PROFESSIONAL PRINTMAKING PRACTICE

My first aspect of professional printmaking practice was really a trial run, making the finishing touches to the Kobusher print as I began to describe in my previous post, ONGOING PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE - MOOSEY ART.

9/12/2018 - PEER RESPONSES + FEEDBACK - PUPPETS EVALUATION

By this time I've had the puppets in my house for quite some time, and they have been produced at various occasions as something for guests visiting the house to get involved with, which I have also taken as some opportune market research for how interactions between the puppets and audiences can be staged.

6/12/2018 - EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THE WORLD EXHIBITION INSTALL

I displayed my work on a plinth in the corner of PS3 next to a piece of red piping. I often situate my works in this area for exhibitions as I like the slightly less typical surroundings in the corner with the pipe. However for this work it was more appropriate than ever as the red pipe was very similar to the red tubing shown in the oil rig, which descended into the darkness at the bottom edge of the box.

5/12/2018 - VITRINE ASSEMBLY

Once I had cut and pinned the sides of my vitrine and they were left overnight to dry, the next step was to slide in my glass frames to check it all fitted together.

3/12/2018 - VITRINE GLASS PAINTING

First I took my glass frames into the workshop to get them measured up to enclose in a wooden box and afterwards I carried them back to my studio for painting.

29/11/2018 - PRESENTATION

After having attended the majority of the other presentation lectures, I had noticed similar themes, exhibitions, expositions and workshops all popping up. I felt like maybe in my presentation I could shed light on another area of art culture which is often underappreciated in the fine art world, with my progression through the graffiti and street art scene. In my presentation I wanted to talk about my path over the last five years in both an artistic and curatorial/journalistic sense with a heavily image based display of visual styles and inspiration not unlike the heavily visual cultural world of urban art. I also demonstrated my interest in visual concept development and animal narratives and imagery.

29/11/2018 - INTERIM SHOW

For Under Construction I pasted my animal protest directly onto the university wall. There was a small issue with the placement, as my plans had grown to from the first mention to Beth to include the deer, and although I had explicitly let her know about this she had forgotten. However it was quickly overcome through explanation, and quickly I pasted my work to the wall.

I did like the way the piece looked on a nice clean white wall, but felt the impact was a little lessened by the presence of the white coving around the bottom edge which visibly levitated my piece above the floor and took away some of it's grounded-ness, I felt.

19/11/2018 - SMALL FLUFFY ANIMAL PROTEST

Unfortunately I still wasn't able to get out at all over the previous week to put my animal protest up on the streets, and this week isnt looking much better either, however on Monday I wanted to atleast test the two small fluffy members of my troupe on a nearby safe location to my house, just to see how they would look on the wall. I really liked the look of these little guys, even without their taller friend. The smaller nature of this protest had different connotations, leading audiences to speculate exactly what else of importance might be passing them by unnoticed.

14/11/2018 - EXTINCTION REBELLION MEETING

After initiating a new body work based around the motifs and ideas expressed as part of the Extinction Rebellion, at the very last minute I caught wind of a meeting of the Norwich branch of the activism initiative.

4/11/2018 - ANIMALS AGAINST EXTINCTION

After being inspired by the works of the Extinction Rebellion for the very self aware approach to climate change, non violent action, and the realisitic prospect of 'prepping', I decided to create a small artistic protest of my own and exercise some of the new critical theory I had been absorbing for my dissertation around re-empowering the animal image or 'bringing in the animal'. It is easy to think of extinction as a prospect reserved for the flats of antarctica or due to deforestation in a remote part of the Amazon rainforest. It always feels very far away and to be happening somewhere else.

30/10/2018 - EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THE WORLD - EXHIBITION PROPOSAL

My proposal for the exhibition by Louisa Marriott:

24/10/2018 - DRAWING WORKSHOP

This workshop was a bit of a weird one for me as I felt it lacked direction. On all the other previous workshops on the course, there was a brief which I felt galvinised the group into producing outcomes which were thought provoking and challenging. This however felt more like a nostalgic reminder on the existance of simple drawing techniques which, for me in my practice personally, had never been forgotten in the first place.

ONGOING PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE - MOOSEY ART

My duties at Moosey are slowly scaling up in responsibility and requirements as I get involved in larger areas of professional practice in the business. I have also been trying to streamline our practice and make it more inkeeping with my personal views as we go. I convinced Frazer to change over to biodegradable potato starch packing peanuts from the expanded polymer foam type we were using previously. Even small changes like this can have a big impact as corporate contributions to climate change and plastic waste are in fact the most detrimental of all, far far far outweighing any contribution achievable in the habits of a single person. This makes implementations like this of the most paramount importance, and also makes me feel like I am following my ethos in as many areas of my creative practice as possible.

As well as this, part of my work with Moosey involves creative problem solving and negotiation to achieve the high standards we strive for whilst also working to a intensive and constantly evolving program of artists, prints and exhibitions.

