Non-Fiction

next step

2009-12-06T14:28:00.002Z

W.I.P

2009-11-26T09:32:00.004Z

test for video object.
still editing video, most likely will result in multi-screen.

Statement for "Self Portrait in Snow Canyon"

2009-09-18T11:20:00.003Z

The film is a portrait of the self split in two. There is potentially a series of symbolic inversions the duality could represent : real/ imaginary, conscious/ unconscious, mind/heart, a reflective twinning, an oscillation between the two. A double self portrait insinuates ironic self awareness like Baudelaire’s dédoublement.

The two women are connected by a cord and move closer and closer together throughout the film’s duration; there is a symmetry between them. The situation borrows from theory of quantum reality, where they are inextricably connected into some indivisible whole, when one does something the other is affected simultaneously.

The sound conveys, or reiterates, the internal aspect and the desert landscape presents its own trajectory and historical symbolism. Historically, the desert is featured predominantly in spiritual mysticism, signifying the difficult situation of the people; with this interpretation the women’s actions appear ritualistic. And yet this type of landscape has strong ties to the cinematic like the American Western. I consider it to signify the landscape of the mind; that these dance like gestures are being performed by the two women in a way that is trying to understand something, remember maybe, perhaps that inextricable connection itself.

View the film http://www.vimeo.com/4411818

Infilitrate

2009-08-01T16:41:00.007Z

Infiltrate, 2009, mixed media including 35mm colour slide and diascopic viewmaster plus sound, 134 H x 58.5 D x 55 W cm approx

Hear the sound from Infiltrate

There is a continuous stream coming out of my mouth, as I lean over, hands grasping on to the ledge of the kitchen sink. It’s not vomit. I thought at first it was water but its texture, although fluid, is not entirely liquid. I can feel with my lips this outer glazing – a membrane - metallic in places, encasing a tunnel that protrudes in to the drain of the sink. I can do nothing but be this way. I have never experienced the urgency to speak so great until now. A worm hole has emerged. When I look down the spherical mass appears to be flowing or rotating and I wonder if some part of me will travel through this tunnel from an intra-universe and if I will transcend beyond the kitchen drain, or local sewage tank. I can’t loosen my grip from the sink’s edge, I have to hold on, if I want to go on, I will have to find a way without using my hands to extract this thing from the depths of me; I can do nothing but be this way.

Fault Line at the Nunnery, London 17 June -18 July 09

2009-08-01T16:22:00.003Z

Let Fall, 2009, screenprint of human hair on 15meters of paper and table

Downlad the catalogue click here

new short films/ new blog

2009-04-26T17:57:00.003Z

http://1nternal.blogspot.com

book

2009-04-16T14:21:00.001Z

Interpretations to Here from erin newell bird on Vimeo.

work in progress show -rca

2009-02-27T11:07:00.004Z

Still - new series / work in progress

2009-02-01T17:18:00.002Z

Erin Newell, Method 1, 2008, Lightjet print

Erin Newell, Method 2, 2008, Lightjet print

A Relative Measure of the Self - a new installation

2009-02-01T17:16:00.003Z

Erin Newell, 2008, photograph on etching of human hair

The starting point for my most recent project is a fascination with hair and the idea of shedding parts of the body signifying a subtle, yet pivotal, moment in time. It is the tension between presence and absence and their potential relocation that I am exploring.

As a moulted form the hair takes on a meaning other than a more traditional representation of beauty. The shedding of hair may be a physical loss from the body but paradoxically it may signify change, as in growth or renewal. I find a strand of hair dramatic yet also distinct with endless connotations. This multitude of possible representations is one of the key elements that intrigue me, however, it is the potential that not only when hair is part of the living body but also when it has been removed, that it becomes a measure of time, perhaps of existence.

The photographs within the installation reiterate another relationship between presence and absence. By removing the face within the portraits, I’m asking a question about identity or the self. I imply that there is no self. No personality.

I'll finish by copying down a quote from T.S. Elliot, who sums up what I'm trying to say not only more poetically but much more concisely

“Every experience is a paradox in that it means to be absolute, and yet is relative; in that it somehow always goes beyond itself and yet never escapes itself.”
T.S. Elliot

tiny relics

2008-09-28T20:38:00.003Z

writing an artist statement

2008-09-28T20:37:00.001Z

figuring out the meaning of life.

ariel in the studio

2008-09-28T20:27:00.001Z

bow arts trust open studios.
june 2008

Ariel

2008-03-28T13:39:00.003Z

Work in progress for new installation

Fresh Impressions: Letterpress Printing in Contemporary Art

2008-03-05T12:57:00.012Z

Until 20 March 2008 at the Hoffman Gallery - Portland, OR USA Download the catalogue
Visit the website

Fragments, 2005

Letterpress printed on photograms
Series of six , 12in x 16in each

My work often consists of overlapping materials and techniques, a process conveying complexity of human thought and emotion. In the work Fragments I recorded the ephemeral thoughts that occur to come up with an idea. Without altering the brainstormed text through the time consuming technique of hand setting I letterpress printed over a photoram. Within the photogram the iconic and stereotypical light bulb is shattered and distorted as the broken pieces splatter across the pages becoming ethereal jagged shapes. The work is a documentation of the documentation of coming up with an idea.

Detail of Fragments, 2005

Making the Massive Book

2008-03-02T15:34:00.010Z

In June 2007 I finished a series of twelve screen prints made from a collection of photographs. All of the prints were large scale, over a meter wide, I was stuck as to how to present them. I thought framing them for show wasn’t the most interesting option, and it would have been unlikely for me to find a gallery space to display the entire series. I also had this second layer to the series, text I wrote that described each image. I made a small artist book without photographs of the screen prints, only the words that described each composition.

So, after some consideration and meeting with an art critic in my former residency I decided the image and text should be bound together in one book. This would have been fine except the prints were on different size paper from A1 (33in x 23in) to quad elephant (54in x 45in), which meant it was going to be extremely tricky to find a method to bind securely. Oh, and one more thing, I had no idea how to bind a book.

I had to consider how to lay the text out, intergrate it more appropriately with the images. After two months of rewriting my original descriptions I decided letterpress would be my best option, the aesthetic I wanted to go with my screen prints. I chose to emboss the words with a varnish, which is almost entirely light dependent and looks as though the words are fading away. The biggest paper I could print on the letterpress was A2 (23in x 16in), this meant I was creating laborious work without resolving the problem of binding the book with different sized pages, but I didn’t think of that at the time. Setting and printing the letterpress was one of the most enjoyable aspects of the book’s construction as I had Ian P on board with his wealth of experience to give me a hand.
After two weeks of full time setting and printing of the text I had to figure out how, or where, to get the book bound. My investigation led to a handful of places telling me my project would fail, "9ft when opened", a book that size could not possibly "work". Only one place gave me the time of day, Bookworks. They were really nice, but unfortunately would have cost me £800 to bind my pages so I was left with having to figure it out myself. I signed up for an introduction to a Japanese book binding evening course. This method was not appropriate, but led me to meet the course’s instructor who advised me on a technique.
A week later he instructed me on the process of Keith Smith’s Flat Back Coptic Stitch style with tapes. It’s a non-adhesive method where you sew around a spine... effectively.Binding and Page view of "Interpretations to Here" artist book, 2008

Three and a half months after my tutorial I started to bind the pages. I’m glad I stepped back from this project to work on other things. When I decided to work again on the book I made the decision to mount all of the letterpress and small screen prints so I had everything on a quad elephant size sheets of paper.

However one huge problem of letting time pass, I only vaguely remembered the stitch I learned, I could see it visually in my head but technically it was a blur. So, I just improvised.

