(S)he who must be obeyed

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(2)

Art surveillance

"Hope you enjoyed Hockney" said the email from Tate, sent 24 hours after I visited the exhibition. And that alienated me, to the point of wanting to cancel my new membership - which is probably over-reaction.

Of course the gallery is keeping track of visitors when it scans the barcode on the card as you show it to enter the exhibition. So why shouldn't it "add value" and/or "niche market" by telling individual visitors that they can find further info about the exhibition/artist on p44 of their magazine?

Because some of us still want to think - or I do, however mistakenly - that barcode-scanning surveillance is about getting attendance statistics, rather than getting data on individuals. Anyone under 35 will tell you that this is foolish misconception, "no point in worrying about it". But I wonder who will eventually see such individualised data, and to what purpose.

We've had a precedent for this in the matter of library books, way back when. Librarians refused to reveal who had borrowed certain books, and good for them. Machines won't have such scruples, and I'd rather that the people who program those machines and collect the data observe the same principles.

Is contacting me about my actions infringing my privacy or civil liberties? I don't know ... but it feels like the thin, sharp, end of the wedge.

Conceptual craft?

(via)

Andrea Walsh's "Contained Boxes" have won the 2016 Craft Scotland prize. Simple and beautiful, inviting touch and satisfying the eye.

Based in Edinburgh, she uses a range of materials including ceramics, glass, and metal to create elegantly crafted and timeless pieces, of which an independent curator has said:

“Walsh’s work seems the antithesis of the fleeting surfaces of contemporary life and yet the forms are free of the pastiche or anachronism of the self-consciously crafted thing. They possess instead what the American art historian Keith Moxey describes as a vital heterochronicity – a capacity to unfold many time worlds simultaneously through the precision and poetry of the forms.” 

My gripe, on reading and re-reading this, extracting what I thought might be its meaning, was with the small words. "Yet" - ?? "Or" - ?? How do they contribute to the sense of the sentence, or do they contribute to confusion about what might be being said? The longest word, heterochronicity, is explained (thank goodness).

So with the (possibly) oxymoronic title of this post, I'm thinking back to how the idea of conceptual art can be off-putting to people, because the artist is focussed on the idea behind the work and the viewer doesn't know enough about ... something vital ... the context, the idea, the artist; some sort of help is needed for the viewer to stay interested, to get anything out of "it".

Craft, you might argue, is about touchable objects, touch being a route to pleasure, whereas art is Hands Off and solely perceived through eye and brain. So through being able to hold or stroke the object you can overcome the off-puttingness of an important concept that can lie behind the object - and isn't a "contained box" quite a concept? - is the box inside or outside, or both ... container or object, or both ...

So for all our understanding of boxes in every day life, these remain puzzling objects - which is good, they have mystery about them ... can you say that about the famous Carl Andre bricks? I was glad to read a little about the artist's background (masters degree in glass; exploration of box and vessel form), but then, in the explanatory text, the use of words like antithesis, pastiche, anachronism - what a word soup! - got in the way again. Precision and poetry of the forms, yes, that makes sense - these boxes are beautiful, thoughtful objects, pared down to a conjunction of vital elements. We can see that.

Addendum - artspeak
When it comes to artspeak, horrendous examples abound. I found this particularly disturbing ... and am trying to discover why; is it the words/phrases, or is it what's being described? -

Plessen pushes beyond the traditional parameters of representation, employing multiple perspectives to suggest the free circulation of objects, not dictated by compositional rules or gravity. During the painting process, canvases are sometimes rotated 90 degrees, serving to disrupt the artist’s relationship with the image, thereby allowing access to what he has described as ‘a layer beyond that of coherent figuration or narration without having to cut out representations altogether’.

Polishing one's web presence

How up-to-date is your website? Does it need a complete revamp? (Mine does.) Why do we neglect our websites... is there a way to painlessly keep them current ... (probably not!)

I don't look at my website from one month to the next, but recently some "impulse from a vernal wood" led me recently to put a few photos on my home page, of work that's been exhibited this year. It was interesting to see that there's a page for ceramics, added a couple of years ago ... next time the updating impulse arrives, I'll add a selection of newer work. 