11/10/2018 - LARGER VELOCIRAPTOR PUPPET

So after my experimentation with puppetmaking and a visit to the puppet theatre I wanted to try and get a bit more creative with my design. The particular thing I was interested in, was the seperate control bar feature in allowing precise control of head and body movements. I also felt intruiged by Molly's use of felt feathers in Rainbow Goose as a way of increasing surface texture and realism, and a Velociraptor felt like a good place to explore feathers from within the dinosaur kingdom.

In this puppet I also wanted to dramatically increase the parts and complexity, segmenting the form to allow for extra flexibility and movement. Working as before to sculpt the head before anything else, and embed the string foremost to increase strength, I also used the flexibility of plastecine and felt to simply embed each feather one by one along the scalp. 

I split the neck into 3 parts to allow it to flex and bend more easily much like a true velociraptor's, which would be particularly effective when the head is also mounted on a control bar of it's own. I was reffering back to my t-rex puppet at points to look at exactly where each thread enterred and left each piece, but also knew when the time came to the legs, I would have to create them differently to represent the unique shape of velociraptor.

Looking at reference images, I realised the leg was made of 3 sections which could flex in quite a variety of unique ways to run and jump, aswell as tear at food, attack and slash, with the largest muscular part the thigh to power the long jumping strides, and the thinner, strong boney lower sections, scalier and full of sinews and tendons for bolt like effectiveness.

The only thing that I knew would be more problematic with these puppets was leg action, as without a control mechanism running from the bottom of the foot,they would be prone to spinning and losing control. To counteract this I extra-weighted them with metal bolts in each foot and also a strip of felt on the lower knee joint to hopefully lessen spinning.

Before connecting the legs to the body I was able to test the movement of the main torso by holding them in the air, allowing me to look at the neck and head proportion and check the puppet puppet had character.

The next step was to add a tail, which I had also fletched in felt, and was segmented from the rest of the body, and the legs. It had almost entirely taken shape by this point.

All I had left to do was add arms and fletch them, and in this picture you can see the two different control bars between the body and head a bit more clearly.  After that the puppet was complete. Leg operation was a bit clunky and problematic during the walk cycle, however when stood still the puppet could bounce up and down on the spot, and looked very effective.

What also had worked incredibly well was the implementation of soft sections and different colours and tones to increase the lifelikeness. As well as the comprehension of movement along the tail, neck and head, giving additional life the dancing bobbing motions in the video at the pottom of this post. I think if I can perfect the leg locomotion, this could be a very convincing puppet indeed.

 Please scroll to the bottom for a video

6/10/2018 - PUPPET THEATRE VISIT

After working through the initial possibilities for puppet formation in plastecine, tinfoil and fabric, as we live in Norwich we decided the next logical step was to go for a look around the Norwich Puppet Theater. The only Puppet Theatre in the UK, and one of just three operational facilities around the entirety of Europe! We were so well placed with this rare institution, so we knew we had to make a point of going along!

Initially when we arrived it seemed as if nobody was home, and we were then picking up a leaflet and turning to leave when a man appeared and offered to give us a tour.

We explained to him about our plans for the project and he seemed very enthusiastic. We discussed a bit about puppetry in modern times, and how peoples perception of puppetry has developed over time, from a greatly celebrated historical artform, until the last decade puppetry decreased in popularity and was mainly relegated to seafront Punch and Judy and the occasional niche aspect of theatre. However currently there is a new focus on puppetry in modern media such as festival and carnival as well as for special effects, for example in the new Star Wars franchise where CGI was mainly forsaken in favour of physical puppetry and makeup techniques (to a much more convincing end).

Around the room was a massive display of hung puppets, which were already inspiring new thoughts for our own efforts, such as a pair of ostrich puppets above the door which had a control bar that split into two sections to allow the body & head to be operated seperately to the legs, thus allowing the head to look of it's own accord, and the legs act more convincingly.

 Our guide was visibly excited by our enthusiasm for the topic, and after giving us a brief tour of the venue, he then introduced us Zara Goodfellow, the creative outreach coordinator for the theatre. With this our visual tour became a lot more hands on as she began to take puppets of interest down from the walls around of us and allow us to have a go and fully explore their operation.

First we were introduced to a small human puppet which was interesting because of the different possibilities of movement. A central axel ran up the middle of the body which allowed the head and body to rotate seperately, allowing the neck to turn without an actual seperation between the two parts. As well as this the legs and arms were double hinged with structured slots which operated differently to my string hinges in allowing movement to only occur across a particular arch of mobility, as opposed to my dinosaurs where their string joints allowed the legs to swing and flex in almost any direction. These limitations on movement gave this puppet a better sense of realism and weight, and is something that would be interesting to explore in my own prototypes.

The next puppet we had a go with was a very minimalistic but incredibly effective wolf puppet. It was so interesting to see the different methods used to achieve a variety of effects for different characters. This wolf had no legs and consisted mainly of only three parts, the head, chest and back/tail, however was still very convincing and lifelike. In doing this it was easy to suppose that someone had observed the wolf, and through a process of reduction, distilled it to its most essential forms whilst still maintaining believability. And it was certainly highly believable.