In my tutorial to learn the stitching method we used cardboard for the spine. I realised this wasn’t going to be practical, as it wouldn’t be strong enough for the 30 pages I had. So, I chose wood. I bought metal hinges to screw the back and cover to, which were 6-ply wooden sheets. Resolving the matter of what material to use and testing took me three days alone.

Spine of "Interpretations to Here" artist book

The hardest part of binding a book, according to me, is glue. I can’t use the stuff. If I’m near glue everything surrounding me is splattered in it. Covering the back and cover of my book in bookcloth was a complete nightmare. First of all they don’t make bookcloth wide enough for me to use a single sheet from a roll. Even if they did, it would still be near impossible to stretch over a backing board, as it rolls up like wallpaper and glue stains! What stains even worse is transparent spray mount, I tried this in desperation after being fed up with PVA only to realize it marks worse. Also, these websites that explain “how to remove glue stains” do not pertain to wood glue on bookcloth, in fact those methods also result in worse stains. One website suggested to rub an ice cube over the stain and scrape off with a spoon. All this created was spoon scrape marks over a glue stains. In any rate, I covered the marks, as best I could, with a different idea…Cover of Interpretations to Here, artist book, 2008

Back of Interpretations to Here, artist book, 2008

Gilchrist Fisher Award 2008

2008-03-02T15:27:00.005Z

Photographs in the Rebecca Hossack Gallery, London. 28 Jan - 9 Feb 2008. All photos by Tom Merrell

Finishing and exhibiting A MAP OF THE OCEAN BETWEEN MY SITER & ME

2007-07-29T14:51:00.000Z

Producing the idea I had for displaying, in fact, finishing A Map of the Ocean between My Sister & Me was like, what I imagine, to have a minor, if there is such a thing, brain aneurysm.

more on the story later...

Here are some photos from the Art Vaults exhibition where the work in on display until October.

Photo by Hilary Bird

Photo by Hilary Bird

Everday Exhibition London 25-30 June - THE EPHEMERAL DISTANCE WITHIN A MOMENT

2007-07-26T08:37:00.001Z

Photo by Tom Merrell

Commendation - Environmental Design

2007-07-22T14:41:00.000Z

The 28th of June was a fabulous day. Arlette and I were nominated for an Environmental Design award from the Architecture Foundation and D&AD Global Student Awards. The event was held in the Old Billingsgate, it is a wonderful venue. It was great to see all of the other nominations in ours and the other categories. I was really excited and proud.

They chucked our fellow nominees and us at the same table for dinner. Tact full or less, I’m not sure- cunning! A bottle or so of wine later and the ceremony began. We were category 16. Arlette looked up at me around the fifth award and said “Erin, I think they are calling out the nominations by order of the catalogue… that means we get commendation, third place.”
“No, no.” I assured her. As I pointed to our work from the table and exclaimed how ours was absolutely, without a doubt, the best. “Have faith!” I hissed. She didn’t look convinced and neither did our competitors.

Category fifteen was up and she was agreeing with the inevitable as I was squeezing her hand shaking my head.
Sixteen.
“Erin and Arlette.”
Well, I had to smile. I couldn’t spit. I was happy. Who cares if it wasn’t first and we didn’t get all the money, or the coveted yellow stubby pencil trophy, or ever lasting fame? I felt, at that moment in time, just like Kate Winslet at the Oscars.
We nearly tripped as we left the stage. And tt was a pencil that interrupted our return back to our seats. A number 2. Our very own yellow pencil!

We received good and interesting feedback from the curator of the Architecture Foundation on our submitted work. “Very poetic.” He said. We were told that the winner’s work does not get made and installed, which would have changed the way we interpreted the brief entirely, but regardless we great evening and met some great people.

The Alley Cats present... ALLEY ROOM

2007-07-22T14:39:00.000Z

The idea to hold a spontaneous art exhibit slash party by Dan Duran and the Maryflower Superheads finally culminated with the actual event in a Shoreditch alleyway on 9 June, but by the new, one time collective, Alley Cats.

Besides planning what we thought it would be like - a domestic living room decorated with our artwork for people to hang out in - we had no idea what the result would be, if in fact we would get one at all, before being arrested, or ridiculed.

There was no stopping Arlette who pushed the four of us from the dismembered Dan Duran and the… to go through with it.

Before I knew it she was driving Charlotte and me around Hackney in the next size up for no extra charge moving van scouting for skips to eradicate old furniture.

The first street we turned on to was a good find - a lamp and a chair. Though we nearly lost it when Charlotte set it down on the sidewalk as we went back to grab Arlette who was inquiring from the chair’s previous owner where we could find further unwanted goods. In less than two minutes a lady was off her cycle peering and prodding at the old chair, lifting up the pieces of yellow velvet that once covered its arm. She was about to take until she noticed Charlotte and I stampeeding towards her.

The biggest result of furnishings happened while asking two mechanics the address of the council’s skips. Apparently certain days, in certain councils, are areas to dump your unwanted stuff. Well, we had the days wrong, but we did score a large sofa and huge armchair from these nice men who were also kind enough to back our van out and turn it around after Arlette slightly backed into one of their customer’s cars.

We headed over to Old Street about 4pm to start setting up and to meet with the other Alley Cats. It was the first time I saw the staked out alleyway for our installation. Despite having two residents’ entryways and one club’s exit, it seemed great, however disgustingly dirty… I was sure it was rat infested.

Two cleaned it up for an hour as us other four began hauling out the furniture a few blocks away. Ausra told me straight up, “I’ll help but I can’t really lift things.” We did fine. On our last trip back we were given praise of thanks by the bartender from the club for cleaning up all the sh*t. The two chaps that lived there also commended the new tidiness of their entrance and asked what the hell were we doing as Ellen and Arlette pushed the sofa to the opposite end and Jenny laid down some astro turf. “Oh do you mind if we make this space into a living room and throw a small get together for the people of the night?”

Amazingly they looked stunned as to why they never thought of such a good idea themselves and agreed… they were artists and also fabulously cool to supply us with electricity to power our boom box and light the fairy lights. This saved us from carrying and using the generator we rented, which was a huge bonus for me, particularly, as I forgot the manual.
Setting up the space:

D&AD Global Student Award

2007-05-28T10:42:00.000Z

The proposal put forth by Arlette and I to the Architecture Foundation for an installation in their new building is up for an award! Tinker's House either wins 3rd, 2nd or 1st and a chance to be made. We find out at an award ceremony on the 28th of June.

I can't even believe it.

Art Vaults exhibition - Summer 2007

2007-05-28T10:14:00.000Z

I’m delighted to be taking part in this summer’s Art Vaults exhibition in Southampton, curated by the arts organisation a space. Each year the medieval vaults in Southampton are open to host an exhibition to a selection of artists over the summer weekends.

I will be exhibiting A Map of the Ocean Between My Sister & Me for the first time. Instead of displaying my piece in a vault the curator suggested I have mine in the Bargate Monument Gallery http://www.bargategallery.org/. I went to see the space the other weekend and see why they felt it would work better there, it’s just lovely. So, I’m so excited!

Exhibition runs from 12th July to September 30th 2007

More about my work ...

A Map of the Ocean Between My Sister & Me

This is an installation of a collective source of water that maps the ocean between my house in London to my sister’s in NY. The piece is made up of around 50 filled, small, transparent, glass and plastic containers and text that describes where and when the water was collected. From restroom sinks, Adirondack streams, table water, and various others the work documents my four-day journey to arrive at my sister’s with fragments of the thing that separates us geographically, the ocean.

