Blog book

I have just received a book of my last year's blog posts - it was made by FEEDFABRIK - I am thrilled with it - I didn't know how easy it was to do this but thanks to Fiona at Paper Ponderings, who posted about getting a blog book published a few weeks ago, I am now the proud owner of an A5 journal, with a hard-back black cover - rather professional! I really enjoy blogging and the way it looks on the screen but there's something extra nice at being able to handle and browse through a book  - anyway I love it and am now thinking it would be ideal for the collaboration project 'Painting in the attic'. I think I've used a different company to Fiona as she is in Australia.
Here are some images of the book:-

Trevor Bell

I love this man's work and will be going down to see his exhibition at Millennium, St Ives in the next couple of weeks. He is one of the few people that really make me want to paint!


Trevor Bell 'Link' - Artist Interview Film from Millennium on Vimeo.

paper boats

It's been a strange day - rather unfocused, not sure what to get on with in the studio - seem to have lots on my mind  - anyway I've made another 10 paper boats... I intend making 50 to represent the age of the painting 'man in a boat' - I am using old envelopes - containers/vessels of news and all the other stuff of life over the years - giving the old form a new life, and like an archaeologist's trowel, excavating and archiving the original meanings for my own use and recollection.  

Then I put some work into the collaboration by starting another blog HERE and getting ready for the book which will be published from the blog. Finally before supper I went into the garden to do some more planting! I want to be outdoors in the garden more than in the studio these days but I really must balance the time in order to get everything ready for the degree show in June.

'it starts with embarrassment and ends with hope'

I've just been watching Damien Hirst 'The First Look' on TV - an interview about his forthcoming exhibition at Tate Modern and I've pinched (in the spirit of his art) this quote about his show, for my degree show project 'Painting in the attic'. I've talked about the collaboration in previous posts but haven't said much, since I started the project a few months ago, about the installation for my degree show in June.  I've been scraping away more paint, filming myself working, taking samples, collecting relevant information and thinking about the presentation of this 'forensic investigation'. Last week I had the opportunity to book a space for 4 days at at the university studios in Royal William Yard, Plymouth. My tutor, Phil Power, held a seminar for the group on Wednesday and I got some excellent positive feedback. 

magnifying glass on scraped painting 

I set up the space with a trestle table, a working space with my tools for scraping and examinging the painting which includes a microscope and slides. An easel with the 50 year old oil painting undergoing a removal of the oil pigment and a magnifying lamp.

Installation view, working table,  painting on easel, paper boats on floor

Installation view - working table 

 On the floor was the original frame and a 'contemporary' response to the work - overlaid monotype prints, 6 mirror tiles and a paper boat made from a used envelope - this response to the original painting was as if it had fallen out from the original frame and remade itself 50 years later with the work I am involved with now - it was a spontaneous response while working in the space and trying out my ideas for the installation. The rest of the paper boats (50 in total) I have been making were huddled in the corner rather like a safe harbour! Not sure what to make of this as it took me by surprise when I placed them there.

Installation view - original frame, prints and paper boat - floor piece 

On the opposite wall I put up a shelf of test tubes and perspex boxes containing fragments and pigment scrapings - I intend classifying these and labelling them for viewers to make sense of - only they probably won't make much sense (only to me!)

Installation view - shelf of scraped pigment samples and detailed images

Finally I projected a film of me working on the painting on the wall to the right of the easel painting. The sound was the most interesting - a perpetual loud scraping noise - one of my tutors has suggested I concentrate on presenting only the sound and not the projected images - so more work to do as I don't know much about sound installation.
I feel a lot less anxious now I've tried out my ideas - it was really exhilarating to get them out of my head and into a concrete, visual form.