As well as moving along it's central body, the wolf mouth was also controllable which heightened it's relatablity, allowing it to emote to a watcher more easily. As well as this, the body really interested me, as it was actually a hollow wire form threaded through all over with rag fabrics to give it the appearence of being solid. This greatly decreased the overall weight, and also produced a soft surface finish like Molly explored in her rainbow bird. This puppet was on sticks instead of strings, which also allowed for much more concise and purposeful movements.  I think for our intentions, sticks would also be much hardier when transported and used at festivals, and prevent tangling and breakage.

Finally we were allowed to try the beautiful, antique and incredibly crafted horse puppet from a glass display cabinet in the workshop room. This piece was amazingly functional, utilizing both strings and sticks for a broad spectrum of movement, as well as a detatching head pole to allow the horse to look independently of it's body, with a magnet set into it's mouth to allow it to pick up and hold objects such as it's very own rose.

The way this puppet used legs was also of great interest, it's feet were well weighted which meant you could very easily feel when they were properly connecting with the floor, which helped in operation. Even though it was much more complicated than any of the other puppets we had tried, due to it's craftsmanship, I feel like with practice it could be mastered. However it was very heavy, which is where I believed aspects of the hollow wolf puppet could also be employed to reduce the stamina required for lengthy puppetry.

Our visit to the puppet theatre had given us so much food for thought about further ways we could develop our experiments! We stopped to chat some more with Zara before we left, and she told us about Tin House, a Norwich based community arts organisation specialising in street theatre including the large freestanding elephant puppets at the Lord Mayors Procession this year. I thought these people might be perfect to contact.

5/10/2018 - FOUR LEGGED MARIONETTE

As a further experiment onto the puppets I had already created, I wanted to explore a four legged form. At this stage I didn't really have any expectations for functionality at this early stage, but simply wanted to make the first step towards multiple moving parts.

Still working with my simple crossbar controls, however this time with two crosses instead of one, I decided once again to use a dinosaur form of a Styractosaurus for it's recognisable shape.

I strung the legs together in much the same way as the other prototypes, however to give extra strength to each component dispite the growing complexity I also started to embed extra supports into each section to prevent the string from slipping through, as had become a bit of a problem in the other prototypes.






I really liked the movement possible with a greater number of animate parts, as it seemed to give the puppet a crawling gait which, although was quite unlike the movements of a dinosaur, definitely had a dynamism of it's own. Myself and my housemates immediately remarked on the alien nature of this movement as we made the little creature slink and clamber around the living room.

Once again though I found myself fascinated by the subtleties in movement from one puppet to another. Already my housemates said how this one had an entirely different character to the other two legged ones I had previously created. But the four legged design definitely needed a lot of fine tuning and was going to be more complicated to perfect. 

However operating each of the legs individually on a double cross frame was very complex as it was difficult to get each leg moving independently and convincingly, so I knew that to get multiple leg mechanisms a different control technique would need to be used.

As this was collaboratory experimentation with Molly Taylor, she was also working on forms in plasticine, however quickly became frustrated with the medium. We decided she should then try making a fabric based puppet, as this is the material she is most comfortable with working with, and we were interested to see how fabric would change the properties and possibilities of the puppets.

So she created Rainbow Goose from felt and calico with weighted plasticine feet. The softer materials gave another element of believability to the puppets movement and also effectively represented a more naturalistic form in a step away from dinosaurs. Layering felt feathers also give the piece a bit more visual depth. I think the greatest strengths could come from combining elements of fabric and solid material to allow manoeuvrability as well as rigidity of form.

3/10/2018 - TWO LEGGED MARIONETTES

With a view to getting into simple puppet formation, I purchased a simple 'Baby Bird Marionette' to study its workings and generally get a working idea of how to create one myself.

FESTIVALS, RAVE CULTURE, COSTUME AND ESCAPISM

For the past four summers I have worked running a festival catering pitch making wood fired pizzas. In this time I have worked at a wide scope of festivals and events of all varieties and find myself constantly inspired and excited within the dynamic environment. (All photos in this post were taken by me on my adventures across a variety of events)

Something about entering a festival environment alters the psyche of those within to send them to an otherworldly headspace of increased acceptance, experimentation and hedonism tendancies. As well as this, a general feel of community and stewardship is often garnered, with the sense that all festival occupants are 'in the same boat', removed from the familiarities and sensibilities of their day to day lives and placed in a field for fun and frolicks in the spirit of escapism and pursuit of a good time.

A large part of this comes from the extraterrestrial nature of a large group of humans leaving internalised post-industrial society behind to live, sleep, eat and party outdoors in the elements for a few days, often forsaking showers and other creature comforts such as hygenic toilets and heating. In a sense festival-goers are returned to a state of pseudo-animality, or at least a loose hunter-gatherer state of dependency on preparation, resourcefulness and locally sourced essentials such as food and alcohol to keep things ticking along smoothly.
There is a beautiful simplicity of being forced, sweaty and tired, from a sun boiled tent at 8am, just the same as every other person on site, to vibe cheerfully off the festival atmosphere all afternoon and dance until the small hours, wander back to your tent and do it all again the next day and onwards, free from any further obligation or responsibility until Monday morning finally dawns and everyone packs down the small circles of tents which, for the past few days, have developed just the same familiarity as their home streets, and returns back to normality. However in the microcosm of the festival, class, wealth, profession and prejudices are all stripped away as everyone is reduced to the same dirty, intoxicated yet cheerful and brightly dressed state. People from entirely different circumstances relate to one another in ways they would otherwise potentially be resistant to in typical urbanized human culture.  One could ponder at the potential links between reconnecting people with their primary natural surroundings in such a way and the accompanying improvement in temperament and acceptance which is generated.