As for the rest of the website ...... "one day..." It's on my list .......

Now to something easier and more fun. Although I'm a Facebook-free zone, I dipped my toe into Instagram waters and am quite enjoying it: easy to post photos, easy to find lots of lovely things to look at, not much writing required. And a good accompaniment to a cup of coffee. 

I've called myself margaretcooter, should you wish to find me on Instagram.

Editorial workarounds

I am putting together a newsletter, as happens four times a year. This is the editorial desk, with very little space for anything except the computer. The current issue is showing on the screen, greatly reduced size, to show which pages have space on them. That happens in InDesign file, and I also have an all-important Word file of what article is at what stage - which is conscientiously updated every time an email goes out, or an article and/or photos arrive and is saved in the issue folder. (The emails are given a label and can be tracked down, but it's so much easier to have an up to date record in one place. Record keeping is vital - it's so embarrassing to find that you've left something out!)

The articles are put on double-page spreads - they each start at the top of a page, rather than follow on from the end of the previous one. This means the order of articles can be changed ... which means that at the start, the order of articles isn't particularly important. I just add some pages and add the latest article.

But you can confuse yourself unnecessarily by having things all over the place, and not being able to see all the screens at once. So I went back to paper, and made myself a flat plan. Not wanting to draw all those tedious boxes, and not finding a template online, I folded a sheet of paper, aiming for 48 pages ... er, 6 x 6 doesn't equal 48! Never mind, the bottom row will have to squish up a little, and we can forget the cover. Here it is, minimal drawing of boxes. Page numbers are vital though -

Then I started pencilling in the articles, but soon found a better way

A rummage in the desk drawer turned up some post-it index tabs, bought in Canada 10 or 15 years ago - yellow for articles, red (cut in half) for fillers. Organisational bliss. See it at a glance -

Tabs can be filled out when article arrives - next issue, I'll have a border for parking those still to be put in the InDesign file. And some of the tabs can be reused in the next issue.

The point isn't just that "the old ways are the best ways". We get used to the system we've built up for ourselves, and sometimes limp along with it and grumble at the bits that don't work so well. In a work environment either it's imposed from above or we don't have time to step back and think about how to make improvements. It's good to have a chance to step back and see a better way.

Overkill

Brand name, or generic term? And why?

I recently worked on an exhibition catalogue that listed the materials and techniques of the quilts shown. One aspect of copy-editing it was to decide whether to use the brand names of the products that the contributors listed.

This was hardly a dilemma as it's totally unnecessary to do so - we weren't getting any financial contribution from the manufacturers of these products, nor were these tutorials on techniques that depended on the performance qualities of a certain product rather than something similar but not identical.

So any material that started with a capital letter got a very suspicious look. Here's my list of trade names, and the generic terms to replace them. It's not a complete list by any means.

Brusho colour - concentrated watercolour

Egyptian cotton - cotton

fabric dyed by a named company or a named individual = commercially hand-dyed fabric

Inktense pencils - water soluble ink pencils

Lutradur - non-woven polyester 

Manutex - dye thickener (Procion dyes thickened with Manutex = thickened fibre-reactive dyes)

Markal sticks – oil sticks

Pima cotton – cotton

Procion dye – fibre-reactive dye

Superior Razzle Dazzle thread (or any named thread) = thread

Thermofax screens – screens

Transfoil – transfer foil

Xpandaprint – expandable printing medium

One that gave me trouble was

Angelina - heat bondable fibres? synthetic fibres? (some are not heat bondable)

Any suggestions?

In the art-gallery world, labels for drawings, prints, and photographs seem more and more to be stating the type, ie manufacturer, of paper used. No doubt different papers have different qualities, but you don't see "2B pencil" or "Golden watercolours" along with "Hannemuhle archival paper". I cynically wonder whether this is a kickback to the paper manufacturer, in return for a bit of generosity towards the artist. But maybe it's just the artist or gallery being reassuring to their customers that the artwork is made with best quality materials?