The samples of water will be displayed chronologically on a lightbox table with their details next to each, printed on acetate in handwritten text, all within a glass display case. The artwork establishes a connection with museology. Like an archaeological discovery the 50 bottles appear as artefacts in the long glass case. However, there is a poetic banality to the words that differs to the usual description of an object in a museum and gives the feeling of an entry in a person’s diary.

Work in progress - new large screenprints

2007-05-02T15:28:00.000Z

I'm half way through screenprinting. You can view the artwork here.
www.interpretationstohere.co.uk
the full project should be completed in the next month.

TINKER'S HOUSE

2007-04-12T08:44:00.001Z

A new installation in collaboration with Arlette

Excerpt from our proposal:
In our proposal for the Architecture Foundation installation we aim to conjure the idea of enchantment with transcribed imagery from a derelict house. We are bringing a familiar, domestic environment into Zaha Hadid’s new, maybe intimidatingly big and transparent structure.

The abandoned house itself is reduced to five 2.4meter high sheets of etched glass, which are accessible from all sides, forming a new kind of space. We change dimension, scale, utility, purpose, material and context of the derelict house.

The familiarity of the image is still there, but in a transformed state: crystallized and transparent, engaging the viewer to walk around it.

Our installation therefore aims to build a bridge between familiar and unfamiliar. By using big sheets of glass, which are an integral part of most contemporary architecture, we also imply that new materials have something magical to them, it is a transformation of space, a new, enchanted kind of shelter.

We find out in May or June if we got it

If You Have that Sick Feeling, Get Out!

2007-04-01T19:59:00.000Z

If I hadn’t have been warned at the last minute, not only would I have been completely taken for my artwork and a significant sum of money, I would have had to seriously reconsider how I got this negative energy into my life. Thankfully I freaked, a minor anxiety attack, in front of my friend Tom after explaining the most recent email of a man that I had just sold some art work to.

“Morris Anderson” contacted me through my website a few weeks ago, enquiring about a few of my pieces. He decided to purchase and explained he would send me a cheque for more than the price of the art and once it’s cleared I should transfer the extra cash to his shippers, who would come to package and collect the pieces. I told myself from the beginning not to think about the weirdness of the situation - how it seemed odd he found my portfolio online the day I put it live and before I told anyone - I justified this because “surely I was projecting my positive artistic energy out there and someone most likely plucked it out of the universe, realised I was brilliant and bagged a great deal in a terrific investment”. A long, hard, stupid feeling, “how can I be so naive”, siiiiiigh.

So a cheque for £4k arrived on Thursday, I deposited it and told Morris once it cleared I’d let him know so I could send the excess money to his shippers. Here’s the email I received on Friday that caused the sick feeling:
from Morris Anderson hide details Mar 30 (2 days ago)
to Erin Newell
date Mar 30, 2007 10:04 AM
subject Good Morning!!!
signed-by yahoo.com
mailed-by yahoo.com

Dear Erin,
Good Morning!
I'm just dropping in
to say,

"I hope you have
a wonderful day!"
May your morning be
sunny side up,
your afternoon bright too.
May the whole day
bring good news to you!.

Thanks so much for being faithful,honest and most expecially your mankindness!!! I've inform the shipping company that there money will be send on monday or tuesday because i immediately called the issuerer of the cheque that you've gotten it and i was told the money will available in your bank account on monday or tuesday morning.Thanks so much and reply me as soon as possible,so that I can inform he shipper to email you ther details where you will transfer the money to.

Thanks so much!!! Kindly keep the items for me in proper good maintanance till next wektuesday.

Morris.

After yelping about it to Tom and claiming to my husband I was about to be murdered, I calmed myself down by allowing myself to believe it was misunderstood because he is a foreigner. Things could be taken out of context with the translation?

Tom emailed me on Sunday with the clincher, his dad knew someone who was involved in a similar situation, although through eBay, the buyer sent her too much money and wanted the difference to be given to the shippers when they collected the item. Guess what? The shippers took the cash and the item, mean while the buyer canceled the remainder of the cheque so she got NOTHING. After minimal research on the web I discovered this scam has been happening for a while. At the very bottom I found this post on an arts forum:

I have had a similar experience with a man named Morris Anderson sending fake company cheques. I was intruiged to see where the scam was going so I followed the game through until he sent me a cheque. I then called the company that the payment had supposedly come from and informed them that this was happening and that I was onto him. I know this sort of thing goes on alot but BEWARE!!!!

Is there any point in trying to understand why someone would do this? How can I really be angry? Creeped out? Yes, but he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And thanking me for my “mankindedness”? OK something had to be fishy!!

I’m so thankful I was warned before it was too late. Thanks Tom! And thank you Rift, for not having a size 39 in the Vagabond, black, perfect two and a half-inch, 1920-esque shoes. And for the silver and white open-toe, with wooden wedges in patent-leather looking weird with jeans. And thank you Whistles, for the lovely spring coat in navy making me look fat. I never had the money, especially £4,000 to spend you on.

More scams can be read here, but be warned that they may evoke that sick feeling…
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/forum/saatchi_forums.php?action=topic&topicid=3496

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

2007-03-21T19:17:00.000Z

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

2007-03-08T08:57:00.002Z

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

2007-03-08T08:57:00.001Z

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

2007-03-06T18:25:00.000Z

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.

I suck at keeping a blog

2007-02-25T17:17:00.000Z

But think it's important to write about my work, since I also suck at keeping a sketch book, yet the latter is actually improving... I just stuck two newspaper clippings of interest inside.

The purpose of this post is to notify those individuals that do check my website out that it is being modified. Enhanced. But simplified. Even more so. Hence, why there's only one page up at the moment. www.tuttlebuttle.com See?

I thought the new version would be up last week but that of course was unrealistic. The new version will be up... soon.

Peace Camp - The Brick Lane Gallery 2 Dec - 31 Dec. Party tonight 1 Dec 6pm

2006-12-01T18:36:00.000Z

Come!

Now or Neverland

2006-12-01T14:41:00.000Z

Now or Neverland was an exhibition in September I took part in at The Residence Gallery. Artist and curator Ingrid Z gathered a selection of artists, gave them a bunch of "stuff" (mostly rubbish) and 24 hours later had everything hung for the opening party for the exhibition.
This year's theme was rococo.

The first (and most obvious) image I conjure up when I hear the word is Fragonard's "The Swing", a painting of a lady swinging above a man with her shoe flying off. I remember studying this period of art at college, I think it's really interesting not too mention so funny. I want to call it absurd, but it's really not... wait, maybe it is absurd because it's true? "It is an eminent aristocratic art, an art for the upper middle class fond of a fashionable style, intimate and delicate." Minus the "delicate" I think the subject matter of rococo painting is the equivocal of the contents of Hello magazine. Maybe?

The material I picked from the pile for the exhibition was an empty box of washing detergent, flourescent pink tempura, and some mdf. I had to make a swing! I cut the detergent box up and made it into doves and flowers, I had Phil tie up some rope to balance the swing, then I had cut up a grass skirt from a Hawaiian party I had three years ago (never throw anything away) and strung the plastic pieces down the side of the rope and attached the decorations. Lastly I made the seat a home for two miniature doll house gnomes where they could comfortably watch tv (this was Phil's idea, of course).

The opening party was great fun, and I was glad to see all the modern day rococo pieces made out of trash. With 24 hours to create you couldn't expect any super fine art, but you can appreciate the ideas and experimentation even if some are more exciting than others. But isn't that what art is all about?!