Festival organisers also go a long way to heighten the sense of otherworldliness with highly intricate and immersive stage and installation designs. The scope and breadth of these setups was something which really struck me across the 15 festivals I worked at in this previous summer alone. From semi-submerged dugout tunnels connecting subterranean stages to a gigantic CGI skeleton cyborg projected onto sculpted blank screens. One particular weekend which stuck out was early in the season in late May named Hogsozzle, you can find my full write up of the experience in my research file. The festival had a theme every year, which was 'Fantasy & Fairytale" this summer; as well as incredibly clever stage management within a small space, a large selection of different roaming actors were integrated in full costume to simply walk around the festival in character and interact with festivalgoers. These enhanced the ethereal nature of the event, and I noticed often employed animal imagery to distort the boundaries of normality and otherness.

It was all highly interesting to me however I found it difficult to consider aspects of this which I could integrate into my artistic practice without becoming cliche, as many of these characters were ultimately incorporaing visuals of animality or otherness to provide entertainment and bemusement to audiences instead of inspiring consideration to deeper topics. However, almost every weekend over the summer holidays I was still returning to these same dynamic environments filled with music, excitement and interesting characters around every corner and feeling very deeply inspired by the experiences I both had and also witnessed in the people around me.
Working at a specific location through the daytime hours at a festival can give you a great deal of time to people watch and analyse the way it all plays out, the level of coordination required to pull off events like these and most importantly the fundemental cultural change participants undergo while in the festival 'mindset'.

Artistic projects are also often a major feature in the festivals I visited, for both children and adults, some activities require active participation such as a workshop, others more passive such as a black van driven onto a field with some paint brushes and pens left in plain view beside and a sign saying "paint this van".
At the final festival of the summer the strength of such experiences was demonstrated to me when at the end of the night on the walk back to our tent, my friend who I was working with asked if I had done any of the weaving yet. When I said I hadn't noticed this, she led me to a sturdy wooden loom at the top of the hill with a bucket of fabric ribbons which instructed us to use the loom and get creative. She noted how at points in the weave natural material had been added from the surroundings; an entire chunk of bark or tufts of seeded grass. As we were adding our patch to the loom a man in his late fourties wandered over to see what we were doing. My friend said he should give it a try, and he stopped for five minutes to work on a small section of his own. He added a few pieces of natural material from the ground, and once his work was done, looked up and smiled, thanked us and stated what an unexpectedly lovely little experience the moment of craft was, and that he was going to bed before wandering off once more. I wondered how many similar experiences of connectivity between strangers had been galvinised by this simple act of open craft, and began to further appreciate the power of such installations.

Finally on the last day of the last festival, I spotted something that really excited me. About 10 meters ahead of the pizza tent I noticed a lady flying what appeared to be a small bluebird across the field, just below her hands. It's swift movements caught my eye so deftly that I immediately exclaimed in her direction, causing her to turn. I saw then that it was infact a small and incredibly detailed marionette, as she smiled and flew it over towards us before landing its delicate stringed legs on the front counter. It flapped twice and folded its wings inward and I was completely speechless at the ingenuity and delicacy of the creature. This was the most interesting integration of animality and otherness in a festival performance I had seen all summer, because it didn't look at incorporating aspects of these themes into human relavence through costume or acting, as within my reading I have found that human culture is inherently further reliant on, but instead projects the sense of animality into an external being which is then seen to be acting as a character in it's own right. Even with thin strings suspending every limb, the delicate form of the bird still held a sense of unpredictablitiy, as if in a second it might alight and to never be seen again.

I felt like in seeing this puppet, even on a very small but beautifully intricate scale, I was having a more tangible encounter with otherness than any number of animal shaped headress or other fantastical representations.

FINAL EVALUATION

As a strongly self-motivated and self-confident person, group work and collaboration does not always come easy for me, as somone who would often choose to go it alone, even if extra work is required, than involve onself with a larger team. However this unit has pushed me in unexpected ways to really appreciate the potential benefits of collaborative practice.

9/05/2018 - BETH COLLAB THE NEXT DAY

I went back along to look at the collaborations I had pasted the next day and was happy to see both had survived the night.

From these works I realised that having tinner layers or larger single pieces of tissue paper allowed the work to be stuck against an uneven surface much more easily than many layers of small detailed cut paper.

The amount which I had needed to force the shark work onto the wall had blurred some of the detail and smudged the paper. This lessened the clean, crisp, paintlike effect of the tissue however was not an issue on the Lion piece. I can only presume this is down to the thickness, and that the Shark had been finished a while before and given lots of time to dry and harden.

