Two Heads are Better Than One, Especially if the Other is Arlette’s

I wouldn’t out right say I don’t like working in groups. This is because I have the perception of myself as a team player, in certain instances, but really, for the most part, I find I end up severely frustrated. Even if it is unanimously agreed what the outcome will be, something always goes wrong in the planning and delegating of the steps for development. This is the case, in my experience, for creative group projects- when you’re working with a bunch of people that have similar working processes or skills, yet completely different styles. I try to avoid these situations.On the flip side, when I found someone that clicks with my working method and practice, this meant the outcome results doubly strong, and even better, doubly fast. This is what happens when I work with Arlette. Most people that share a relationship with someone like this know what a mean, the ideas merge into stronger concepts while simultaneously reassuring each other their vital role in the partnership. It also establishes more concrete work from the individual side as each person acts to push the other (to their artistic) limit. I’ve worked with Arlette now on five collaborations, installations and one… more sculptural. The one we’ve just completed moves us forward from the direction we started out in Berlin, making large scale standing 2-d memorials.

This time our adventure was based in an abandoned house in Southold surrounded by flocks of sheep and birds that made more noise than the A4 behind Park Road North. We spent 4 and a bit hours navigating towards Suffolk in her boyfriend’s hovercraft (which I think is an ’82 Citroen). Arlette drove the whole way, there and back, because I don’t drive on “the other side of the road” and also because I conveniently didn’t realise Felix’s car was American style with the wheel on the left hand side, whoops…Working with someone on projects together also is good because you’re less scared when you’re in abandoned cottages in the middle of nowhere, miles away from home when you could have picked from hundreds of derelict places right near where you live. And when your cold and can’t feel your hands, they’ll tell you to wait and make sure to photograph the detail of the broken glass for texture while they get another shot on the tri-pod. And mostly that works, and you get good texture and the photographs from the tri-pod are fantastic, even though it was heavy and awkward to carry. And you love your proposal in the end… and have a really good time.

Work in progress - new large screenprints

I’ve started a new series of large (A1 – A0) screenprints in attempt to rewrite my histoty. I’m using photographs from my past and some current ones to create new imagery and then aim to experiment with various surfaces and textiles.

Frame of Mind – work in progress

My new work is dissecting my understanding at any given moment based on my frame of mind and how that affects my perception. I’m photographing myself or, "relying on the help of strangers", throughout the day and then considering how I perceive that moment based on my conditioning and emotional state.

This will result in a series of photographic prints and an interactive website. My work thus far has been a monologue of my thoughts and feelings; this will be a good opportunity to use my technical skills to develop something non-linear. I’m considering doing a variation with only text to discover the linguistic meaning behind our understanding, for example, if we don’t have the words for something can we understand it?

The long felt weight of an irreconcilable difference finally finds peace... in my mind

I have, for quite some time, excessively brooded over the topics, or rather the definitions, of art and design. I have this paranoia about the two.

It started while I was at Fine Art college in the States. I noticed the rivalry between the two departments of Fine Art and Graphic Design, both were in competition with one another as to which produced the most exciting work and both pretty much existed in fear of one another, that maybe one would outdo the other. I can note these observations because I've been a student of both disciplines. The other thing I notice is that it’s somehow considered cooler if you have a fine art practise as a designer, but sucks if you’re an artist with design experience.

Well, I really didn't care about any of this until I was a graphic design student. I was happily on my way supporting myself with my web design career while being able to experiment with the mediums and topics I was interested in and calling that “art”. In fact I freely interchanged the words “art” and “design” all the time.

I was taking a typography course and had a lecture by a designer that said something to the effect of “You are not artists. You are designers. You are there to bring your ideas and skills to work as a tool.” This statement seriously bothered me, I wanted to stand up and say, “We are artists!” Later I realised it had this effect on me because of the truth behind it and my interpretation of the statement as some sort of limitation for creativity, and more importantly what it is I actually want to do. I now appreciate the upset I felt because this led me to clarity. Now I can say, “OK this is a design job, and this is fine art.” And I do so pretty much to our lecturer’s terms, where if there is a brief of requirements, or the content is not mine, like in a brochure then I say “That’s design.” However, even if the content is mine at times, like I want to make a book about my sculpture, it still has a specification attached to it even though it’s parameters I set. Where what I consider fine art are those which outcome and content has no boundaries.

How I feel at this moment is that the only people that really care what is art and what is design are the artist and designer. Really this should be down to the discretion of the viewer, if they feel like categorising, rather than the creator of the work explaining.