David Batchelor - Tuesday Talk

This weeks tuesday talk at the Whitworth was David Batchelor, I recognized his name so I went along to be refreshed and informed on his current work. Even thought his work is not relevant to my own, his being very masculine and the use of bright colours and plastics, I still find it interesting to listen to people passionately talk about their work. Batchelor is the author of the book Chromophobia (the fear of colour) his most recent work is all set around this. And his theory that contemporary art/ artist have chromophobia. He talked about how his work is about colour and its relationship with the modern city and how they come together. I loved this description, and I also thought it was a clever sentence to work from as it keeps it fairly open aswell as being to the point depending on how you take it.

Also the way Batchelor described his way of producing work was also helpful, by constantly pushing an idea until its ultimate limit, reversing and re-working the same idea. By doing this you can produce a mass of work relatively easily as each piece is made up of the same components of the original idea.

And ending on "Art takes time" summed up the talk very well.

Call for submissions

The Art Corner in Fallowfield is producing an exhibition in December with the theme of the cuts in education. I have decided to enter a piece with this in mind. I am working on knitted pickets, making impractical protest material to match the fact that the cuts are a completely impractical.

http://theartcorner.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/call-for-submissions/

Large Scale

After my tutorial I have been thinking more and more about how producing something on a large scale really changes a piece. Thinking about my sound waves in particular. These works by Sophie Horton are a perfect example.

http://www.sophiehorton.org/interventions.htm

Embroided Commons

As part of the AND Festival in October, I entered a piece into the Analogue is the new digital exhibition held at Mad Lab. It was a piece of embroidery for the embroided commons piece.

http://analogueuk.co.uk/

Fibre Arts

I came across this little beaut in Fibre Arts April/ May 2010 edition.

Whitney Stansell : Unravelling the past

http://575films.com/WhitneyStansell.com/SculptureSlides/album1/index.html

Quilts

I really cannot wait to go to Quilts 1700 - 2010 exhibition at the V&A Museum.

Its an exhibition of british quilts, including pieces by Tracy Emin.

http://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/future_exhibs/Quilts/index.html

Get Involved

Art Yarn are asking for people to produce knitted or crotched pieces to be part of a banner of yarn bombing for this years Sounds of the City festival in Salford.

http://artyarn.blogspot.com/2010/03/artyarn-invite-you-to-participate.html

Women in art

Celebrating national women's day on saturday city art gallery gave tours of the gallery focusing on Women in art. Picking out pieces throughout the gallery ranging from the 17th century to present day work, either work produced by women or portraits of women. Highlighting the different ways that women and men paint women, there is an obvious difference in style and technique, male painters of the the 18th century produced very stylised and decorative pieces often with the woman gazing dully into the distance. Whereas the female artists pieces show the subject starring directly at the viewer, the painting would have narrative and look naturalistic compared to the male produced pieces.

Often the paintings by women showed domestic scenes this was because it was unheard of for women to attend art classes or be part of the Royal Academy of Art so the work they produced would often be done at home.

Personally I preferred the work produced by women, it was more honest and interesting.

6th Stitch Diary

Size - 80 cm by 40 cm

Stitch - Cross Stitch

Found - charity shop

Brass Art- The Non-existence of the Unnamed

Brass Arts second exhibition at the International 3 gallery, a solo exhibition of mysterious water colours. Not you traditional water colour exhibition, the gallery was completely pitch black except for a small bulb, when you first enter it takes a while for your eyes to adjust to the darkness but I thought this was the most exciting period. Whilst your eyes adjust the images change, and more detail in each piece is revealed. I am not usually a fan of water colours but this exhibition was more about the space and the idea of the darkened surroundings, making it far more interesting. I think this also links well with the whole site project, working more with the space given to exhibit in.

The Absence of Thread

Having a fascination with thread I decided to remove it from the stitching process as to examine the stitches on there own to see what this produces and to see wether it is the stitching that I find most interesting or if it is indeed down to the thread and its qualities.

I have done this by using the sewing machine and removing the thread, this produces a series of holes, these are best seen when using paper. I have yet to find a suitable fabric that will keep the holes.

Looking at traditional sewing patterns and stitches but by removing the thread and using white paper the images produced are a much more delicate than if I had used thread.