The white circles had regained their opacity once dry, and  worked verry effectively. As did the piece's integration with the blue paint splatter in the background.

I was so happy with how this technique was developing, and sent my results to Beth. She also was really impressed, and asked me if I would like to continue working on the collaborations over summer. I told her that I definitely did, as this new process was exciting me also, and was something I was definitely intersted to continue developing further. With an ecologically driven practice, I think this could become an environmentally conscious alternative to spraypaint and stencils, which could complement for street art practice very effectively.

8/05/2018 - BETH COLLAB FINAL INSTALL

On the Tuesday night the weather was favourable so I went out to paste my works. I had my favourite test location on my mind as someone had spilled blue paint everywhere up one wall days earlier, which I thought could make the perfect backdrop for my lion. This nearby location also allowed me to easily and regularly monitor test pieces such as these and check back repeatedly to see which areas weathered first and how long they survived.

4/05/2018 - BETH COLLAB FINAL PERSONAL RESPONSE

As Beth was now very busy setting up her part of the Degree Show, and told me she was unavailable to pursue our collaboration any further before the end of this unit. So I wanted to create a response to our work together which was entirely my own, but taking into account all the aspects and influences I had felt through our work together.

MOOSEY ART ONGOING WEBSITE DESIGN AND COLLABORATION - INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENT

In previous units I mentioned the start of my paid work with Moosey Art after years of free volunteering, helping and networking extensively through the business. (See reflective journal 1 2 3) This at the time was focussed around our London exhibition, however I have continued the work since and we have developed a great deal of other areas throughout the business since.

26-28/04/2018 - MIND GARDEN APPAREL DESIGN

The JIC project had absorbed a lot of my time and focus, and now that it was all installed I wanted to refocus my efforts on another project which I had been really interested in but not had the time to fully follow up on since my return from Falmouth. The work of James Morgan of Mind Garden studios had really interested me, because of its truly grassroots nature and the obvious motivation and dedication of the man behind it all, aswell as his interest in themes around mankinds relationship and waning connection with nature.

25/04/2018 - JIC INSTALL (+simple risk assessment)

On the day of the install at the John Innes Centre, I had luckily arranged for Joel to help in taking my piece along with his. This meant that I was able to get it there with no risk of damage, and only had to carry my piece the short distance from the car into the centre.

24/04/2018 - BETH COLLAB SESSION 2

We got together for another session with tissue paper to see what we could produce in a second experiment. Ahead of this attempt I had done a little exploration into a designer named Dorota Pankowska who had been inspired by the Twitter logo bird, crafted from 13 circles. She then went on to create a series of 13 other animals from circles, and open it up as a creative challenge to other designers.

23/04/2018 - JIC FINAL OUTCOME PRE INSTALL

Now my completed piece was dried and ready to be picked up. The mirror had added to the weight again and it had once again become an long and ardous journey from the workshop to my studio! Once I had the work back I wanted to try and frame a patron picture of my own with me full frame sitting within the eye of the mirror.

19-20/04/2018 - JIC SPRAY VARNISH AND MIRROR FIXING

I spent a few days giving the piece several coats of slightly tinted acrylic spray varnish to protect the works, particularly focussing on the edges and corners which I thought would be likely to sustain damage. This also lent the work an aged quality, like the slightly off white tones of the etchings in the aged pages of the rare books.

18/04/2018 - JIC CUTTING OUT AND EDGING

Now that my work was painted, it was time to cut around the piece and edge it, ready to insert the mirror. I have previous workshop experience which always comes in handy with cross disciplinary works such as this, but still always feel a bit nervous when moving from comfortable painting to the loud and dynamic environment of the workshop. The piece was very detailed, and I worried that the process of cutting around would be painstaking and some of the details may be lost.

13-16/04/2018 - JIC PAINTING

Now my board was prepped I could paint the rest of the work in around my sketch. I had decided to keep my work greyscale and use watered down acrylics as a way to build up gradual tones, as are percieved by the eye in the minute crosshatch of the etchings we saw.

17/04/2018 - JOHN INNES CENTRE BOARD SKETCH

After deciding on a general direction and voice which I wanted my work to convey, I created my sketch. I lifted some of the architectural designs directly from the patron portraits, and also featured some of the same objects I had seen within the archive. I chose to use a modern version of technology such as the microscope, as I wanted my piece to be very much of the modern day, a present example of the old portraits based on our modern understanding and situation within the world. Some pieces such as the bell jar and hourglass instead appear here as vintage remnants of the old ways. I will play more deeply with the symbolism and specific meanings implied here when translating my composition to the larger final piece. However already here we have ivy growing over the microscope and rest of the scene, showing the permenance of the force of nature in comparison to the temporary nature of the things we create and do. Beneath the bell jar I have placed a Thylacine skull, an extremely unique predatory marsupial which long ago existed across both Australia and Tazmania, before becoming extinct in both across the 20th century, due to suspected changes in climate and pressures from the indigenous peoples and farming.