24 hours to create an exhibition is such a brilliant idea, I had a lot of fun making the piece, and I'm definitely going to keep my eye on the Residence Gallery for other great opportunities to arise in the future.
www.residence-gallery.com

Escape Attempt

2006-07-05T19:08:00.000Z

Arlette and I worked together again for an installation in the Love Hate exhibition. Arlette saw the Clerkenwell House of Detention before me and was set on the two of us working in the cell with the sand pit inside. I’m glad she chose this one because it worked so well with the idea we had, mind you we had the space before we had the idea. I thought the World Cup had to work it’s way into our piece somehow, I find it amazing that everyone watches it, it’s everywhere, I watch it, but it’s like people need it.
We decided we would use newspaper, bigger than life size cardboard cut outs, of people cheering and Arlette thought we could use a beach chair in the centre in front of a TV playing white noise. We thought the dotty graininess of the cutouts went along with what was on the television and hopefully not only visually linked the two but also conveyed something that all this cheering and excitement doesn’t really mean anything anyway.

You Can't Stop Me

2006-07-05T18:33:00.000Z

I was against the theme of my latest exhibition, Love/ Hate, from its inception and I’m sure I shouldn’t explain why for the sake of sounding cliché for dissing a cliché.

However trite the topic, the Clerkenwell House of Detention is a space not to be missed, it’s an amazing venue. The spot I picked for my installation was a passageway to a very long and dark corridor with prison cells either side. At first glance every horror film, or book, or dream, or experience I had, conditioned me to conjure a ghost at the end - the damp and misty air adds to this as well. I thought this was the perfect contrast to stuffing the beginning part with meters and meters of painted pink polyester wadding and stuffing.

What does pink fluff have to do with love and hate? To me, it has everything to do with it, I used the analogy of Sergei Prokofiev’s score Peter and the Wolf, perhaps a tongue and cheek response to Stalin’s request that music be reflective of the Communist ideal and simplistic and understandable… At first the room full of fluff was my tongue and cheek response to love and hate, just like the strings for peter and the 3 French horns for the wolf (the sound that accompanies my installation). In another light, the polyester I used was a comfy pink pile of bedding stuffed and blocking the dark tunnel that stretched far beyond, preventing me from getting by on to the long and dark path. In the end I no longer saw the corridor as scary, it was sort of peaceful, it was the grossly colored fluff that I found inhibiting, another contrast I hope I conveyed.

Exhibition- Clerkenwell Old Detention Center

2006-06-25T21:36:00.000Z

An exhibition I'll be taking part in with 40 others in east london opens this week, www.lovehate.tk
I'll be submitting two new installations.
One I'll be doing in collaboration with Arlette, moving on from a previous project we did in the city and the other, a solo piece, that I am so stressing about because I can't build it until the day before the private view... It may very well be I just submit the one piece with Arlette if mine doesn't come out right.

Clerkenwell House of detention
1.Jul.2006 -4.Jul.2006
12pm - 6pm

Superfluous

2006-06-25T18:37:00.000Z

Having no excuse for being.
Hand set, repeated over and over again until it filled the front of an a3 sheet. I got to print the 70 pages myself on the main printing contraption with spot varnish on gold paper. Ian laid the type on the press for me, but besides that it was very exciting to be in control of the prints and went along with the nature of what I was trying to communicate, doing something over and over again, something that looks aesthetically beautiful, where the laborious act of creation is hidden - like so much shit that's produced today.

hurrah for tuttle buttle being updated!

2006-06-13T19:11:00.000Z

work finally added in all sections http://www.tuttlebuttle.com/ and more to come later this week

A Map of the Ocean Between My Sister and Me

2006-05-16T17:28:00.000Z

My current project is a map of the ocean from my house in west London to my youngest sister's in Buffalo, western New York.

On my journey to visit her this last week I thought I'd map my route accross the sea by collecting nearly every source of water I came in contact with, bottling it in any kind of small jar I could find.

I've recorded each source of water by the form I found it, time and date of collecting, and location.

I came back to London this morning with some 50 odd samples: from rest room sinks on the plane over, thruway stops, drinking water, Adirondack streams, and loads more. I'm really enjoying this project, though at times I look like a not so undercover food and safety inspector in NY diners, it's been so much fun.

The next level I'm taking the project to is to have the bottles in a more interesting installation and have an A1 map sized letterpress design of my recordings.

A Map of the Ocean Between My Sister and Me
By Erin Newell

01. Camberwell College of Arts water canteen water fountain.
Peckham, London
1326 - 08.May.2006

02. Puddle on the way home from the tube
The Avenue, London
1512 - 08.May.2006

03. Bath at my house
Southfield Road, London
1805 - 08.May.2006

04. Drink from filter faucet in my kitchen.
Southfield Road, London
1209 – 09.May.2006

05. Washed hair after dying it
SCHWARZKOPF COUNTRY COLORS No. 75 Madagascar Rouge Noir. Southfield Road, London
1331 – 09.May.2006

06. Kettle for miso soup.
Southfield Road, London
1345 – 09.May.2006

07. Washing up at kitchen sink
Southfield Road, London
1410 – 09.May.2006

08. Ladies Room Sink.
London Heathrow Terminal 4
1657 – 09.May.2006

09. Vittel bottled
London Heathrow Terminal 4
1659 – 09.May.2006

10. Lavatory sink
Flight BA179
1850 – 09.May.2006

11. Drink with flight meal
Flight BA179
1915 – 09.May.2006

12. Water cup, Drink with flight meal
Flight BA179
1915 – 09.May.2006

13. Women’s room sink
John F. Kennedy airport
2029 – 09.May.2006

14. Ice from Sprite at rest stop
PlatteKill, 17 (Newburgh I-84) & 18 (New Paltz), Milepost 65
2311 – 09.May.2006

15. Bathroom sink at mom’s house
Gloversville, NY
0120 – 10.May.2006

16. Bottle from ma’s fridge
Gloversville, NY
0635 – 10.May.2006

17. Pool, Mom’s house
Gloversville, NY
0738 – 10.May.2006

18. Glass of
Travers Diner
Gloversville, NY
0950 – 10.May.2006

19. Dasani bottled, from Hannaford’s
Gloversville, NY
1730 – 10.May.2006

20. Shower,
Room L-3, Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, NY
2025– 10.May.2006

21. Glass of
View restaurant
Lake Placid, NY
2100 – 10.May.2006

22. Bathroom sink
Room L-3, Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, NY
2345 – 10.May.2006

23. Poland Spring bottled
mini bar, Room L-3, Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, NY
0907 – 11.May.2006

24. Mirror Lake
Lake Placid, NY
1123 – 11.May.2006

25. Last night’s ice from champagne bucket
Room L-3, Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, NY
1140 – 11.May.2006

26. Poland Spring bottled
Lake Placid, NY
0850 – 11.May.2006

27. Poland Spring bottled. Lake Placid, NY
1120 – 11.May.2006

28. Creek. Adirondack Mountains, High Peaks, Lake Placid, NY
1242 – 11.May.2006

29. Stream to Avalanche Lake. Adirondack Mountains, High Peaks, Lake Placid, NY
1350– 11.May.2006

30. Mount Marcy dam. Adirondack Mountains, High Peaks, Lake Placid, NY
1500– 11.May.2006

31. Rain. Lake Placid, NY
0950– 12.May.2006

32. Poland Spring bottled. Lake Placid, NY
1326 – 12.May.2006

33. Women’s room sink. Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, NY
1400 – 12.May.2006

34. Pond. Lake Placid, NY
1421 – 12.May.2006

35. Glass of. The Cottage Bar, Lake Placid, NY
1515 – 12.May.2006

36. Jacuzzi. Day Spa, Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, NY
1830 – 12.May.2006

37. Poland Spring bottled. mini bar, Room L-3, Mirror Lake Inn, Lake Placid, NY
0900 – 13.May.2006

38. Women’s room sink. Nice n’ Easy gas station, Watertown, NY
1258 – 13.May.2006

39. Women’s room sink. 39 (Syracuse West) & 40 (Weedsport), Milepost 292
1420 – 13.May.2006

40. Poland Spring bottled
1500 – 13.May.2006

41. Bathroom sink. Your house, Barker St, Buffalo, NY
1645 – 13.May.2006

42 – 53. Undocumented accounts from upstate NY water sources, mostly bottled water

Fake Paper Cut Out and a Real Angry Man

2006-05-06T19:08:00.000Z

My most recent project was an installation that carried on from my Berlin concept at Strausberger Platz. Arlette and I decided to construct in the city/ financial district of London, another memorial to an environment that once was, woodlands in England and animals that inhabited them.

