The Ten Minute Session: The Development

The Ten Minute Sessions can now be found on ACL Essex social media sites.

Having the sessions shared on this blog was a great opportunity to reach a wider audience. However, it did mean some tweaking in regards to content. In keeping with my role at ACL, as an Art Tutor all the activities are now creative and the activities are also accompanied by a written blog post explaining the benefits and skills gained by completing each session.

Below are some of the session (past and future) which will feature on the blog.

• Intro to line drawing: Continuous Line
• Paper folding, make a secret teller
• Doodle these images
• Draw this
• Intro to line drawing: blind line drawing
• Paper folding, make a concertina
• Automatic writing
• Draw straight lines
• Instructional art
• Memory drawing
• Non dominant hand drawing
• Drawing circles
• Double writing
• Emotional mark making
• Object Tracing
• Nature mandala art
• Intro to line drawing: Contour drawing
• Make a cube

Developing a Peer Support Programme: Part One: Colchester Crit Collective

My plans to start a peer support programme started in 2018 while completing my MA Fine Art. The Professional Development module prompted me into action.

The rationale behind this decision was that after completing my BA Fine Art in 2016 I felt something of a creative isolation. Suddenly there was no-one to talk to about my practice and I felt as a result my work stopped progressing. In creating a creative support network, I hoped to develop my own art world (Tilley and Davis, 2016), of like-mined creatives. 

My focus was on the ‘art world’ rather than the ‘art market’ as I am more interested in the exchange of thoughts and ideas, than brute wealth (Thornton, 2009), as I felt that this would be more beneficial to my art practice and continued development - albeit, not as beneficial to my livelihood. However, the art world is larger than just the art market (Thornton, 2012).

I felt that there was a gap in the market for this kind of set-up based on my own lived experience. While Colchester plays host to many art groups, I had not found anything locally which put sharing ideas and feedback at its centre. 

Initially I started to develop Colchester Crit Collective, which brought together peer feedback and tea and cake. These sessions where hosted in a number of different cafes, as finding a free venue proved impossible. As the sessions where free to attend, there was no money to pay for venue hire. At this stage my lack of interest in money was doing the development of the sessions a disservice, as while I am interested in an meeting of minds, businesses are very much interested in the exchange for services for money. 

However, I felt that the groups being free was important and was also a common theme within my research (Thorne, 2012 and Madoff, 2009), just think, The Copenhagen Free Art School (Madoff, 2009).

The intention of Colchester Crit Collective was to create a group which would run regularly and give creatives a sense of stability and at its heart would focus on providing a supportive platform  for artists to show work, test ideas and receive critical feedback from their peers (Day, 2012), outside of an educational context.  Allowing creatives to develop their practices (Percy, 2004) and receive feedback opening the opportunity for development of work and possible collaborations and events (Davis and Tilley, 2016).

The Format 

·       Artists will be invited to join the monthly Colchester Crit Collective sessions–there is no commitment to attend all sessions (but it is encouraged!)

·       Sessions will take the form of an informal table discussion

·       Artists not showing works are encouraged to join and offer critique

Running Order

1. Start-Welcome and Introductions
2. Artists invited to layout work/documentation/ideas on the table
3. Group Discussion
4. End–Networking Opportunity

Showing Work

·       Artist are invited to bring work or work in progress to be critiqued and it is strongly recommended that artist have an aim for the session, such as questions they want answers to (in relation to how their work is developing, intent, content, use of materials, exhibiting etc.

As my Professional Development module came to an end the wheels started to come off Colchester Crit Collective, it had been successful in terms of creating a small community of creatives, attendees were encouraged to bring along their creative friends to expand the network (Bhandari and Melber, 2009). However, it was clear that expansion was needed to create something viable. 

Coming Soon

Developing a Peer Support Programme: Part Two: Creative Practitioner Support Programme

References

Bhandari, H. D. and Melber, J. (2009) ART/WORK: Everything You Need to Know (and Do) As You Pursue Your Art Career. FreePress; Original ed.

Davis, R. and Tilley, A. (2016) What they didn’t teach you in art school: What you need to know to survive as an artist. Ilex.

Day. P. (2012) The Are Group Crit: How do you make a firing squad less scary? [online] Available at: arts.brighton.ac.uk/projects/networks/issue-18-july-2012/the-art-group-crit-how-do-you-make-a-firing-squad-less-scary. [accessed 30/01/20].

Madoff, S. H. (2009) Art School: Propositions for the 21st century. MIT Press.

Thornton, S. (2012) Seven Days in the Arts World. GrantaBooks.

Tilley, A. and Davis, R. (2016) What They Didn't Teach You in Art School: How to Survive as an Artist in the Real World. Ilex Press; 01 Edition.