10/04/2018 - JIC MIRROR AND BOARD PREP

As a start on the actual creation of my piece for the John Innes Centre, I had already swept the local charity shops in the week earlier and found a good size mirror for a decent price. A sticker on the mirror told me it had been brought originally in 1982 and it was amazing to me to think that something which had existed in one very functional, basic capacity, waiting for someone to buy in a charity shop, would now be transformed into an entirely different artefact with a whole new meaning, to appear in a research facility in an archive for rare books.

1/04/2018 - NORWICH ART CAR BOOT APPLICATION

I applied for the Norwich Art Car Boot, an annual summer event now in it's fourth year down at the Redwell Brewery arches on the way out of the city towards Trowse. It is a great yearly event filled with local artists selling a variety of artworks, crafts, apparel and other design works. With live music and food on site, it typically proves to be a great event as could be a really great opportunity to distribute some of my work, and also discuss my motivations and interests with audiences.

27/03/2018 - MIND GARDEN APPAREL COLLAB

Whilst I was down in Falmouth I spoke to many other students about my uni, the course I was studying and what it involved. Many of the people immediately mentioned the Two Kings vintage shop opened by some mutual friends, and the DIY screenprinting studio setup in the attic above it which had been completely made from scratch by James Morgan of Mind Garden Apparel, a grassroots startup apparel business looking to expand and create a community of creatives for pop up shops, expositions, festivals and other creative enterprises.

25/03/2018 - THE LOST GARDENS OF HELIGAN

While visiting a friend down at her uni in Falmouth, I also visited the Lost Gardens of Heligan, a botanical gardens in Cornwall first created by the Tremayne family from the 18th to early 20th century, however they fell into disrepair and were overcome by nature, to be restored and recovered in the 1990s, becoming the subject of several television series and books. I have always really enjoyed botanical gardens, and my recent essay piqued my interest as I had begun to learn about some of the history and connotations associated with them. They are one of the key historical meeting points and contextualisations of mans early interaction and interpretation/colonisation of nature.

15/03/2018 - BETH COLLAB SESSION 1

When we got together to start planning our collaboration, I brought along all of my tissue paper so that we could get experimenting with as much potential as possible. I discussed with her a bit about why I thought our works would go well together, and then also showed some examples of tissue paper works and thought about different ways we might approach things. I had in part been inspired by the compass construction drawings I had seen as a small child, which would teach you to sketch a realistic, well proportioned animal through step by step construction of circles and linework.

14/03/2018 - SIR JOHN INNES CENTRE PROPOSAL FORM

I prepared my proposal form for submission having spent a couple of days hatching over my idea and building upon it. I had been uncertain how to exactly represent the patron figure; such an essential component of my planned direction. I considered for a while, and was unable to tie down the essence of a benevolent and responsible scholar of the natural world in any way without clique, and quickly happened upon a better idea. I proposed to replace the central patron figure with a mirror, thus confronting the viewer with their own reflection in the place of any historical portrait. This in itself has interesting connotations, as it reminds the viewer that our actions will become part of the past one day, and history will reflect on these times which we think of as modern, just as we do upon that which has gone before. It also puts the viewer in a position of responsibility, making them unexpectedly meet their own gaze, and then appreciate themselves as part of a wider fabric of the artwork, and furthermore nature and the natural sphere itself.

11/03/2018 - SIR JOHN INNES CENTRE SURROUNDING RESEARCH

In preparation to create a proposal form for a piece of artwork for the Sir John Innes Centre, I thought it would be important for me to first familiarise myself with exactly the work they were doing. I hoped this would sit somewhere alongside the knowledge of carefully preserved iconic species demonstrated in the archive. I also wanted to take into account the library setting as well as the centre's place as a research facility, and make my work somehow involved with the nature of this place as a quiet zone for learning, growth and study.

10/03/2018 - BETH BARTLETT COLLAB PLAN

As our collaboration unit had now gotten fully underway, I started considering some potential collaborative partners to suggest for myself to work with. Choosing an appropriate complementing artist was of great importance to me, as I wanted someone who could not only empathise with my key concerns, but also interested in different enough ideas to push my own practice in new areas. Because of this I specifically avoided approaching artists who dealt with themes of animals and the environment, as I already feel like these themes are already strongly represented in my work and didn't necessarily need the collaborative 'voice' to strengthen it. Instead I wanted to find someone who could help me consider different ways of working and different artistic practices and ways of expressing my work.

7/03/2018 - TRIP TO SIR JOHN INNES CENTRE

I was very excited to go along on the trip to the Sir John Innes Centre to look at the botanical archives in preperation for the art brief. This project really engaged with my art practice, specifically citing themes of the natural world and genetices as key focus of the opportunity. I was really interested in what this visit could inspire out of my practice, as it was one of the most relevent opportunities for primary research that I had spotted so far. 

1/03/2018 - GENDERBEAD - PSA OUTCOME + EVALUATION

28/02/2018 - CROSS COLLABORATION EDITING 2

We all arrived on Wednesday to begin with what we hoped would be the final stint of editing. However Lewis had some news to break. He had been speaking with some of the other groups and had come to the conclusion that the photoshop rotoscoping we had used looked too contemporary for the footage. He even said how some of the other groups had specifically applied old film filters to their videos, and even removed all traces of modern technology. So we would have to come up with another way to animate the genderbread's dialogue, and discard the icons we had planned.