We thought wallpapering a bus shelter with fake wooden vinyl paper and standing life size cardboard cutouts would be a great contrast to the concrete filled area.

We scouted the place on Wedensday, Liverpool Street, Monument, Bank, and around the likes until we stumbled on a beautiful building on Threadneedle Street with lovely columns. We thought this would be a fine spot and agreed to meet at 630am the next morning to install it in time for morning rush hour, and we figured it wouldn't be busy at this time.

I went home and printed out, glued together, and cut around the actual size of a wolf and a Eurasion Eagle owl, while Arlette took care of a deer.

And soon it was 5am, time to get up.

Because it was well before rush hour it only took me thirty minutes on the tube to get to Bank Station. The plan was to meet in front of the Royal Exchange building at one of the benches, I was fifteen minutes early, and that was too early and too much time to sit there and contemplate what we were about to do. I thought for sure we would get in trouble and was already rehearsing my lines as the nieve American and Swiss students, which of course is mostly true. It was wholey due to the fact that I didn't realise until then that the "beautiful building" we choose was the Bank of England. No matter how cute we could be I didn't think there would be anyway to talk ourselves out of defacing the property, and at 6 in the morning with a black plastic rubbish bag of animal cut outs I looked more like a homeless animal rights activist then a school girl.

Arlette arrived and she too was thinking the same on her cycle in, and neither of us could believe how busy the area was.

But we did it anyway.

It must have taken us ten minutes to set up. People stared but no one said a thing. We originally planned to do three sections, but we thought better not to risk it and instead to get some photos. I went off to throw our litter away and Arletter crossed to the other side to document it. By the time I got back (about five minutes after I got a cup of coffee) a man in a black suit was tearing it down.

Now even if he worked there, and I really think he didn't, the aggression that he ripped the paper down and kicked the cardboard animals in was just bizarre, why would he do that?
You can see the film from it here, if you look to the far right side, the man at the building. I wanted to get closer to film him, but then we figured if he's this mad we might get shot!

Artskool Exhibition Porto, Portugal

2006-05-06T10:58:00.000Z

Portugal is a special place.
Porto was only my second trip to the country, but you know when you go somewhere and you just love it? Like there's this great energy around it and you could so see yourself living there? That is how I feel about Portugal.
I went by myself to attend the private view of the Artskool exhibition I'm taking part in. It's the first time I had the opportunity to see my work shown internationally and I was so excited. It's also only the second time I've exhibited internationally, the first, the show in Paris a few months prior.
I was really looking forward to seeing the other artists' work and meeting everybody. The first night I arrived, after checking in, I went to meet the others at their hotel, the few artists that came over from Paris. There was Adrian (the curator), Sophie (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts), and Emeric (Beaux-Arts) who made it to Porto on a 24 hour bus journey... and I felt bad for complaining about Ryan Air, Julian, another artist from Beaux-Art was too ill from the journey to make it out with us that night. Samantha, my friend and artist from the Slade shortly joined us and we headed out into the pouring, slashing rain to go to a party at the Universidade do Porto. Twenty minutes later we ended up dripping on the floor of the fantastic building the college is in only to find the party was cancelled, it was a BBQ. Oh.

In any rate we found one of those great Portuguese bars that's packed with young people drinking Superbock and chain smoking, and dried off there with a few beers and a side of pommes frites.
I was so nervous the next day about the opening.
So, I decided to call a friend of a friend's father's friend and do some sightseeing. Why not? The sun was finally out and it was an amazing day! The day out confirmed my love for Portugal, fantastic architecture, great food, and a beautiful beach.

Galeria do Palacio in Porto is a fantastic exhibition space. I couldn't believe that my work was hanging there and more shockingly that I liked it (disastrous visions of having to run out of the gallery after being discovered my work was accidentally accepted kept overwhelming me beforehand). It was such a great feeling to be pleased with my own stuff.

RIGHT LEFT

2006-05-06T10:44:00.000Z

Strausberger Platz, the remains of a fallen system

2006-05-02T20:57:00.000Z

Strausberger Platz was constructed in the 1950s after the second world war and was built by socialist workers from war ruins to create decadent facades to architecturally glorify communism (to the west side). It is the starting point of Karl Marx Allee and was once the pride of east Berlin. The main architect was Hermann Henselmann, who designed the area in the then contemporary, stalinistic-neoclassic style of the 1950s. Karl Marx Allee was actually called Stalin Allee until 1961. The boulevard extends from Strausberger Platz to Alexander platz and is a unique representation of Socialist Realist architecture in Germany.

It’s once decadent and demonstrative ideal, a glorification of a system, has now lost it’s significance only to function as a motorway roundabout. In the centre stands a fountain surrounded by ta very dismal metal art deco-esque sculpture. At night Strausberger Platz is even more depressing. The entire area is dark and the fountain switched off.

Arlette and I wanted to create something in the area as a reminder of what once was, a kind of monument or cemetery. I like the idea of a life size photo album in the space, like a picture on a grave.
So, we cover all of the buildings in gold wallpaper from top to bottom, we fill the fountain with dirt and erect a life size image/ photograph of the fountain standing on top of it. The materials we use, mainly paper or cardboard are 2 dimensional to contrast with the space and environment, and most importantly what is actually there and what is just a representation, or a symbol of the past.

Bang

2006-05-01T18:39:00.000Z

I was pretty stunned the other night when my mom told me she didn’t really enjoy Tate Modern.

How can anyone not love modern art?
Ok, I see her point.

She said it made her feel uncomfortable and she didn’t know why people would want to make art about things like that. She said, “you know what really upset me, those paintings that you said were surreal and they were like nightnmares.”

And I said, ‘Yeah, but, Mom, isn’t it so amazing that art can just make you feel. That even though you don’t think it’s a good piece of work, you don’t like it, but it causes you to react in some way, don’t you think that’s powerful?”

“Not really.” She said. “Like I was wondering about the painting in your living room. Why do you have a painting of guns in there? I don’t get it. I said to myself, why the heck did she paint this?”

I think that’s a good question.

I explained how I wanted to represent the iconic nature of the gun, masculine, violence, power... and contrast it with associations to color, yellow = cowardice, pink = feminine, playfulness... She thought that was very intelligent.

But why would my 8 foot painting of guns bother her? Someone who has three different kinds of rifles in her closet?

Unveiling

2006-05-01T18:26:00.000Z

I never should have underestimated the complexity of humour and how hard it is to be funny. Even after the lecture we had from a stand up comic, who said it was the easiest thing in the world, I should have know better, that he’s far too modest and making people laugh is difficult!