How NOT to write an article

Having spent the whole of yesterday trying to "hurry up" with an article that was past its deadline, and tying myself up in knots in the process [that could easily have been left as "typing myself up in nots" ... are there freudian slips in typing?], here are some helpful hints for next time 

... if there IS a next time ...

1. Stick with Plan A - don't shift topics just before the deadline.

2. When finding photos on the web, make a note of all the details - title, year, materials, size - and make sure you have the URL.

2a. Write to the website owner immediately to ask for permission to use the photo. Do this at least a week before the deadline.

3. Start the research in plenty of time. (Maybe that should be part of point 1. Or go without saying.)

4. If the photos need resizing, indicate in the title that this has been done.

5. When making notes on an interview from a video, watch the video twice, preferably several days apart.

5a. Write down possible quotes exactly as said.

5b. Note the title and production details, eg year filmed.

6. If time is short and two interviews are available, it's likely the entire article can be written by stringing together quotes in some logical order, adding headings where helpful.

7. Go for the jugular - what's the main point of the article? Keep it in mind!

8. Be sparing with quotes, especially when artspeak is involved. 

9. Keep sentences short; and, for online articles, keep paragraphs short. 

10. Leave it for a day before giving it a final read-through, paying special attention to numbers.

(Have you been reading between the lines? Do you know how not to do it, now?)

The view is much improved

While putting together the CQ newsletter - and trying to get most articles onto a two-page spread - I've been frustrated by seeing the PDFs that I send out to the authors as a sequence of single pages on my screen.

And I've been wondering, off and on, if they see them that way too ... but somehow I've never done anything about it, like finding out how to change the view ...

My digital-generation son has taught me that in order to find out how to do something "techy", use a search engine: "Just type in the question as if you're talking, Mum."

So I typed in "how do you get a pdf to display as two pages"  ... and quick as a flash came the answer (ok, I did have to click to get to the page) -

"When you open a PDF for the first time, it may display one page at a time.

You can change the view so that two pages are displayed side-by-side (like a book is). These instructions explain how to change the view in Adobe Reader (a common program used to view PDFs that can be downloaded for free from Adobe).

From the View menu, choose Page Display. 

Then select “Two Page View” and “Show Cover Page in Two Page View.” "

So I did -

"From the View menu, choose Page Display; then select "Two Page View" (or "Two-Up")"

Which means the PDF looks rather like this -

Now, is there some way that two-page view can become the default option?

The first answer to the question "how do you get a pdf to default display as two pages" is a little bit complicated - or seems to be, thanks to the amount of information on the page, and the terse jargon ... I need a digital-generation interpreter!

Back to the Results page, and anothr click brings this useful information:

"Change the default page layout (initial view)

You specify the default initial view settings in the Preferences dialog box. (See Set preferences.)

1. In the Preferences dialog box under Categories, select Page Display.
2. Open the Page Layout menu and choose Automatic, Single Page, Single Page Continuous, Two-Up, or Two-Up Continuous.

Note: The PDF opens with the page layout specified in Preferences unless a different page layout is specified in Document Properties (File > Properties > Initial View). The Document Properties setting overrides the Preferences setting. If using Document Properties, be sure to save and close the document for the change to take effect. Acrobat users can change the initial view, unless security settings prevent changes. Reader users cannot change the initial view."

(Preferences is in the Edit menu.)

Setting the default to two page view

It's interesting that "Reader users cannot change the initial view." Now that my view is set to Two-Up, readers of the PDF sent to them will automatically be able to see it as two pages ... whereas when it was sent to them as a sequence of single pages, they wouldn't even be able to change it!

How's that again?

"The magazine" - at last

It went to the printer on 16 December and my copy arrived (in my absence) on 17 January. That's quite a long turn-around, complicated by holidays - better luck next time....

First impression is that the photo on the cover looks less vibrant than on screen - well it would, it's printed on matte paper, 100gsm so it feels good to hold.