My Current Artist Statement

My artistic practice explores the use of text and site, examining how the context of a site can change the reading of any given text and provides the cultural frame work for the art work to exist within. The work produced is usually temporary, drawing on notions of time and place, duration and mutability. This is echoed in the use of language, as that too is affected by these factors. Language changes depending on when and where it is exists, and the meaning of words is edited and changed as time passes. Nothing is fixed and my practice focuses very much on nowness.

One of the main processes which takes place within my practice is the playing with language, I will often use synonyms and antonyms. I enjoy breaking language and pushing it to its limits; whether this means the use of repetition or removal of text until the language no longer makes sense. The text used within my work varies: some works use found text, others are created by automatic means – the silliness of Dadaism draws me in. However, in both instances they depend on our shared public language and social facts. The everyday nature of language and its accessibility to audiences appeals to me.

The notion of audience/audiencing and community/communication are important to my practice, as the work exists outside of an art gallery context. Therefore, the viewers of the work may not necessarily be looking at it intentionally. To engage this everyman audience, I strive to make text choices which comment on life, rather than art. One of the main reasons I use text within my practice is because we have temporal relations with it and thus, even if the viewer does not reach the same interpretation as my intention, they are still engaging with it on some level. Time and place come into play here too, as the same text will be read differently by the same person if the text is placed in a new site. The text used within my practice is often vague and embraced the audience’s interpretations of the text and the loss of control over it, echoing Barthes feelings on the Death of the Author.

My practice lends itself to installation work, the usual criteria for sites used within my practice are the Duchampian unchoice. These territories appeal to me due to their usually overlooked presence.

My process swings between two opposing pillars; choosing text specifically fitting to sites and putting text into sites and allowing it to resonate. These are varying processes, however I find the process of both compelling, as either way a dialogical relationship will take place between the art and the site [and the audience]. Working within different sites appeals to me as each has their own specific limitation and these limits help to establish and frame the text.

My practice takes a DIY approach, again infused with Dadaism, as such I use materials which are often inexpensive and processes that are easily accessible. Simplisticity can rule and as such the text is curated into the site carefully.

Online Learning? I'm Student Again...for 11 weeks

I love learning and am a firm believer in the importance of continued professional development. I have been out of education for over a year now 

To continue my CPD activity I have enrolled on an online course, this is the first online course that I have completed (other than online training, which tends to be fairly quick, not interactive and full of prerecorded videos, all culminating in a multi-choice question quiz and printable certificate). 

In this blog I will reflect on the experience of taking part in an online short course. The course runs from week of 13th January to week of 9th March. 

In the first instance I have been provided with a timetable and given access to an online learning environment, which include an area to chat to my tutor and other learners on the course. The timetable sets out sessions for webinars and indicates times when we must talk to other learners. So my initial thought is that the course will be fairly interactive, rather than just working through materials on your own. 

As of the 14th January I have completed all but one of the orientation tasks, the last being to introduce ourselves on the online chatroom. I am putting this off as no-one else has introduced themselves and going first feels scary, there is not guidance regarding what to include in this introduction and frankly I do not want to come across in the wrong way, say too much or too little. On reflection this is counterproductive, as everyone else may be feeling the same and then no-one will comment. In situations like this I often consider what it is I would say to a student and that would be something along the lines of 'everyone is feeling the same' with the implication that you should just do it. 

It is now the 29th January and I have just posted my introductory message onto the site. The deadline to do with was the 31st January and from the looks of it there has been a last minute rush from many of those enrolled. 

Coming up we need to test our webcam and speaker connections for interactive digital classroom activities. I have no experience of learning like this and I am a little apprehensive about it going in. It somehow feels more scary having to meet people digitally, than face-to-face. 
The course gets started officially this week. It will be interesting to see how this experience compares of education compares to my other experiences!

Artist Research

When I start a project, I rarely start with artist research, as my inspirations often come from real life things. However, I do still see the value in seeing what has come before me as no concept stands alone (Davey In Macleod and Holdridge, 2009) and my work will be existing in the same realm as these works. Comparisons could be made as my work will not exist within a vacuum (Melee and Cramerotti, 2013). In both of out works we are nodding to the gestures and conventions of the road signs (Judovitz, 1998).

Shrigley (2007) in Tate (2019)

I came across ‘Stop It’ (2007) by David Shrigley and was instantly warmed to it as I could see the process to create the work was similar to my own, there is a strong DIY aesthetic which is also identifiable within my own practice and draws on our shared public language (Wittgenstein in Kripke, 1984) and social contracts (Rousseau, 1998). In reading ‘stop’ we have a shared understanding of what it is we are expected to do – to come to a complete stop.

