Developing Practice course - session 1

The full title of the course is "Developing practice for makers through museums" and it's at City Lit and it's a new course and I'm very excited about it. It runs all year - 11 Saturday sessions, once a month but two sessions in September and two in July.

The course description: "The course provides you with an opportunity to think, research, and make work in response to a museum collection and practices within a supportive environment. We will look at museums as a resource and as a site for making work. Whilst developing your practical work in your own work space away from the college, you will meet periodically over the period of one academic year, to attend a series of work-based seminars, talks, discussions and group tutorials facilitated by members of the tutor team. You will have the opportunity to engage in critical discussion, draw on theoretical texts and ideas to enhance your own creative practice and understanding of the social, political and cultural contexts of museum practices, and will develop a proposal in relation to a museum collection."

I felt I was in the right place when Flea Cooke, the lead tutor, introduced herself as someone who "likes to forage for new and interesting things and then bring them together". I'm hoping the course will keep me looking for new things, ideas and concepts and artists and information ... and help me focus on bringing these together in yet-to-be-discovered ways.

The introductory slideshow fell into the headings of Collect - Display - Label. Listing the names of artists whose work was shown gives a chance to research them while adding a photo and/or link for each -
Edmund de Vaal (A Change in the Weather, Kettle's Yard 2007) ... Richard Slee (From Utility to Futility, V&A, 2010) ... Verity Jane Keefe (workshops in response to the Death exhibiton at the Wellcome) ... Helen Snell (artist in residence at Royal Naval Museum) ... Grayson Perry (Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at BM) ... Clare Twomey (Trophy at V&A, Exchange at Foundling Museum) ...

Susan Hiller (From the Freud Museum)

 ... Joseph Cornell ... Caroline Bartlett (in Cloth & Memory) ...

Annette Messager (The Messengers) (via)

Dail Behennah's suspended airy form made from (enamelled copies of) labels from the Natural History Museum ... Simon Leather's etymology collection ... 

 installation by Shelley Fox at Belsay Hall (via)

 ... Liz Orton's use of obscure words from specialist areas (see "Splitters and Lumpers" here) ... and also some bird specimens being prepared at the Beatty Biodiversity Museum, labels lost from objects loaned to other museums, how company archives label their contents, and a selection of handwritten museum labels, showing both how technology changes through time and the current authority of type.

labels lost from the Grant Museum

During the introductions ("tell a bit about your background; what you want from the course; and do you have any collections") it became clear that most people did have collections ... is it really possible not to have a collection of some sort? (I seem to be making a collection of dictionaries of all sizes....) and that we are from a range of backgrounds, though mostly textiles. As for what the course might provide - as always, I'm looking for surprises, and for focus - maybe on the old memory theme, maybe on something a bit different, if only because memory and museum go together too well ... is it really possible not to have memories in a museum?

Slideshow and "going round the table" took care of the morning, and the afternoon was more hands-on. We'd been asked to bring a small collection of objects of personal significance or interest - and the first task (5 minutes) was to draw one of those objects from memory. I'd had been polishing one of my objects a few hours before, so should have been able to remember and draw -  it was frustrating and humbling to realise that my attention had not been taking in the important details after all. (How much attention are we paying to what we have around us - how much do we see, how much do we remember? Or do we navigate mainly through our assumptions and habits?) Fascinating to see what others had drawn, and hear the stories of those objects.

Inside the little silver rabbit (and its friend the bear) is a little bell; holes on the bottom let the sound out

Next, getting out the objects and arranging them -

More stories about the displays - every object has a story! - and then 15 minutes to draw them; move along five places and draw another person's display (10 minutes) - come back and see what someone else has chosen to draw in your display.

Final task - 5 minutes - write a statement about your objects - which I did in detail, but when it came to reading it out I condensed this detailed "museum label" into:

My creative time line, and some more general objects related to family and friends. 

They represent the fact of being and/or the pleasure (or necessity) of making.

It would have made sense to use the double spread for the drawing ... next time!