If you're well versed in Quilters' Guild protocols, you'll notice that something vital is missing from the cover - yes, a Guild logo to indicate "under what auspices you exist".

Inside, full colour and full pages -

The electronic copy that is available to members on the yahoogroup has clickable links - so far, only one email address has been found to have a spelling mistake. One too many!

It was challenging fun to put this issue together - there will be 11 more in the next three years. I'm glad to have a chance to use the skills (layout, editing, etc) that took years to build up, which I used to use every day. It's all very well not to have to show up at the office, but without "useful work", something goes out of your life.

Out of the blue

The offensive email gave few clues as to what was upsetting the writer, but she seemed to be referring to my "Textile taxidermy" article in Through Our Hands.

Quite apart from being unsigned, the email was so uninformative that I decided to ignore it ... but then wondered if someone's email account had been hacked and similar emails sent, by some malignant person, for unknown reasons, to others who had written articles in the magazine.

On contacting the editors, it transpired that they knew the writer - and they got in touch with her about the matter. She quickly sent me an apology.

But I couldn't reply to her ... I simply didn't know what to say. Either the writer was a person with strongly held beliefs who was a poor communicator, letting emotion get in her way, or else she was having things going on in her life that pushed her into unfortunate behaviour. Yet......even if either of these were true, that email should not have been sent.

On receiving another apologetic email, which gave a bit of background to the story, I finally mustered a few (rather stern) words to the effect that such emails hardly win hearts and minds ... and now I hope that's the end of it.

It's a bit of a shock to the system, and has given me a tiny insight into the effects of bad internet behaviour. May it not happen to you!

**Addendum: I was a bit hasty in publishing this post, for two reasons.

Firstly, it's not clear from what I wrote that the writer of the email had reacted to the topic - specifically the word taxidermy - without looking closely at the article - she didn't realise that "textile taxidermy" in no way involved dead animals.

Secondly, I've received further communication saying that she's not usually like this, she doesn't know what came over her. Which I believe ... and sympathise with ... who among us hasn't sent a frustration-fuelled email to someone at some time, probably more strongly worded than if we had been calm and rational?

Also, I didn't make clear the point of writing about this incident ... I've written about a personal reaction to bad internet behaviour, and my dilemma over whether to engage with the writer and the possibility of consequences. I was lucky to have an intermediary, and to have a good outcome, but in so many cases of trolling it is otherwise.

The incident has raised my awareness of the devastating effects that sustained attacks must have on people - think of teenage girls being bombarded with hateful messages, texts, and social media  and what that does to their self-esteem. We've probably all suffered some bullying at some time, and know how unpleasant that is - what makes it worse on the internet is a kind of undertone  that it's ok to send nasty emails because, hidden behind a screen, you are (a) anonymous and (b) beyond reach. Not true!

Ragged Cloth 2

After being "closed for refurbishment" for a while, Ragged Cloth Cafe - a blog by and for textile artists, for discussing textile art and art in general - has reopened.

The archives are full of thought-provoking posts, and you're invited to leave comments on them as well as the new posts, which a team of writers is adding weekly. 

I've just posted my thoughts about artwork that is made to be destroyed - which was set off by seeing this photo -

preschoolers rolling around (with permission!) on the work of "salt artist" Motoi Yamamoto. I was rather horrified at first, and am still not comfortable with this type of destruction - are you?

"I have a dream"

50 years ago, Martin Luther King gave his famous "I have a dream" speech. BBC has asked notable figures to record the text. I heard it by chance on the radio this morning, and it was a wonderful re-creation. You can hear it via the BBC News site (here), enhanced by evocative photos -

It's well worth taking 15 minutes to revisit this important moment in history.

(If speechmaking and rhetoric are of interest, and if you have access to the BBC i-player, another programme earlier this week will give much insight - Stephen Fry's English Delight - 5 days left to listen, at time of writing.)