However, Shrigley has used artistic licence to add the ‘it’ adds some humour to the work, but keeps the work open to infinite interpretation (Brusseau, 2005), as the audience we still do not know what ‘it’ is. This further allows personal meaning to seep into our interpretations of the work, drawing on our private denotation (Doherty, 2015). When was the last time they heard these words and how will that effect their understanding of the art? Was it from an annoyed parent, or waring sibling?

The use of a hand rendered text is another similarity between our practices – though not in my new The Road Sign Collection. This is something used throughout his practice. In this piece practically it allows the text to become unauthoritive, almost personal. The handcrafted aesthetic renders the text almost abstract and open to further interpretation (Emin, 2007). This is something that I want to start to develop in my collection, by starting to make subtle swaps as I go forward. The first stage of this process will be to start to replace the found font from the signs and replace it with my font ACComplete4. I will be interested in seeing how this change effects the reading of the work.

While I have previously created signs with the font, this will be the first time that I am working so directly with the real-life counter parts.

Reference

Brusseau. J. (2005) Decadence of the French Nietzsche. Lexington Books; 2nd edition.

Davey, N. In Macleod, K and Holdridge, L. (2009) Thinking Through Art: Reflections on Art as Research. Routledge.

Doherty, C. (2015) Public Art (Now): Out of Time, Out of Place. London: ART/BOOKS.

Emin, T. (2007) Tracey Emin: borrowed light. British Council.

Judovitz, D. (1998) Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. University of California Press.

Kripke, S. (1984) Wittgenstein Rules and Private Language. John Wiley & Sons; New Ed edition.

Melee, L. and Cramerotti, A. (2013) Art and Revolution. Aesthetic Journalism.

Rousseau, J. J. (1998) The Social Contract. Wordsworth Editions.

Tate. (2019) David Shrigley: Stop it. [online] Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/shrigley-stop-it-t12819. [accessed 08/11/19].

Teaching Drawing

Teaching drawing can be daunting, mostly due to our preconceived ideas of what drawing is. My course, ‘Exploring Drawing and Illustration’ has a strong emphasis on the ‘exploring’ part of the title.

Within the sessions learners explore drawing techniques. There is a focus on ensuring that learners understand the techniques, and the processes attached to them. Time is also taken to explore artists, analysing and applying their practices to the learners’ own work and exploring materials to create new, original works (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001). I believe that it is only through this tri-exploration, which has parallels to Aristotle’s’ ideas around; theoria (thinking), poiesis (making), and praxis (doing) (Smith, 1999, 2011) that learners’ can engage in one unified process which allows them to develop their creative outcomes (Gadamer 1979).

Praxis takes place with the engagement in set drawing activities. Each designed to encourage learners start to explore drawing in new ways. By building on these techniques and using formative assessments, including peer and self-assessment, learners can master skills and develop their drawing (Bloom, 1971).

Drawing Activities:

Quick fire line drawing; creating a drawing of a still life with different line drawing techniques within short time periods of 30seconds, 1minute, 2minutes, 5minutes and 10minutes.

Doodling; inspired by Chris Riddell’s ‘A Doodle A Day’ (Riddell, 2015), learners are asked to complete six doodles without a direct reference point; a house, a crowd of people, flowers, a dog, a cup cake and a fish on a bike.

Drawing without a pencil; using tape or sting to execute line drawings allows learners to become freer in their drawing – and can be particularly beneficial when working with continuous line, as the materiality lends itself to be continuous, unlike a pencil which is easily took off a page.

Grid drawing; allowing learners to concentrate on sections of imagery for 1:1 scale drawing and increased scale drawings.

Large scale group drawing; taking away the hones of being the sole artist of a piece of art.

The engagement in praxis allows the learners to develop a critical awareness of their own art practice, allowing for doing and reflection to take place at the same time. Letting learners to analyses their actions and make alterations in real-time. This results in progress being made. This has clear links to Kolb’s’ experiential learning cycle of; doing, reviewing, learning, planning (1984).

While there are benefits in each of Aristotle’s categories, there is definitely something to be said about just ‘doing’ as a means of research and reflection that I find particularly conductive of learning and that sit alongside pedagogical theories of learning, such as Dale’s Cone of Experience, which in similar terms suggests that doing real things is a far superior way of learning, than say just reading about the subject (Dale, 1969). Creative subjects lend themselves well to this type of learning as so much of the session is taken up with the practical activities which embed this naturally.

To conclude, while teaching drawing can be daunting by drawing on educational pedagogies and finding the value in different types of knowledge the structure to teach the skill begins to fall into place.

References

Anderson, L.W., Krathwohl and Bloom, B.S. (2001) A taxonomy for learning, teaching, and assessing: a revision of Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives. Longman.

