Time after Time: An Artist's Book in the Making

  My colleague and I have just heard that we have been awarded £4K in Conservation and Heritage funding to develop a collaborative research project at Tyneham. This first round of seed funding has to be spent by the end of July, so we are going to be busy visiting the site and contacting potential collaborators from the MoD, the University, the local community - artists, educators, descendants of the villagers - as well as museums and research institutions.  If the project attracts further funding, we hope to use the site for undergraduate and postgraduate studio projects but also to develop practice-research by using a range of creative methods to visualise and document the hidden histories of the abandoned village. This will be a perfect opportunity for me to develop my illustrative practices/artist's books as research (alongside Time after Time which could take another year to complete at current speeds!) - an exciting way to link my artwork and lecturing work. 

I have taken a break from my hand-crafted work today, to play with Mental Canvas and Procreate. The image above is an illustration for a series of lovely children's stories my sister has written; I am not the person for the job but it has been fun to develop some skills. The sketch below is my first using Mental Canvas, a toe in the water with so much more to learn!  

 To test tonal contrast, paper colour and tinting, I have printed dozens of versions of Jo Cox, pandas, Alan Kurdi, tigers, the Aquarius rescue ship, cherubs and Trump on different papers and with different print-settings. I am about to stick the first collage elements to the background so it is a pretty crucial decision. The to right image shows a choice between the shortlisted approaches and I opted for tonal contrast on a white background with fine black or fine white outlines depending on location. To my eye, this approach seemed to be more punchy and complemented the painted elements more effectively. Now to commit and glue!

 Many more tiny leaves. Leaves on a hillside supporting recovering species of tigers and pandas; leaves and flowers growing around Jo Cox, her ideas living on; and leaves growing at the base of Grenfell (turning Grenfell into a living, green tower, has been suggested as a way to celebrate and remember the lives of those who were lost). The first leaves were quite naturalistic and inspired by the paintings in Garden and Cosmos, but these were too mimetic. The leaves-shapes of the second-attempt were more consistent with the overall design, but the colour too bright. The shape and colour of the Goldilocks leaves worked well but are taking an age to paint, a base layer of white required to achieve the vibrant colour I want...once again, it would be quicker to grow the plants! Overall, the colours of the panel need lifting, so I am also wondering whether to make the pale-blue dashes white, a decision that can wait a while.

 I am returning to this tricky aspect of the first panel: remembering those who died in the Grenfell Tower whilst respecting those who still live and remember their loved-ones. After a number of attempts, I have settled on a screen-printed tower with cut-out windows to reveal a layer behind which will be shades of red, pink and gold (the bright lives and the fire). However, I also wanted to be specific, so I have decided to list the names of the 72 people who died as a form of memorial, a pull-out from the main image which can be revealed or hidden.

 I have finally got to the point where I need to complete the background for the 4th plate of the first panel, which includes a depiction of the Larsen C iceberg and the Whanganui River, a river which has been granted personhood in New Zealand, thereby able to claim the same rights as humans. The wavy lines connect the 3rd and 4th panel and shift perspective from elevation to plan-view (hill becoming sea and river). I have looked at examples of water in Japanese and Chinese paintings and have just started testing alternative approaches.

  The content and aims of my Major Project, Time after Time  correspond with some of the AHA conference themes and offer an opportunity to test the potential of the artwork to engage and activity audiences, an aim which was set out in my Project Proposal. So I have decided to submit a proposal to run a session as outlined below. I think this would be a great opportunity to exhibit and contextualise my work and also to collaborate with CT colleagues/research student, so I hope it gets accepted: “This is a dark time, filled with suffering and uncertainty. Like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So don’t be afraid of the anguish you feel, or the anger or fear, because these responses arise from the depth of your caring and the truth of your interconnectedness with all beings” (Macy and Gahbler , 2006, p.105). How technology can be used to augment analogue artworks and further engage and activate audiences. Delegates are invited t...

 The zine-making workshop with Ceri Amphlett  was very inspiring and I enjoyed seeing examples of her work and learning about the potential of the zine as a very immediate and direct form of communication. I have since led my own zine workshop with MA students who used is it as part of their climate action activism, the success of this has given me the confidence to respond to a call for sessions from the Architectural Humanities Research Association around the theme of 'Situated Ecologies': Zines have a long history associated with campaigning, sharing information, telling the stories of marginalised groups and activism; they have been designed to circumvent mainstream media and institutions and to democratise political messaging. There is now a renewed interest in the relevance of the zine as a counterpoint to on-line information that is controlled and censored by social media platforms and news conglomerates: contemporary zine makers use the medium for activism - a medium e...

 It has become necessary to create a standing table, so that hours of painting tiny dots does not send my neck and shoulders into a two-day spasm (I must ask Kusama how she does it!). I am also trying to switch between painting very small details, to bigger shape-making, writing and thinking about the overall presentation: my next job is to cut a 1.6 metre long piece of watercolour paper and experiment with folds and cutting between layers.

There is no rushing this process and I wonder if it might be quicker to grow a tree from seed! The tree has progressed one leaf at a time, with adjustments made to the shades of green (purer hues), the background (darker blue) and the addition of white outlines to improve the overall contrast and vibrancy. I am almost content but pink is needed to lift the colours, so I have decided to add fruit. This is a work about time and the human scale, so although the process is painfully slow, it is peaceful and I think the mark of the maker - the scale of my marks - matter. I will roll with the pace for now, one leaf and one dot at a time (see next post!), and concern myself about deadlines another day.

