well as some of his fantastic marine plastic pieces in Blackbird. I got to have a little fangirl chat with him before being dragged off – not a bad way to end the evening really! Yes, I’m biased, but it’s well worth visiting Margate during October while the festival is on, and Turner Contemporary has Rodin’s The Kiss as well as NITWBY on display.
Back to the campus – my work in the project space has taken second place to the carving, which has become an obsession, but after a visit to the studio tomorrow there should be progress worth reporting on. It’s been helpful to see things taking shape though, and has definitely been worth doing. I’m holding off posting pictures until it takes shape more fully, perhaps after next week.
Yesterday during a cafe break the group brought up the subject of the end of year show. It seems they’ve equated student rep with show co-ordinator; and although I’d point out that this wasn’t a given, I suppose I might as well. Someone has to! I took another poll for the degree show on/off site question, and it’s becoming clear to me that we’re going to end up showing at Henwood. Enthusiasm for the extra effort required to go off site is waning, and I want to try to get them excited about making the most of what we’ve got. We decided to have a formal show meeting after the art history lecture next Monday, and I want to introduce them to some of my ideas for fundraising and marketing – staging events, crowdfunding websites, listing the show on this site, and others.
As for next week, expect a visit from one of my male models, an update on the show meeting, and even more fearless hammering in the woodwork room.
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