Intestines

Thinking about different ways of interpreting these parts of me, internally. These will be cast in bronze; I like the bronze as a part of this project, bringing certain aspects of the body forward and making them almost holy in their goldness. The natural direction for these parts seems to be the intestines, maybe the ovaries, maybe the heart. I like the wax in itself as a material. I want to use it to make a bladder, it achieves a thinness and fragility that I think works, implying the skin or the finest mucous membranes in the body.

Bronze casts, Phallic, Yonic.

I made a collection of small bronze and aluminium artefacts which I felt pretty uninspired by, but within that process I also moulded some larger wax pieces, playing with the softness of the wax and seeing what potential that has for me. I was thinking about seed pods, wanting to make some hand made artefacts that looked like they had grown, not been made. I found the work leaning towards looking like genitals, and decided to move further into that rather than trying to deny it. So I made these pieces and after shining them up for hours, I like the result more and more. I am interested in the context that these objects might have within the context of my body of work; the most precious, shining and metallic pieces in an otherwise grounded and soft work. 

This one is the most interesting to me. I see the potential there for many of these to be made and to have some kind of hanging formation inform their existence. Maybe they could be some element of the reproductive system, or the digestive system.

(IN)timacy

I was struggling to find my place in the project, needing to move forward from the porcelain and feeling like there was a danger of just reworking the same imagery over and over; there is a limit to what i can do with the porcelain and although I am very interested in depicting larger bones through porcelain, it becomes increasingly hard to work with, the bigger the pieces get. I was overthinking things and I remembered that thinking through my hands is often more effective for me than planning things, because being too caught up in my head means that I often plan things that are unrealistic and are more in line with a fantasy of the kind of work I want to see than the reality of what I actually enjoy making. So with this in mind I bought a bag of crank, knowing that soft materials suit me best and that I want there to be natural materials in this work, not artificial ones. This has birthed a whole new insight into the process of whatever this project is becoming. My thoughts are now in sensations and visualisations; referring to our organs in a way that is more intuitive, and based in a kind of connection that goes beyond anatomically correct images. I was also thinking about seed pods, fertility, genitalia. The phallic shape is really interesting to me right now, with its strong presence in so many fertility sculptures, particularly African ones, which I grew up around. My thinking is that I am creating some kind of 'body of work' as in- a body, handmade. Intuition and sensation are the most important things for me in creating these sculptures.

What does a stomach feel like, inside?

This is my kidney, soft smooth and healthy

Maybe this is some kind of throat or esophagus 

Another stomach. A different state of having a stomach. Maybe this is what a stomach ache looks like

My part in the exhibition

I had originally thought I wouldn't take part in the exhibition. I didn't feel very resolved in my work, and felt like I wasn't ready to show it. I decided to just show what I have and thought about ways of presenting that with more of a focus on the concept- using earth or sand as a ground for the pieces to show their 'found-ness' or hang them up, or present them in glass like artefacts in a museum. All of these ideas felt wrong when it came to it, childish even. I didn't want to overstate myself, and I felt like the whiteness of the pieces was nice. I didn't want the individuality of each piece to be lost in their presentation. So I just left them as they were and felt very disappointed in myself. But when I came back to them in my crit and looked at them in the context of the exhibition, I felt quite good about them. They look like they were made with thought and care and the unique tonal differences have space to be seen because of the white setting. It definitely still feels very unfinished, I would like there to be more of a feeling of holiness to the body, maybe some kind of narrative about healing or death or honouring the body. 

Working out from the bones

I feel more inspired by porcelain again. I was re-inspired by the crit I had about my exhibition pieces. I felt like the reaction was pretty close to what my intention was for the work, and I liked seeing the pieces in their white space, looking much improved by glazing and firing. I think it's worth exploring what a full skeleton could offer. Im going to work in that direction, and if it doesn't work for me I can always explore the idea of breaking and rejoining the pieces, or connecting them with some kind of resinous cartilage substitute.