I travelled to Devon to see this exhibition. It was created in Australia to address concerns that traditional stories and cultures were being lost; stories which are up to 60,000 years-old but that still have relevance today, as part of Australia's cultural heritage and as we reflect upon the relationship between humanity and the earth. The exhibition was designed to engage new audiences and particularly younger Aboriginal people who were in danger of losing connections with their song lines.  In Plymouth, the exhibition was located in several sites and there was a mix of contemporary paintings, immersive video art and sculpture; most of the artefacts were created by women in community settings or collaboratively with 10 or more artists. I have a long-held interest in Aboriginal art which was cemented when I lived in Australia and learned more about the landscape and the song-lines traditions. I am interested in the ways stories are told using symbolism in abstracted, cartographic ...

 I am pretty certain that after spending far too long identify the right colour for the backgrounds (not too blue, not too green, not too light, not too dark) and then screen printing 18 plates (with so many others that I rejected) that I have made a mistake with the choice of paper as it does not have the same surface texture as the mock-up, a deliberate change that I now think may be wrong. I am not sure if this is simply the process of testing and refining approaches or whether I have lost all sense of perspective and judgement! Green Mock-up: textile-like surface pattern                                Bluer screen-printed backgrounds, less regular surface pattern  (more sky-like but less variation). Testing how to give surface and colour to the 'earth' (beneath the tree and across all plates) - the ground needs to have tonal contrast with the background (darker) and to offer some visual relief ...

 Last week I finished a book which is still haunting me. Bewilderment , speaks to the times we are living in, the challenges faced by humanity and the anxiety felt by young people, particularly those who are are acutely aware of the current threats to the natural world (the central character, Robin, has a particular way of seeing the world, not unlike Greta Thunberg). The book is an artwork that shines a light on the struggles of the natural world and within the book, another meta-artwork is conjured, a banner created with a great sense of urgency, created to affect change and to offer hope for the future:       'the banner was longer than the two of us stretched end-to-end. And it was covered in paints,                 markers, and inks of all colours. Down the length of it ran the words: LET'S HEAL WHAT WE   HURT... creatures ringed the letters...Strands of staghorn coral were bleaching white. Birds and ma...

There is a real danger that I will completely neglect my Illustration in Context module because I am so keen to progress my Major Project and because social media is not my happy place! So, today has been about reviewing what I already have (an inactive website) and researching websites by other artists and designers, including how they sell their work on-line. I have also set up a new, personal Instagram account that I can use to promote my illustration work and I am amazed that the hashtags work as I have created 3 posts with 'likes' from 7 people who are unfamiliar to me - not an influencer yet as I only have 8 followers at the moment!

 How can this be so tricky? None of the 22+ colours are right!

We have been back at work for a few weeks now and I am little frustrated that I don't have the time I would like to spend on my art work, so I thought this would be good to look at what I have achieved so far to - hopefully -  give myself a boost: Panel 1 2016-2017 is pretty well worked out in draft, and although there are many, many layers of the story to add and solve, the composition is more-or-less resolved and I am much happier with Grenfell and the fourth plate (the plan view of Larsen C is now recognisable as such). I have also worked out some of the techniques to be used which hasn't always been straight forward and I have spent crazy days on some elements; I hope this effort will pay off when I start the final version and the mock-ups for Panel 2 and 3.  I also have decided that I will use photographs of some of the prominent people in my work: Jo Cox, Alan Kurdi, Kadija Saye, George Floyd and now David Amess. I am going to use a technique whereby I print in black and...

 This is such a thought-provoking programme that charts humanity's relationship with the natural world, through art, from the earliest cave paintings to the present day (yet to watch). In episode two, I was particularly struck by the paintings of Ustad Mansur, a Mughal painter working in the early 17th C who documented the natural world in incredible detail and was the first person to depict a dodo in colour; his painting of a chameleon is also so well observed, a strong graphic image with layers of colour and marks used in relief to depict the skin of  the animal - I always enjoy a dot or two and this could suggest a way of painting my animals. The programme also made reference to the Chinese Painter Xiang Shenmo and his scroll painting, Reading in the Autumn Mountains, a beautifully composed image that shows humans as part of nature but also dwarfed by nature; I think the way trees and leaves are represented could be very helpful as I start to work on the detail of the plant...

I am going to refer to patterns from different cultures to support the symbolism in parts of the panels, for example, Islamic pattern in association with refugees in the Mediterranean, Aboriginal pattern associated with the Australian wild fires, Maori pattern in association with a New Zealand river, and African pattern in association with the Baobab trees. I have begun to research textiles, ceramics, and painting from these places and have begun with Islamic pattern: I started by hand drawing patterns using my drawing board, compass and circle template and then reminded myself I was once quite a proficient CAD user, so back to the digital board!  

Fire will also appear on at least two of the panels as I will be depicting Grenfell Tower and the Australian and Californian fires. It has been such a struggle to find appropriate methods and the first attempts (many of them!) were far too decorative, and the filigree designs too mimetic and not true to the stories being told. I tried a number of alternative methods using pen, pastels and screen printing; I also referred to Japanese and Chinese scroll paintings for inspiration (images of war) and tried collage methods using painted paper (inspired by Rex Ray), but I was still not happy... The imagery was still too 'pretty' and decorative so I decided to think about the story a little more deeply to consider how to convey the tragic loss of life at Grenfell and the on-going injustices; the depiction had to be more arresting and shocking so I decided to use images of the people themselves - those who lost their lives at Grenfell - and to create darker, more representational paint...

No doubt, this will be the first of several days working out how to depict trees, as they will be important features appearing in all three scrolls: the tree of knowledge/life, the baobab trees, the eucalyptus trees in Australia and a tree that will be used to symbolise the Black Lives Matter campaign. I have been experimenting with screen printing silhouettes, drawing using line, collage and painting and I have also referred to Japanese and Indian artwork for inspiration: