I went to a talk at Cambridge Visual Culture by Dr Kimberly Foster ‘Material Acts of Thinking and Learning Pedagogical Art Objects and Touching the Art Museum’ It brought to mind some previous work that I made quite a few years ago when I spent some time in the Sainsbury Centre Art Gallery and Museum. I was interested in the way the spaces around the exhibits became important to me. I often become over whelmed by these spaces and Kimberly voiced this feeling in her research blog when she said “I started to blank areas out really simply with a felt disc, it was like a moment of saying shhhh to the surrounding opulence, significance, history, meaning. In that moment of observation I wanted to blur my focus slightly to create a different focus” I started to notice how the objects extend beyond themselves into the surrounding spaces and on a subjective level become as important as the object on display.
It Is Important
Just Walking Past
The trouble is, I now have to attempt to write down why this stopped me in my tracks. Yes it is interesting that a new convenience store is about to open, but i was interested in this scene because i really wanted to go in and join in with the objects that had been left. Not in a passive way, not to help out with the jobs that needed doing, but as an actant that gets sucked into the already existing and unfolding field of relations, the story that is already there.
The way an Object can Reach beyond Itself
Exploring clay, specifically what comes off the wheel after an intense collaboration. The making moves on in very intuitive stages - underglaze paint and pencil. A moment of pause when the pot is fired.
The Pot sits on the kitchen table. The collaboration continues.
It will get involved in another collaboration again at some point
Drowning, not waving
Driving along a motorway my vision is arrested by the plastic that gets caught up in the trees. I stopped and collected them, being careful to bring their ‘supports’ with them. I am not sure what i will do with them, maybe nothing, although there was a strong invitation to stitch into an area of plastic following the lines where the plastic was crinkled from the constant flapping and flailing. The exhaust from the traffic collected in theses crevices.
Made me think of a previous drawing that i made from the remnants of some work that had been attached to the wall with many blobs of BluTac. The thread that runs through.
Collaborative Drawings
These drawings were made in collaboration with our sailing boat Constance
I hung the hand bearing compass from the handle above the saloon table and attached a pen at the right height so that it just touched the paper. A visual interpretation of the boats movement.