Next week we'll visit the Hunterian Museum, which is close by. Also, we're to bring a piece of our work ... as with the small selection of objects, what to choose, what to choose...

Meanwhile, or rather - already - there is work to be done: setting up a visual research process to capture ideas and other things of interest. For me ... via the blog, but with a new label (wording to be decided), which will allow easy retrieval of this material. Maybe, as for the foundation and MA courses (when a reflective journal was required for assessment) I'll print out these posts and assemble them in a physical folder. Somehow, turning the pages - often with pencil in hand - is more contemplative and thought-inducing than scrolling down a screen.

Collections

Butterfly collections at the Smithsonian. Established in 1846 for "the increase and diffusion of knowledge," the Smithsonian Institution is the world's largest museum and research complex, with 29 museums, nine research centres, and more than 140 affiliated museums around the world.

Photo found in an e-book about the digital future of museums, by Smithsonian Secretary Wayne Clough, available at http://www.si.edu/BestofBothWorlds.

"At 137 million objects, scientific specimens, and works of art, Smithsonian collections pose a challenge to digitization because of their vastness and complexity."

Traditionally made

... for a not-very-traditional purpose - it's a PC cleaning brush. Gets those crumbs out from between the keys...

London Design Week

First, on the Monday, to Graphic Africa at Habitat on the King's Road. This exhibition is on till 20 October - more info here. I didn't have my camera so the pix are courtesy of Jo -

Overview of a corner of the gallery

Only 3 drawers in the sideboard - but look at the massive stone lamp base!

Made of recycled oil drums, amazing

Yet more oil drums, brilliant

A short bus ride to "Cabinets of Curiosity" at Mint and outrageous wildness by Korean designer Myung Nam An at Squint -

Flocking - fabric collage - patchwork upholstery - a profusion by Myung Nam An

Inside a chair, who knew?

Leaving "Chelsea Quarter" of the design festival, we went to 19 Greek Street, drawn by this "floating world"

The 3D drawing in the air seemed to be strips of felt, held with a tricksy series of invisible threads - you can just about see the grid of hooks on the floor -

With time running out, on Friday I made it to the V&A to see the work of Julia Lohmann, whose stint as artist-in-residence - or rather, Design Resident - finishes this month. She's been working with kelp, treating it so it keeps its elasticity when dry, and stretching it over canes. She calls the studio Department of Seaweed -

At the end of the gloomy Leighton Corridor is Oki Naganode, the luminous creature that she

made from a type of Japanese seaweed,  -

The canes are covered with metal tubing -

ao textiles is a group whose practice emphasises the sustainable. I was impresssed by the marbling on silk, and the way embroidery (with recycled indigo-dyed thread) is used for emphasis -

The fabric yardage is woven from yarn dyed with madder, but what interested me was the effect of erasure with white paint to produce the backdrop -

Along a corridor, 70 designers' sketchbook response to three questions: what can we not live without; what needs improving; what would you like to design -

I was delighted to see Tina (centre, bottom row) among them - years ago we were part of a group that went to the V&A or British Museum to fill our sketchbooks. Read more about the moleskine sketch relay, and see lots of good pix, on her blog.

Contributions from the public were part of the display

Between the metalwork and medieval galleries, 5000 paper windmills made an impressive door curtain -

Every now and then a switch flipped and a wind blew through the Wind Portal, turning some of the windmills - my camera was too fast to get much of a blur -

Leaving the V&A via the front entrance, you see 28.280 by Omer Arbel "a pure celebration of the monumental height of the building". It's there till November -

Of course there was much more to see in the various "design quarters" around town, in shops and special spaces - but not enough time (or obsession) to see it all.

Medieval caption contest

The blank ribbon at the top of this wooden panel (France, about 1520-30) seems to cry out, to our modern eyes, for some lettering - any suggestions?

The scene looks straightforward enough - a thief has been apprehended and the stolen plates are tumbling about. These sorts of panels were often put on houses as a sort of warning - it was a largely illiterate age, words would have been superfluous.

The rich man (note the purse on his belt) seems to be some sort of pilgrim, from the cockle-shell badge on his chest.