Road markings

My obsession with photographing "marks on roads" started with marks on the pavement, especially when the marked slabs had been taken up and then put back in a different position. For the workers, the aim was to put any slab anywhere - and this random act made an unseen, taken-for-granted surface suddenly visible. It made you think about what might be underneath the pavement ... something needing repair ... and the fragility of the entire infrastructure that we depend on when we live in a city.

There are codes for marks on roads - the broad white stripes of the crosswalk, the "no stopping in the yellow box" areas, long lines and short lines used for lane separation (why is there a difference?), the blue surface of the central London bike routes. The pink in the photo is unusual - I think it indicates pedestrian traffic - the photo was taken at the NEC - the National Exhibition Centre, Birmingham, where Festival of Quilts takes place in August.

Art education

Put the action where your art is - people want to know

When we are immersed in the art-making world, we forget that the majority of people have had no art education. They know what they like, but can't say why -- because they don't understand the process of art-making and lack a descriptive vocabulary for what they see. So they ask annoying questions like "how long did that take you to do" - because they genuinely want to talk about the work and are interested to learn how the artist made it.

Yet many artists get impatient with these repetitious questions from the public. Commentators on Alyson Stanfield's  post on educating the audience have said that they find they can talk with enthusiasm about what inspired the work and about the processes they enjoy -- and surely this is true education to a receptive audience.

This was happening all over the place at Art in Action, and it was great. But then, the artists chosen to exhibit at Art in Action are specifically those who are willing and able to engage with the public - for four days straight - no mean feat! Much easier to blog about it, at leisure...

One artist who blogs about the process, principles, thinking, and history behind his work is painter James Aponovich. He says "most art is not entirely successful; it only points the way for improving on the next attempt."

Study for "Tasimento Artichokes" by James Aponovich (image from here)

Is this sort of education "spoon feeding"? Or is it a case of "when the student is ready, the teacher appears"?

Starting on 18 July, Suzanne Lacy's "The Crystal Quilt" will be at Tate Modern. It was discussed on Women's Hour - if you can get BBC iPlayer you can hear it here .

suzanne lacy, the crystal quilt, 1985-7 photo- gus gustafson limited 

It's " a video, documentary, quilt, photographs and sound piece, combining the original elements of performance, activism and broadcast in an ambitious work that fuses social responsibility with the power of aesthetics". 


From the Tate website: "430 women aged over 60 from Minneapolis gathered together [in l987] to perform in a live tableau, lasting an hour and broadcast live on a public television network. Staged on a series of tables laid out on a huge square rug (designed by the painter Miriam Schapiro), the performers sat four to a table, their hands laid on the coloured tablecloths changing at ten-minute intervals to echo the shapes of different quilt blocks (the quilt being an emblem of the traditional sharing of North American female experience). While the performers discussed their experiences and reminiscences, the audience also listened to a soundtrack by composer Susan Stone mixing the voices of 75 women talking about ageing – personal observations, their own memories, and sociological analysis of the unused potential of older people."


More info is on the artist's website - http://www.suzannelacy.com/1980swhisper_minnesota.htm 

Moan on Monday - blog formats

When all you see on accessing a blog is a bunch of text, are you tempted to read further?

Much as I might admire the individual artist and be interested in their work and thought processes, this format really puts me off.  Call me lazy, but I'd rather see a photo and then be led on to read their words.

Possibly people with this format of blogs need to consider carefully just what to put in those first 100 or so words. It's like a news bulletin - important info first, then info of diminishing importance. This not only allows the end of the article to be chopped of to fit the page of the newspaper, but also takes into account that people will stop reading when they feel they "know enough about it".

Sometimes the title tells you all you want to know, and the block of words says to you "you don't really want to know any more" whereas the picture tells you "there is more to find out".

Even when I simply scroll down the current blog page looking at the pictures, occasionally stopping to read, I can easily be tempted to click on the "Older Posts" button at the bottom of the page.

And another thing - consider the potential of captions, to slyly insert information into the minds of lazy scrollers like me, whose eyes drift naturally to small, easy-to-absorb, bits of information -

this is not my cat!
the photo was part of a caption competition

Maybe next time I'll moan about silly things people do to mistreat their beloved pets...