Freud says we laugh to rid our subconscious feelings of aggressions or our repressed feelings of sexual desire, like how we laugh at dirty jokes or the ones when someone gets hurt…

In any rate, I was intrigued by the relationship between humour and sex, and to the image of the body and the pornographic. It’s an interesting subject to me mostly because of the hysteria around it. The whole idea of a part of the human body being pornographic - depending on context - and the taboo around sex, even the fascination with it and how that all changes depending on the culture of the gender of a person... Would people even be bothered with it if there wasn’t a social stigmatism around it? is it the whole thing with being naughty? Ok different subject, not going into that right now.

Here’s what I was thinking when my fellow student, Arlette and I, came up with the idea of the “unveiling project”… penises just aren’t funny. According to our lecturer he said you’ll always get a laugh if you talk about them, wanking or whatever, and he was right! We went to a stand up night and nearly every male comedian had some version of the word… and people laughed. I couldn’t understand it, but if juvenile humour is the way to go I thought if I made the biggest penis in the world people must find it hysterical. I told Arlette the idea and she agreed carrying in a big sculpture and just leaving it standing in the middle of the room would be funny and suggested a giant paper mached cock would be guaranteed to get some laughs. Don’t get me wrong, of course I had my doubts during construction about what people might think, but that’s the whole point!

That night I went to buy chicken wire, the next day glue, and we set to work. We were happy right away after we built the base structure out of the wire, but things didn’t go so well once we started gluing. The weight of the wet paper was causing the sculpture to collapse... clever Arlette thought it best to lie it on its side, and then shoved a chair inside and sort of hoist ed up the middle with twine to the ceiling. We also didn’t want anyone to see what we were building before the performance and so then decided to store it in the small office of the studio, which meant we had to go through the whole tying up procedure again.

By the middle of the next day that proved to be an exercise in futility as the heat from the room not only prevented the paper mache to dry but all of the newspaper we taped to the the walls fell off and the sculpture was exposed!

We didn’t get to painting until the early morning of the day of the performance. Though painting was the easiest part of the construction and where the sculpture really came to life. We left it to dry and went to the studio to watch the beginning part of the performances. It was soon our turn and as Arlette and I were the only members from our group that decided to participate in this I started to get really nervous, not because the entire first to third year of graphics students would be watching, but what if they didn’t laugh!

Arlette thought it would be good to dress in security jackets with fake moustaches and I was up for the idea of being disguised. We could hardly carry the structure downstairs to the performance area as it was so large and unstable and not completely dried. We entered the room with this huge ten foot thing covered in a dirty dust sheet and took it to the centre of the room then up onto the top of a table... the problem was we couldn’t unveil it... we couldn’t get high enough to lift the dust sheet off. When we finally uncovered it the whole thing flopped over! I was too embarrassed to remember if anyone laughed or not and I’m pretty sure they didn’t , but seemed most likely terrified by the two perverts who created it!!!
Click here to see the performance

Man looking down, outside on the balcony of Tate Modern, after seeing the Martin Kippenberger exhibition

2006-03-06T16:42:00.000Z

Martin Kippenberger, you have always been cool, not just after you died

2006-03-06T16:22:00.000Z

Martin Kippenberger’s first retrospective in the UK is at Tate Modern until the 14th of May and definitely worth a visit. It’s a great opportunity to see the diverse range of the late hyperactive contemporary artist . The German artist’s work encompasses painting, prints, books, drawing, installation and sculpture that draw on countless subjects, from popular culture to questioning authenticity within art.

His installation, The Happy End of Kafka’s Amerika, is fantastic! The concept is based on Franz Kafka’s unfinished novel Amerika, where the main character travels across the country to apply for a job at the ‘biggest theatre in the world’. Kalfka abandoned the novel, but it was published after his death in 1927. I’m dubious about Kippenberger never actually reading the book, he just heard the story from a friend, and claimed the unfinished novel leaves possibilities open for a ‘happy ending’... but I guess it doesn't really matter if he read the book or not (is it kind of cheating?).

Kippenberger’s installation is different pieces of furniture set out on playing turf. The ‘match’ is arranged between imaginary employers and job seekers across quirky interview stations. It can be interpreted in countless ways, but I find the invisible dialogue it creates, different at each table, hugely interesting as it suggests such a range of personalities.

This is what I thought about after seeing the Kippenberger exhibition at Tate Modern:
1. Is Martin Kippenberger REALLY one of the most influential artists of the last 30 years? Or do I just accept that because the Tate says so?
2. Does the question: 'Why do artists only become famous after they die?' go hand in hand with the cliché: starving artist? I mean do you have to be poor and drunk and reckless as an artist and then die to get recognised?
3. Why doesn’t it say within the exhibition, how Kippenberger dies? (he died in 1996, aged 44, from liver cancer) Did I miss that?
3. Why can’t you walk through The Happy End of Kafka’s Amerika? (You can only walk around it, even if it does go with the set on playing turf/ view as spectator idea, I want to walk through it!

Zen and the Art of Letterpress Type Setting

2006-02-27T19:45:00.000Z

The first time I had an induction to the letterpress I not only felt daunted by the vast amount of intricate type and all of the finicky processes, but was told I needed to be tested for dyslexia by my tutor!

Anyone familiar with letterpress setting knows that each letter, cast in metal or wood, is reversed so when you print they read the right way, kind of like when you hold a page of text up to a mirror... This dumfounded me and I found it completely impossible to grasp, I just couldn’t decipher the letters, n’s were u’s, and b, p, d and q were all the same. To top it off, I kept laying out my text left to right, making it doubly backwards. I should note that there is a little map that goes with the type cases that is printed the RIGHT way around so you can easily find the letters, but this was of no use to me.

One of our tutors asked if I was dyslexic, or maybe he just pointed it out, “you’re dyslexic.” In any rate, I thought about it for a second, how sometimes I read things the wrong way, can never make sense of left or right, and at times write numbers back to front... shit, I thought everyone had that!!

The technician at the Camberwell press is an absolute angel , only for his patience and his perfection did my work come out exactly the way I envisaged. Ian’s been at the college for years, and everyone loves him. He has an open ear to designers’ wishes and the foresight and experience to offer suggestion. But on the printing press is where his genius comes out, he sets everything he works on to absolute little, tiny, minute, detailed precision. Any indent or space too wide he gets... For me, any letter or word backwards. He is good!
He’s quick to point out the facilities are not what they used to be though, but who can blame him, at one point the college boasted one of the best collections of letterpress type in Europe. That changed a while ago when the college, for whatever reason, got rid of half of the equipment and type.

Well, I decided to approach letterpress again after the first term of graphic’s “dyslexia point out” and redo the sentence I was trying to illustrate for my typography elective. Spot varnishing was suggested, so I wanted to give that a go and explore the idea of invisible text. I liked the result this produced so I thought I’d carry on with the rest of the series, laying out a paragraph and page of text, in this way.

It wasn't until I was setting the page of text, that something clicked with me with type setting... there’s no rushing it. I know that is obvious, but how I mean it is, at the beginning it REALLY frustrated me, but after awhile I just learned to appreciate it for what it was... s l o w... and that’s ok . It’s the only thing I’ve ever done that forces me to be in the present moment. I’m not sure if it’s because of my personal struggle with the process, but when I’m setting type I’m fully focused on only that.

Of course the quality the letterpress presents over digital, laser, or whatever high-tech printer, is unmatched, and I hope that’s not just in the eye of the one who sets it. I think over the last seven weeks I’ve set nearly a thousand words, the last 600 took me around thirteen hours to put together only to have ONE print.

Now what I have yet to do, but hope comes to me as peacefully, is zen and the art of putting letterpress type away....

Why We Watch Movies During the Elective Course

2006-02-27T18:10:00.000Z

It had to be pointed out to me by my typography tutor what the purpose of watching movies on a Thursday and Friday had to do with our elective course. Don’t get me wrong, film is one of my favourite forms of art, yet it was impossible for me to make the connection between what movie was actually shown and what it had to do with my art education.