Artists of the river pageant

Part of the Queen's jubilee celebrations in 2012  was an amazing river pageant, the final hours of which were dampened by considerable rain, and chill, and gloomy skies ... but the boats kept moving, the singers kept singing, the painters (on bridges, boats and balconies) kept painting. Recently, at the vertical gallery in Battersea Park, an exhibition of the work from the day (see more here).

Quirkiest work was this cobbling-together of the spirit of the day with seemingly all of Thames history -

Thames Flotilla by Michael Coldman

"On the day I watched the pageant on tv at home. I set up a mini flotilla of model boats sailing & steaming past the tv and presided over by Staffordshire figures of seated Victoria & Albert. I photographed this with the Queen on the royal barge in the background. For the pageant exhibition, instead of just supplementing the model boats used on the day with my made-up ones, I decided to make the lot! Some of the materials used were from local 19th century rubbish dumps. All materials are re-used with some specific boats in mind such as the royal barge / 18th century state barge / the barge with bells on."

The pink sails are old needlebooks

Joint favourite, for completely opposite reasons, was this little boat made from old letters which hung in the central well of the gallery -

Two views of Pageant Eiodolon by Edmund Prizeman

"The youngest artist in the show, Edmund attends the prince's Drawing School Saturday class for gifted and talented 1-18 year olds and is a pupil at the Brit School. He is fascinated by found materials and creating a mixture of imagery from memory and imagination."

The works went from the traditional to the dead-modern.

A scroll of watercolour boats by Alexander Cresswell

Above, an embroidery (Diamond Jubilee Flotilla by Rob Pepper); below, a patched
panorama photograph taken from the then-unfinished Shard

The embroidery claimed to have half a million stitches, digital machine stitches -

I'm not sure what the fact of it being stitched actually adds to the graphic concept (apart from "taking art off the wall and onto the sofa"). Would it work as a drawing, or a printout? Does size matter?

Coloured inks, including gold, for this rendition -

River Scroll by Max Naylor

"I remember almost nothing from the day. I was totally absorbed in the task at hand, trying to somehow capture the riot of information, the crowds, buildings, vast array of craft and undulating water, all from a moving vessel. Then came the rain! I disembarked exhausted and soaked through. The marks made on paper are my only record of the experience."

This one grew on me as I looked and read the caption. For a start, it's painted on a bit of an old door - which even has its keys, at upper right -

The Diamond Jubilee Queen by Adjani Okpu-Egbe

"I was an honorary guest in the British Embassy in Cameroon [where he was born] in March where I was invited by the High Commissioner to exhibit at the 13th Commonwealth week celebrations in Cameroon. A giclee print of "The Diamond Jubilee Queen" now adorns the wall of the high commissioner's office." Adjani has a makeshift studio in the back of a Brixton off-licence - the freezer, chairs, tables and everything else are painted in his characteristic style. It hosts a constant flow of the Cameroonian community.

Colour mixing 6

This tranche of work went from pp201 to very nearly the start of the dictionary.

bush-butcher to caup-cavern 169-201

magenta, cadmium yellow, light blue violet, naples yellow, mixing white, cadmium red

big-bill to burglar-burnet 123-167

light blue violet, cadmium red, interference blue, cadmium yellow, bright green, magenta

baksheesh-Balkanise to bewray-bichromate 93-121

ultramarine, emerald, payne's grey, cadmium red, mixing white, light blue violet

approbation-apterous to Bactrian-bahada 59-91

 prism violet, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, mixing white

pp 59-201

Twice this week, just before reaching the previous painted section, I've realised that the change in colour was going to be a big leap rather than a gentle segue - so the challenge was to mix the colour that lies between the two -

Once the beginning is reached, in a day or two, it will be time to do the 300 or so pages at the end, after p1271. This will need switching into a different mode - instead of going backward, and having a limited set of pages at each session, I'll be going forward and might not know when to stop!

Good information on colour - with exercises - can be found in Beata Keller-Kerchner's posts on andthenwesetitonfire. They started on 1 September and continue at time of writing.