This blog will document my journey through an MA in Fine Art with the Open College of the Arts. It is the first MA of it’s kind (Fine Art via distance learning), hence the title. It will also form the basis of a reflective journal and professional journal both of which are components of the course. I hope it also makes interesting reading.
I’m copying a couple of posts over from my other blog:
Grime, graffiti and forensic contamination.
I keep having this thought: “we are all forensically contaminated”. Particularly in the city. But forensically contaminated on an emotional level too. I want to do some work on this at some point, but not sure where to start. Interested in how this relates to Joanne Lee’s paper on graffiti – layering and adding on of thoughts, tags and messages, within the city context of grime. She relates this to inanimate surfaces, but there is also a sense that city dwellers themselves are subject to this layering on; on our daily travels through the city we become living (archaeological) artefacts, inscribed, our true form only existing beneath the grime and layers of other people’s stuff.
Lee, J. (2011) Lord Biro and the Writing on the Wall. Pam Flett Press.
Over- and Under-statement
I have been thinking about overstating and understating. I watched this video: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/video/2011/sep/08/pj-harvey-video
PJ Harvey talks about being aware of and affected by things that are happening in the world (and speaks of this sensitivity to what happens being something that many artists have), and these things – war – entering into her work, but her not wanting to write ‘dogmatic protest songs’, and so avoiding political language, and instead using the language of emotion, rather than rhetoric. She talks of treading a fine line of balance, maintaining ambiguity, ambivalence, avoiding a position, instead storytelling, just ‘this is what happened’.
She said she had to wait a long time to be able to write this album – it happened when she experienced a combination of upset-ness, urgency, impotence, and had achieved the technical ability – this all resonated (although I still don’t think my work is resolving itself in a way that I am completely happy with).
She wanted the music to be uplifting, rousing, unifying, celebratory, to offset the content. And she talks about Stanley Kubrick’s films – what is said or not said, the space between where things become clear. This again resonated – this idea of not-stating, just suggesting and letting people find their own thoughts on a thing.
I have also recently read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter byCarson McCullers – It took me a while to get past some of the language – of course the book is, linguistically, a product of its time, but it comes from a place of great compassion. McCullers does a lovely thing of suggesting and understating throughout most of the book, but where she made certain things about the characters more explicit, through a letter (pp. 188-191), I was disappointed by this explicitness of things that were previously subtle. She had suggested the characters of some of the main characters so delicately throughout, and then, in the letter, distilled each one into a paragraph which felt clumsy and unnecessary. Political ideas are debated through the voices of characters, characters who are complex, and as a result, these ideas don’t sound like the author
Again this made me think of the need for understatement and suggestion in my own work.
PJ Harvey: ‘I was just trying to survive’ -video. PJ Harvey talking to Caspar Llewellyn Smith, Guardian, 8.9.11
McCullers, C. ([1940] 1961) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. London: Penguin.
Well, mid-year assessment has been and gone, and I don’t seem to have kept a very good record of the MA on this blog. Partly that’s because the course encourages us to keep a journal in the form of a blog with different sections, so for this reason, I have several interlinking blogs elsewhere. And partly, it’s because I find blogging horribly exposing. But still, it’s good to be outside your comfort zone and all, so…
I’m really impressed with the course, with the way that technology is being utilised to give us all a learning experience that is as close to possible to that of students physically attending school. Of course, there have been some hiccups with the technology, but on the whole, it is working well.
As the course has progressed, my confidence has increased. My practice is developing, I’m finding engaging with the other students and the tutors useful – and being an introvert it suits me well to interact virtually.
Ok, so that’s enough hiding behind other things. Boundaries: I have pushed some. In terms of my practice, I’ve moved away from safe drawings on paper. Or I’m starting to. Let’s not get too self-congratulatory. Subject matter: I’m finding more interesting ways to explore the things I want to explore. Avoiding the obvious, moving towards a degree of ambiguity. Courage: I’m here, aren’t I?
I’ve been thinking a bit about over- and under-statement. Finding the places in between. Not sure if I have found them yet.
And I’ve found interesting artists to look at: Alice Maher; Francis Upritchard; Mathilde Rosier (amongst others).
Now. My intention: to return weekly and write something that someone somewhere might find interesting. Let’s see.
I’m starting this blog probably with the sorts of questions that all other blog-starters have in their head at the beginning. So I’ll leave those out.
Although the course has only just started, so far, I’m incredibly impressed, and I feel very excited and lucky. Lucky I saw the information in time to apply (just), lucky I am in a position to be able to do it.
I came away from the induction full of doubt about my work; we had each presented a piece but not received feedback. On the one hand, I am eternally grateful for this – a group crit in front of strangers could have been excruciating. But then, I’m capable of a harsh self-crit too. I came away thinking (about the piece I had presented) ‘but it’s just a drawing of a cow’. And then I realised, it’s no more ‘just’ a drawing of a cow, than E’s work was ‘just’ a silver bottle, or H’s work was ‘just’ some ceramic forms. None of them were ‘just’ anything. Including mine.
I also learned something about the challenges I will face in placing myself in the art world on a professional level; we made a ‘map’ of the art world and were asked to locate ourselves within it. I ended up locating myself (psychically) outside the window looking in. On the way home, with time to consider this I realised 2 things:
1 – I am extremely wary of the commodifying nature of parts of the art world. Of course there are artists who successfully refuse commodification. But still, if we need to earn a living, it’s a temptation and potentially a trap.
2 – How to maintain integrity within this world – integrity as an artist, and integrity as a person.
I’m aware that probably this tension is something most artists deal with on an ongoing basis, but it’s the first time I’ve articulated them in relation to my own practice and some of the insecurities I feel as an artist.
Here is my drawing of a cow that is not ‘just’ a drawing of a cow, even whilst it is.