Oliver had informed the group that he had been called away to work in Ipswich, and would therefore still be unable to attend. We also relistened to the audio from the day before and found the recorded audio from Jake's northern accent and deep voice were a bit too monotone for the cheery, reassuring and also importantly non gender binary character of the genderbread person. It was definitely at this point when the video production started to take a definite step away from his complete plan, and started down a path of it's own, with the suggestion of filming and superimposing a genuine human mouth overtop, and recording the script again with alongside the footage of a new talking mouth. We then also chose the cheeriest voice in the group, which belonged to Kristan, and got recording.

Of course, in abandoning the rotoscoping and hand-drawn finish for a roughly superimposed and highly zoomed human mouth, especially alongside the unsettling white eyes, we knew we were definitely taking a different direction. However at this point Oliver didn't appear to be coming along to help out any more, and we were all a little tired of trying to accommodate the specific vision of someone who wasn't putting in any further effort to help deliver it, and was still in possession of most of the documents and inspirations which had been specifically prepared to help us create and piece the whole thing together.

This was meant to be a collaborative excersize, and it felt like the time to take initiative and develop areas of the footage in new ways. So everyone got to work with matching up the dialogue and mouth footage to each part of the video. James and Lewis taught those of us who didn't know how to, and everyone took a different section. By splitting up the job like this we made much faster progress and also got everyone busily working away together in true spirit of the collaboration. However once this had been completed, and everyone had transferred the areas of the video they had been working on into the central file share, there was little anyone could do further besides James and Lewis simply sitting and working through the material and piecing it together. If we tried to split this job up it could make the work look more fragmented and less cohesive, besides James and Lewis were happy to take the roles on from home, allowing us to wrap up this element of the editing.

In this second day of editing I really feel like we overcame the problems facing us with an absent director and really pulled together as a group under our own initiative. We also found a way to bring the project back into an area which we all felt more confident with delivering, whilst resting assured that the base dialogue and educational information Oliver had laid out for us as a framework was strong, accurate and informative. Although I was glad that the hard work was over on what had truly been a challenging but educational project, I was very excited to see the finished product, and felt that the boys might still make further changes during the final stages of editing and structuring, however time could only tell whether this would happen or not.

26/02/2018 - CROSS COLLABORATION EDITING 1

We all got together as we had all agreed on the Monday to record the audio sections of our film, and also edit our footage and audio together with our planned rotoscoping animation. However Oliver (with the full script, storyboard and plan) and James (our only expert in visual effects and post production) were nowhere to be seen. James arrived a while later, however Oliver was a complete no-show across the whole day, and didn't really provide any explanation for why he was unavailable. This disappointed me a bit as he has specifically placed himself in a position where the entire production was relying on him, and had even asked to take the leadership/directional role. I also felt that gender issues and misunderstanding/lack of awareness were one of the key areas of interest in his artistic practice, so it was a bit disappointing to see him not willing to properly see through a project which should have been of the upmost importance to him. Had we followed me idea about the gentrification of Anglia Square, or another topic around an issue of importance to me such as ecology or the environment, I would ensure I was in every day to make sure the outcome was correctly voiced, factual and as appropriate as possible, because it was a topic I had specifically brought to the table.

23/02/2018 - CROSS COLLABORATION FILMING

After deciding on Oliver's plan for our PSA, he had specifically asked if he could take a key role in the direction and co-ordination  of the production as we went through the process. We all agreed with  this, as the entire project was pretty much entirely his topic and vision. He arrived on the day with all of his supporting material and the group got working on the filming. I had to help out with Moosey for a couple of hours intially, but made it along as quickly as I could.

21/02/2018 - CROSS COLLABORATION MEETING

In our first meeting of the new collaboration we had all pre-prepared ideas and styles that we could incorporate into the video. I brought along some supporting research around the gentrification of Norwich as well as a great video I found discussing similar development plans when they had been previously worked over in 1960. The video highlighted use of specific language such as "What I have noticed is a different type of person come down and shop in the street." I suggested that this stylistically could be used to suggest tongue in cheek issues with the gentrification, in a way which still very much preserved the dated ideas surrounding area regeneration and social whitewashing.

19/02/2018 - CROSS COURSE COLLABORATION BRIEFING

We were set the brief to create a Public Service Announcement in groups of 4-5 Fine Art, 4-5 Games Art & Design and 1 VFX, using techniques and effects as would be achievable pre- 1950. The films had to be 1-5 minutes long and needed to be for general public viewing so they had to conform to pre-watershed rules without being overly obscure, and 'explanatory for the layperson'. They would then be screened in a presentation on Friday in two weeks time.

My grouping was with Laura, Oliver and Millie, who were also all around me in my studio, which got me much more immediately interested in this group project. Already knowing them really helped me engage from the outset, as I knew they understood where I was coming from creatively, just as I in turn understood their key motivations too. We had an immediate meeting straight away after and all discussed our interpretation of the brief and a few initial ideas.