The films we watch are in Peckham cinema and accompany a fantastic lecture. My favourite was Seeing is not Seeing, a very interesting look at illusions and how our brain manipulates our sensory responses. Click below for more.
http://web.mit.edu/persci/gaz/gaz-teaching/index.html
http://www.lottolab.org/Illusions%20page.html

Anyway, back to why we watch crappy movies... For example, Hollow Man, Paul Verhoevan’s film about scientists who discover how to make people invisible, but their test subject becomes an insane killer who stalks them - staring Elizabeth Shue and Kevin Bacon. If anyone has seen it they’d know it’s a cheesy horror flick with great special effects, and yes it is one of the many where you see Kevin Bacon’s butt...

Thank god we discussed the purpose for watching these films in class or I would have never figured out that as artists and designers you need to make the connection of what you are watching/ experiencing, otherwise you’re just downloading information. You need to put it in perspective of what you are studying and what you are interested in, take the Hollow Man’s wonderful animation sequence of Kevin Bacon turning invisible, or the ape, as an animator and figure drawer you could appreciate the level of detail in the anatomy and the sequential breakdown to transparency.

I like this way of thinking. It’s positive! It stops me from moaning, “this sucks”, or “I don’t get it” and establish a connection to something relevant that I’m doing at the moment.

Mark Pawson's lecture at Camberwell

2006-02-26T20:05:00.000Z

I’m not going to compare Mark Pawson’s work to Tony Hayward’s because I don’t think it’s fair, even though both are book artists, their style and approach is completely different. They both publish books about their collections, Mark's have a lovely hand made feel to them, while Tony’s are printed in letterpress, something I’ll go into later where I'll convince you that there just is no comparison. I would, however, like to compare the experience of the their lectures because both of their talks at Camberwell are the only real in depth work of artist’s book art I’ve been exposed to.

Mark Pawson had a much larger audience, instead of presenting to just the typography elective students, about 20, he did his to around 80.
Like Tony, Mark showed us his collection of hand made books about his collections. Noggins, those small wooden troll like viking figures, and Kindereggs, the chocolate eggs with a toy inside, are a couple I remember - and what he said were his most noted books.

I like the roughness of the Kinder Egg book and the quirkiness of the subject. Being from the States I’ve never in fact experienced the chocolate egg myself, but wonder if it’s fair to compare them to the comics inside Bazooka Joe bubble gum?

My favourite piece of his was his Open/ Closed necklace he designed in collaboration with Tatty Devine. I think it exceeds his other work in craftsmanship and wit.

Besides the larger audience Mark presented to, he also had to deal with three slide projectors being faulty making it impossible to show his work on screen. This I think was a good thing as we got to see first hand and experience the actual work. He was also put on the spot quite haughtily by a few students who questioned why he didn’t get a bigger publisher to distribute his books, and what the lecture had to do with illustration (it was in the timetable as an illustration talk).

I say I like the roughness as an element of Mark’s work and the hand made quality to it but I have to say in respect to the cost it is lacking in quality compared to the books of Tony Hayward that are similar in size but for me surpass Mark’s in construction and material and for a less expensive price.

Mark ended his lecture though in true style and gave the students that were left in the auditorium free dibs on a bunch of his work!

You can check out a collection of the artist’s work here http://www.mpawson.demon.co.uk/

Paragraph of text, an installation for typography

2006-02-26T18:27:00.000Z

I don’t know what’s drawing me towards more sculptural and installation projects, but I think I’m slowly defining what direction I want my art to take.

After considering different topics of text to use for my paragraph layout for the typography elective, I came up with the idea of writing how I came up with the idea. It sounds confusing but all I did was write my response to the critique we had from our sentence illustration project and my thought processes and actions to resolve the paragraph.

The text for my paragraph is this:

Get rid of broken bulb Push it back Try spot varnish Ask Ian Write with wire Construct so it can be reproduced Limited Copies One hundred words Scan glass Photocopy shattered glass Try tracing paper Project text with light Manipulate shadow Keep shattered glass Spot varnish looks good Find smooth shiny paper Place sentence in top left corner Mount broken glass top right and bottom left Shadow in the centre Spot varnish paragraph of text Thought process of coming up with this idea Place bottom right

I thought this language worked well with my sentence, I have no idea, it’s just a simple juxtaposition of the statement. I left out all full stops because I wanted it to be just one stream of thought/ text.

I was pleased again with the spot varnish and next tried the installation. From the paragraph you’ll see that my original intention was to have the image projected on to the letterpressed paper, but I actually preferred it on its own, huge on the wall.

I have no idea, sentence redo

2006-02-26T18:01:00.000Z

Sam, our typography tutor, suggested I try spot varnish on the letterpress for the next working stage of my sentence.
I was really pleased with the way this came out! Even though, he didn’t want me to go back to actual smashed glass, I decided I liked it to much to listen. So, I ended up spot varnishing the text, printed by Ian and gluing the glass onto the paper that was adhered to mount board.

I like the spot varnish because it gave it a lovely shimmery effect, and you could hardly see it depending on the light. I decided I would stay with this technique for my paragraph and page of text projects.

Tony Hayward and Book Art

2006-02-26T17:48:00.000Z

Tony Hayward gave our typography class a presentation of his astounding collection of all sorts of STUFF one Wednesday afternoon. I’m capitalising STUFF here to somehow illustrate how much of it there really was, a ton! Mainly it consisted of his artist books about his art, and items and experiences from his trips to India. It also included, letterpressed postcards, invitations, flip books, art books, plastic bags recycled from banners from Indian streets among other things. Actually thinking of the plethora of STUFF makes it hard to recall exactly how much STUFF there actually was.
What I do recall is how everyone seemed to listen intently, or appreciatively I would say, because of how he described his STUFF. It was like he was so into it that we were into it. For example the way he described the big, plastic, plaid, mothball smelling bag made from an Indian street banner was not done with necessary over the top excitement, but was endearing because Tony really was excited about it, you could tell he just really loved his STUFF. It was like he gave us a peak into the time capsule of his life, like we were looking through his attic... you have to give respects to that.

Tony’s work can be found at the book store
http://www.bookartbookshop.com/docs/opening.htm
Tony Hayward has been publishing books and postcards since the early 1990s. They feature his own work as a visual artist under such titles as The Castle and other works and Comedy of Errors. Travelling to India for more than fifteen years, he has also published books which document his collection of Indian contemporary objects formed during trips to the Sub-continent. With such titles as Made in India and 89 Indian Kerosene Lamps they focus on utilitarian objects made from scrap or waste material.

Illustrating a sentence, I have no idea

2006-02-26T17:01:00.000Z

The first typography project Sam set the class was to illustrate a sentence without using images, strictly text. We did this in graphics the first quarter in letterpress and I hated it then... just as much as I did in that moment. Last time we had to choose from Rumi, this time was more Rumi but also Wilde and a children’s poetry author that I can’t remember.

The statement I chose reflected the bewildered temperament I had in the instant. I chose a sentence from a Rumi poem, it was, ‘”I have no idea.”

The next thing we did was go around and room and tell the rest of the class our sentence then everyone had two minutes to write down their suggestions of how to approach the brief.

The brain storming session was not as useful as I wanted it to be to help come up with a direction for my project. I told the class I didn’t want to use light bulbs straight off the bat, let’s get rid of the clichés. I wanted to do something on thought process, illustrating something big and blurry and complex and ending with small and simple, something kind of honest. I wanted to try hand drawing the text.