Bloom, B.S. (1971) Mastery Leaning. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Dale, E. (1969) Audiovisual Methods in Teaching. 1969, NY: Dryden Press.

Gadamer, H-G. (1979). Truth and Method. London: Sheed and Ward.

Kolb, D. A. (1984) Experiential Learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Prentice Hall.

Riddell, C. (2015) A Doodle a Day. Macmillan Children's Books; Main Market edition.

Smith, M. K. (1999, 2011) What is praxis? Encyclopaedia of Informal Education. [accessed 27/11/19].

The Road Sign Collection

The Road Sign Collection started by chance after an art walk during an art tutor CPD day run by NEAAT (Network of East Anglian Art Teachers). As a group we were instructed to walk around the Fine City of Norwich and document the walk with; photos, drawings, rubbings. During this walk, I photographed road signs. I was drawn to these due to the nature of my art practice, which is concerned with the relationship between text and site.

The choice may have also been influenced by my interest in what Duchamp calls the ‘unchoice’ (O’Doherty, 1986), with so many things to look at in a fine city and I am choosing to focus my attention on road signs. They struck me as ready-mades in a site-specific installation, something chaotic, yet powerful in their ability to direct traffic (Ranciere, 2009).

However, despite my initially drawing my attention, once the day had come to an end I promptly forgot about the signs.

During this time, I was teaching a short course titled, ‘Exploring Drawing and Illustration’, keep your eyes peeled for a future blog post ‘Teaching Drawing’ for more on this, with one of the weeks focusing on line drawing techniques - something that I am usually guilty of neglecting within my practice. However, covering this topic and seeing my learners’ outcomes – particularly their continuous line drawings, made me want to give it ago within my art practice. 

Working with the long-forgotten road sign photographs, I drew mostly continuous line drawing of the photographs using a drawing tablet and digital pen. I found, as my learners had hours earlier that it is much easier to tell someone not to take the pen off the page than it is to not take your pen off the page. However, I found the continuous line drawing outcomes felt more natural and so persevered.

I felt that once the pen was lifted from the page the aura of that piece of work is set (Benjamin, 2015) and that those drawing which contained broken lines lost their authenticity. Having a break in the line looks too considered, shows a pause in the process and takes away from the overall aesthetic of the sign. 

The intention is that each road sign drawing will be an original (Benjamin, 2015), with each only drawn once, in one continuous movement. There is some irony in this conversation about originals, as the signs themselves are of course not original, rather they are multiples of something mass-produced and largely used. What it is that makes them original is the lived experiences the sign has had (Benjamin, 2015), reflected in the condition of each sign. The more these road signs have been interacted with, the more damage they will suffer (Dezeuze, 2007). This is something that I wanted to ensure that I captured within the drawings, to allow each sign to be recognisable as a copy of the original sign, drawing on Judovitz's notion of originals as multiples of sorts (1998). 

Initially, this activity did not have a purpose beyond flexing my continuous line drawing skills. However, as I created the drawings, I started to see the potential for a new project. I started to explore the use of block fill colour to make them more reminiscent of the originals. I was undecided on the outcomes and continued to keep a version in which they remain as continuous line drawings.

The use of colour in the signs felt important to their ability to carry out their function successfully. I had to start to consider the readability of the sign and our temporal relationship with them (Foster, 1996). Without the colouring, there is a sense of unfamiliarity to them (Deleuze and Guattairi, 1987).

The more time that I spend with the road signs the more I start to consider placing them into a new context (Grosenick, 2002). The text is direct and to the point when it is within the original context.

Within my practice, I look to have public-facing outcomes and these signs lend themselves to be repositioned into a new context, away from the road. I look to explore what this does to our relationship with these signs that we encounter every day once they are put into an art context. This starts with turning them into drawings and will perhaps end in a gallery context, allowing this new cultural framework to change the context of the road signs (Kwon, 2002).

Reference

Benjamin, W. (2015) Illuminations. London: Penguin.

Deleuze, G.  and Guattairi, F. (1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. University of Minnesota Press.

Dezeuze, A. (2007) Tate Papers no.8: Blurring the Boundaries between Art and Life (in the Museum?). [online] http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/08/blurringboundaries-between-art-and-life-in-the-museum. [accessed 23/10/19].

Grosenick, U. (2002) Art Now. Taschen GmbH; 01 edition.

Judovitz, D. (1998) Unpacking Duchamp: Art in Transit. University of California Press

Kwon, M. (2002) One Place After Another: Site Specific Art and Locational Identity. The MIT Press: Cambridge Massachusetts and London, England.

Ranciere, J. (2009) The Future of the Image. London: Verso.