30/04/20
Having come away from my blog entry yesterday I realised I’m troubled by a lack of boundaries and I am feeling like I can’t feel my way to the edge and I’m groping around in the dark.
Having listened to the lecture on Teams given by Ian Monroe and seen how Rachael has set out work on a table to try and join the dots I’m more aware that I need to stop trying to produce new work. I can start thinking and consolidating ideas and set proposals in motion for the future, but to try and formulate and start brand new projects is just not helpful right now.
I’m working on these with more focus and confidence as a result. None of the cast come out perfectly, but I’ve mixed the ink with a lot more copper oil than I had been, which makes for a stronger print. I do have some strange white marks on the new batch, which might be because the mix was a bit watery and I might not have mixed it thoroughly enough.
I’ve cast a medium plate as I suggested in my last post, I think these would look good on the wall, more effective, more weight to the subject than printing on paper. While the small ones I think can still be presented standing up more like three dimensional objects.
I have a better sense of satisfaction having decided a few ground rules for myself in lockdown and for the foreseeable future!
1) consolidate and develop drawing skills. So technical drawing, copying some drawings and painting I find inspiring. Picasso etchings, Matisse portraits, Rego drawings etc.
2) keep digging into the unconscious, experiment wildly! Heart over head. An ongoing journey for me. This is best seen in my portrait painting, the pastels and also some crayon/charcoal in my sketchbook.
3) continue to develop existing MA work. The plaster casts being an example. I am now wanting to cast all my smaller works and only print my larger portraits on the press.
4) start pulling together my critical evaluation and reflective essay. This is best to be done once I’ve consolidated my current work, laying out what I have will help. What is the work saying, are there surprises seeing it all together, can I see new ways forward with it, or are there gaps crying out to be filled. Questions I need to be asking myself.
I should probably add in that I need to start a commission I have, but not feeling it right now. It’s all gone so crazy that I can’t meet him to draw him, nor meet him to hand the portrait over. I’m not sure I should have continued with the portrait once the consequences of Covid become clear.
I’ve just seen some note I made at the beginning of lockdown and wanted to write them in my blog for future reference.
*thinking through anxiety and confinement. Protection and self-protection (the consequences internally and creatively).
*confinement in the house bringing up childhood memories and the source of my creative suppression and frustrations.
*these thoughts, compounded with reading Celia Paul’s autobiography led me to think about creating a scene based on the girls, family, anxiety, confinement but also reliance and closeness (as in Paul’s relationship with her mother and sister). Thinking of Rego style printing, Paul and Freud painting. And the way these artists used their models to build up scenes in which to draw from.
*but I need time to untangle theses thoughts. The girls don’t sit so readily for me. But time will develop these ideas if I keep sketching.
Using the idea that we leave a trace of ourselves as artists in our work to produce new work. Celia Paul being present even in her physical absence when painting her sisters.
Marigold Plunkett 