I started to think recently about the possibilities of other bodily substances- skin, tumours, muscle, cartilage, brain, gums. These aspects of the body would have to be treated with as much if not more care, to avoid becoming horrific or overstating my concept. The materials are an issue here. I would still like to work sensitively to nature, using natural substances, which is somewhat limiting. I could explore latex and rubber, rubber already possessing a natural redness that would lend itself to muscles, latex having a skin like pallor. 

With this piece i was starting to consider a creatures face and skull. I feel like there is a danger of accidently touching on horror or fantasy like imagery and themes. Although there is an element of fantasy about the work, that's not my main focus or intention. I want to make things that appear precious, which become questionable as a secondary reaction, the primary reaction being one of beauty and revenence and tactility. 

I want to make two rows of teeth, one set in porcelain and one set in aluminium.

Here I was thinking about hip bones

Blind drawings, extending the process

I have been loving blind drawing recently, using it as a part of my practice but also to tune into myself and calm down before starting to work on my research proposal. The problem that I have had with blind drawing in the past is that it occasionally feels too quick to be truly satisfying. I have been working on a large scale, which requires more time and attention to detail, but in some ways it bothers me that it's flat and that the interaction with the subject matter ends so quickly. 

I borrowed a lino cutter from a friend and drew directly onto the lino before cutting away at it for the whole day yesterday. I loved the sculptural feeling of the process, reminding me of spoon carving or something more three dimensional. I haven't printed from the lino yet but I feel quite interested in the lino itself- it brings about the need for more decision making with the blind drawings which is interesting. Of course the image itself is still very much left up to chance, but the choice of which aspects of the finished drawing will be negative space or positive space becomes a constant problem to navigate, which i really enjoy. 

Making and Not making

I haven't felt as excited by making lately, potentially partly because I haven't felt very impressed by the results of my casting and my bone work. It doesn't quite infer what i want it to infer, and I also feel like the imperfect nature of the made pieces frustratingly shows my lack of skill. I don't want the viewer to look at the work and be thinking of my hands making it, I want it to feel as though these objects have been discovered. I have also just started to feel like i'm making the same things over and over again. I have felt very inspired by the writing aspect of the course though. My research proposal is beginning to take form, having started with lots of automatic and somewhat automatic writing, as well as lots of in depth reading which I have been really enjoying. My subject of choice is menstruation, with both a socio-political/anthropological perspective and an art perspective. I'm interested in shifting the narrative from feminist art to body art.

More

The writing of my journal stopped for a good while whilst I was feeling paralysed by grief. I still worked during this time but not as much as i would have were I feeling balanced. The work with the bones continues but new questions start to come to light: am I working on these bones until I form a full 'skeleton'? In this case I would need to produce some larger pieces and some thin, fine pieces intimating a skull or fragments thereof. Porcelain is a very difficult material- soft and fast drying, but I have enjoyed working with it, despite it's limitations. I have also wondered about extending the process further- firing the pieces twice, as normal, before breaking them intentionally and re-joining them with gold, as in the Japanese technique Kintsugi, 'healing' my bones, 'healing' myself, almost reliquary like in it's honouring of the body and therefor honouring of suffering itself. I thought also about the crystalline textures often present in reliquaries, through glass or rock quartz, and I wondered about giving the pieces a third firing with glass as their joiner, but I suspect that this may not be possible in the kilns that I have available to me. I am aware that I could achieve a similar effect with a kind of epoxy resin, but doing that would bring a modern material with little heart into a piece which I intend to refer back to the old mastery of materials. Pink salt is also interesting to me, with it's reference to marble sculptures, but is a very difficult material to work with and although is a nice idea conceptually, the materials I work with need to feel good, otherwise I will become complacent. Something I am interested in is the idea of maybe using smashed glass, either in small pieces or in an almost dust like consistency. Binding the material is something I would definitely have to figure out and experiment with, I wouldnt want to create something without structural integrity. Maybe there is a kind of wax suited to my needs.