I initially started by suggesting a potential tongue in cheek 'announcement' of the knocking down and rebuilding of Anglia Square, with a more satirical nod to the gentrifying aspects of the new renovation scheme. I also talked a little bit about the actions of the Business Improvement District (or BID) that I had heard of from Frazer at Moosey (outlined in greater depth in later supporting research), to give a more general background on some of the more negative vested business interests set on gentrifying Norwich for capital gain. Some expressed concerns about the focus on the 'announcement' nature of the broadcast, and although I thought with careful attention to our dialogue and respective voice this could be emphasised, I also agreed that it would require a lot of contextual and geographical research to be well composed and factually faithful, and could perhaps come undone with too close an attack on Norwich's developing body.

Oliver also had an idea that he had prepared ahead of receiving the brief, as an explanation of the way in which people can vary in personal aspects of their gender, and how this is expressed in different ways. He referenced an educational infographic which he said was used to teach people and explain the many ways in which gender manifests for different people. Although I liked his idea, I did think there could potentially be other more immediate and of the moment issues which we had been given a podium to potentially discuss. Gender identity, and lack of understanding are of course very important matters, and another small part of my uncertainty with this topic was the level to which we could faithfully represent the scope of gender diversity without succumbing to further stereotyping. As this was a key theme to Oliver's artistic practice and research interest, I felt that if we were to take this as the direction of our collaboration, he would need to take an absolutely central role in the production in order to ensure we were faithful to his understanding of the intricacies of the topic.

I did however remember back to my experience in the curation of the interim show. I had to take a central role in organising and overseeing large amounts of the group organisation in that, keeping everyone together and ensuring no aspect of the production was neglected, however in retrospect I feel like I was harder pressed to pick up new unique skills from this position, as I was spread thinly across all areas of the production instead of being able to easily focus in and learn fresh techniques. I thought that perhaps in this project if others wanted to take the lead roles I would get the opportunity to get more hands on with the induvidual practical experiences.

Others in the group talked about areas they would like to try working with in particular, and James from VFX discussed some of the restrictions of working to pre-1950s working techniques. He outlined that this limited us from using pretty much any modern forms of animation, apart from a

16/02/2018 - FINAL TIGERS AND ASSESSMENT CONCLUSION

I was so pleased to leave the house after a second painting session to bright sunshine and dry ground. As I walked along the route I had taken the night before it immediately became clear that last night was perhaps the perfect wintertime pasting conditions, as perfect as could be hoped in Britain at least! The fox was still exactly in place the next morning, and most importantly so was the orange/red gradient piece which had suffered so badly before. 

15/02/2018 - WHITE TIGER PASTING 2

I was further hampered by terrible weather conditions, lashing rain and freezing temperatures which prevented me from going out pasting any more until the day before the deadline. I would have really liked to have done it with a bit more time to spare, but luck was on my side tonight with a warm dry evening and no rain forecast! I prepared the remaining 15 tigers for taking out, but also left a small selection of cut and uncut tigers, so that I would be able to revisit this imagery another time.

I also took out one of my older fox pieces from before I started uni, with the intention of putting this out too. I refreshed the pink tiger which had been initially so badly water damaged, with an orange and red variant which had on the whole proved it's survivablity in my previous endeavour.

I enjoyed hitting this underpass on Grapes Hill as a starting point for a night pasting, as it was actually legal to do so and made the perfect environment to get my head in the game and start working quickly but cleanly before moving to areas where the art was not as encouraged.





I put a plain white tiger on a telephone terminal box bordered by hedges and thought this would look beautiful surrounded by that naturalism. Leaving the tiger unchanged in this circumstance was important, as the unnaturalness of a white tiger in itself would stand out enough against the bright green leaves. I intended the message of the true alternity of the white tiger was better reinforced by this.

 There was another work in particular I placed on a mirrored piece of window which was also covered in some OBEY Shepard Fairey propaganda. I liked this placement as it forced the audience to confront themselves, whilst also being confronted by the censored tiger. This dual 'being looked at, but also not looked at, and looking at oneself, and looking upon the tiger' kind of reminded me of the conceptual struggles of Jacques Derrida in his work about being seen naked by his cat, which featured heavily in my essay. If I were to name this piece, it would definitely be 'Derrida's Cat'!


I tried finding more high profile locations for placements, as I had not seen much response on social media for these works yet, and attributed this to less busy (more aesthetic) locations, and also the extensive water damage. These locations offered higher risks but also higher rewards with larger numbers of people likely to see them.

As well as this, I also revisited a few locations where I knew from previous experience that peices seemed to survive well on, and pasted a few there for good measure.

The weather was really on my side tonight, and it was warm and not too windy so I was not forced to struggle with the prints when handling.
I hoped the rain would hold off, but the forecast looked promising! Hopefully there would still be plenty left tomorrow! I also noted I didn't damage any of the prints when pasting this time, and definitely felt I took things more carefully. The warmer temperatures also definitely helped steady my hand and focus on my technique.