We had to present two or three options the following week, this is what I was trying to narrow down from:

1. On crumpled paper, “I have no” on the edges “idea” in the middle
2. Lots of crumpled paper in a bin with the text “I have no idea” scattered throughout and visible through the rubbish bin basket wire.
3. Written in a fingerprint on an exhalation from a bus window
4. On scraps of paper
5. A maze coming out with “idea” at the end
6. blank canvas
7. some kind of mechanical machine, an idea machine
8. drawing of elaborate “idea” and “i have no” printed on an eraser
9. print on toilet paper and each square has a different letter of “i have no idea”
10. post it notes, hand drawn “i d e a” printed on an eraser “i have no”
11. printed on a pencil

The problem I was facing was I kept coming to the conclusion that to illustrate “I have no idea” was to display a white piece of paper, a blank one. I didn’t want to use the letterpress because of my hatred for its finicky application and if I was going to have to use text, which is the whole point, I wanted to hand draw it.

I considered writing the words “I have no idea” and blacking them out. Then I wanted to try smashing a light bulb onto the paper around it. In the end I wrote I have no idea on the light bulb and smashed it, this was my starting point.

My second approach was to hand draw the word idea, a letter each on a post it note, rub them out, and carve “I have no” into an eraser. Three attempts it took me to do this, as much as I enjoyed cutting into rubber, it was a painfully slow process.

I also tried “i have no idea” on pencils, I thought this would work well if I painted each pencil to look like a light bulb... four hours later I was asking myself, “what the hell was I thinking this looks ridiculous” the cliché had got me! I tried with simply the text and it was more successful and took only 15 minutes instead of a few hours.

The majority of the class agreed that the smashed light bulb was the strongest and to work from this, Sam at the time did not. He wanted me to “push it back” for it to be able to be reproduced. Of course I went against this and wanted it to remain sculptural, so decided to make an installation! The next project was to illustrate a paragraph of text, this we needed to source ourselves and had to tie in somehow with the sentence.

It is what it is, Dan Flavin at the Hayward

2006-02-25T17:34:00.000Z

I think I went to the Dan Flavin exhibition at the Hayward too early on a Monday morning because my eyes were so sensitive to the light that I could only take 40 minutes in of this stunning show.

As soon as you enter the exhibition it’s as if you immediately transcend into a futuristic, disco glowing, geometric green field of kryptonite. And immediately you want to “oooh and ahhh”...and put on sunglasses.

I was not at all familiar with Flavin’s work but knew that of his friends and contemporaries, Donald Judd and Carl Andre. I have to say I wasn’t an avid fan of American Minimalism until I saw Flavin’s work. I think it’s fascinating and full of energy in the literal and metaphorical sense. Flavin’s work is what it is: aesthetically pretty installations of light, but it’s more than that too. He’s not just whacking up light bulbs, he’s consciously considering colour, space and shadow, and however the simplicity comes across, the intelligence of those matters are also apparent. It’s like he’s painting with light and it creates something very lovely and almost audio. I can’t remember if you can hear the buzz of the light bulbs but I felt like it created something musical.

I enjoyed the sketches and drafts that were on display, I spent probably more time looking at these, as I said, it was very early and very bright for a Monday. But in these framed pages was a peak into the thought process and planning for the installations which was a great insight into the light constructions.

I love how Flavin named his work, usually personal acknowledgements to his friends or interests. There didn’t seem to always be a link between the name and the actual work, but I like that too. Some of them are called:

the diagonal of May 25, 1963 (to Constantin Brancusi)

pink out of a corner (to Jasper Johns)

monument 4 for those who have been killed in ambush (to P.K. who reminded me about death)

untitled (to you, Heiner, with admiration and affection)
1973

Flavin was born in Queens, NY in 1933. Besides doing a few art courses at Columbia he had no formal art education. I was intrigued to find before he became an artist he was studying to be a priest. He died in 1996.

I found this quote of his about his work and think it sums up the show. Check it out it’s at the Hayward until April 2 and it’s half price on Mondays, just don’t go too early...

Robert Morgan Animation Lecture Overview

2006-02-25T11:50:00.000Z

Robert Morgan is a 30 year old animator and film maker. He came in to Camberwell to give a lecture on animation to our course elective group and show his stuff. I was very impressed by his work... but I also have to say that I was seriously creeped out by it, even now, thinking about it disturbs me, his work is so dark and weird... I loved it!

I much prefer his stop animation pieces to his more recent live action work. In most of his early animations the main character is rendered from plasticine, or plasticine like, to look old, ugly, pot-belied and asexual, the substance they’re made from creates a very visceral reaction. But it’s not really how these characters look that’s the most engaging, it’s Morgan’s stories. Take for example,

The Separation a tale of separated siamese twins, who then realise one day while at work they want to be conjoined again and go ahead with the procedure... just thinking about it now bothers me.

Cat with Hands is an interesting concept but I think it lost a lot of Morgan's edge incorporating live action. This is a short film based on his young sister’s nightmare, a cat that has human hands. The film is an account of a feline that lives in a graveyard and steals people’s body parts for himself.
See what you think, view it here, http://www.jengajam.com/r/Cat-With-Hands

And I’d say Monsters, his first short live action film, was the least successful that he presented to us. "It's the story of 8-year-old Stan, a troubled child with a vivid imagination and a spiteful older sister. One Sunday afternoon, violent visions and sibling hostility spiral dangerously out of control." For me, the blood and guts to it just seemed unnecessary, like they were only added to look cool instead of for purpose, as I think it would have been much darker with out it. I thought the hostile relationship between the brother and sister was interesting, but again, it just didn’t seem believable at times that they could be so evil. I don’t know, maybe Morgan was just trying to fit too much in? The boy’s skin disease on his hands, the bullying older sister, his imagination, the relationship between the kids and the mother, the asylum, and then the next door rabbit... in 10 minutes.

In any rate, I feel Robert Morgan is an extremely interesting and talented artist.
Even if I didn’t particularly care for his most recent work, I think he’s someone to watch out for in the future and I hope he still continues with his provocative stop animations.

From Animation to Typography, an Elective Switch

2006-02-25T11:44:00.000Z

The typography elective has turned out to be a surprise. A good surprise! I entered the course after a disappointing first day of animation...

After being stuck in that sweaty IT PC lab for three hours going through the beginnings of Flash MX I was bored and disappointed. I thought it would have been more drawing or concept based, but it was in fact, a step by step guide to using the Macromedia software. For me, I’ve been using it for the past four years, so that first day was tedious, though on a positive note, since I’ve always used it to publish for the web it was nice to learn a few new tricks for doing heavier file size animations.

Thankfully I saw Patrick, graphics course director, in the canteen area during lunch, and thankfully he asked me how the elective was going. Of course I didn’t hold back my criticism and after describing my frustrations he said, “I thought you’d be better off with typography...” at this time I panicked a little, realising he just confirmed my suspicion that I sucked at type during the first 10 weeks of graphics and thought, I should take his suggestion and try to improve.

That night I was feeling hesitant about switching and thought I’d best speak to the animation tutor to see if she could offer any advice. I HATED typography in Graphics and felt dubious about transferring, even after speaking to Patrick, I was convinced I just had a bad first day in animation. So, I approached the tutor in the next morning’s lecture (Robert Morgan’s animation) and told her I felt the class might not be right for me with all of my Flash experience and asked if we would be learning any of the traditional and experimental concepts of animation. She replied with something along the lines of this, “you can push the brief whichever way you like, Katie will be doing some tutorials in After Effects, but no, I won’t have time to show you how to get under a camera. I can’t tell you what to do, you have to do what you want to do.”

I left after the lecture and switched to typography.