5th Stitched Diary entry

Size - 15 cm by 15 cm

Stitch - split

Fabric - found in charity shop

Knit Knit Knit

I have decided after feeling like I had hit a wall with my animations to give myself some time off working on them. And to give my other projects more time, so over the past few days I have been knitting like mad. Having produced two 5 meter long knitted panels I am now working on my third, originally when I first began knitting these panels, back in first year, the panels where ment for making a knitted room. Now I am not so sure, another idea was to make a large banner by stitching the panels together. As it seems like the house project is on its way and more and more likely to happen I have thought about incorporating these into that.

On thursday I am going to view two possible houses, after this I may have a better idea of what to do with these pieces. But until then I'm going to keep on knitting.

Fourth Stitched diary entry

Fabric - found in charity shop

size 20cm by 60 cm

stitch- pekinese

The Waves

Still working on my sound waves animation, after doing a few tests I have finally started the final outcome using a recording of me reading out the opening paragraph of Virginia Woolf's "The Waves".

"The sun had not yet risen. The sea was indistinguishable from the sky, except that the sea was slightly creased as if a cloth had wrinkles in it. Gradually as the sky whitened a dark line lay on the horizon dividing the sea from the sky and the grey cloth became barred with thick strokes moving, one after another beneath the surface, following each other, pursuing each other, perpetually."

Using garage band I have recorded myself reciting this paragraph then I have copied the sound waves which I am then using in the animation.

Third Stitched Diary entry

Fabric - found in charity shop

Size- each pieces 25cm by 25cm

Stitch- chain

Wow. Knitted music

I just came across this amazing piece on www.craftzine.com

http://craftzine.com/crafter/drogoul/

A knitted orchestra, knitting that produces music.

AMAZING.

Second Stitch Diary Entry

S-H-A-T-T-E-R-E-D

Stitch- twisted chain

Size -10cm by 10cm

Please rain here

Before rain

After artificial rain (bottle of water)

My piece I produced for the week project on site was based on the weather, in particular rain. Manchester is known as a rainy city and the majority of people dislike rain, I wanted to produce a piece that was made more interesting when it rained, trying to change the idea of rain being a bad thing and showing that it is a necessity .

I used water soluble fabric, I stitched a phrase into it which I hoped would not be visible until the fabric dissolved in the rain.

Typically it didn't rain all day, so I cheated and used a bottle of water.

Sound Animation First test

Tried out my sound waves animation today for its first test, the final outcome is good but could do with certain areas changing. The stitch per frame technique works well, but because of the change in size of the stitches the fabric began to curl up part way through. This meant it wasn't lying flat so it effected the image. I've thought of two solutions, either I use a embroidery hoop to keep the fabric flat and tight or I change the stitch sizes and use a thicker heavier fabric so it wont curl as easy. Either way I'm going back tomorrow to give it another whirl as I am happy with the concept and idea its just a few technicalities that need to be sorted.

I'm also thinking about changing the beginning so that the stitch starts in the centre of the frame rather than on the left.

Sound Animation

This week I have started an new animation based around sound, as i haven't used sound yet and have been meaning to I have decided to focus on it for this animation.

I have got a dictaphone from the AV store as I plan on using recorded speech to create the sound waves I am going to animate.

Using the technique of a stitch per frame, I am going to record a speech/ saying which will play along side the stitched sound waves. Using one long piece of fabric I will stitch the sound waves continually until the sound has stopped.

This seems like a simple idea to produce the only thing I can see being a problem is matching the timings of the animation with the sound.

First Stitch Diary Entry

Fabric- found in 3 pound shop

Stitch type- chain

Size- 1m by 1m

Stitched Diary

Over the past few years I have accumulated quite a lot of found fabric pieces, such as napkins, samplers, pillow covers and table cloths, and I have been pondering over different ways of incorporating them into my own work. I have also been thinking about different quotes and phrases that I come across in my daily life and how these could work, as I love hand stitched text. Especially when a persons handwriting is produced in stitch.

Combining these two different aspects I have started a stitched diary, it will consist of a hand stitched quote piece per week. Each quote/ phrase is part of my diary for that week kind of like a summed up version of my week. Because each piece will only be a few words, it will not give the full picture and will still keep it partially private.

I think this is a great way of bringing some structure into my work, giving my a chance to experiment with different embroidery techniques such as cross stitch but still having a running theme, making each piece more relevant then just a simple test experiment. Also only having a week to produce each piece is setting myself a deadline each week, this I think is what I need as I have a tendency to start a variety of projects but not always finishing them.