abigail-art-blog

[abigail-art-blog]

ARTIST TALK: Victoria Lucas

Analogy of an artificial island

Cinematic, geographic and literary 

Feminine stereotypes 

Digitally altered manuscript of womanhood 

Cinematic representation of gender in the Sahara desert, 2015

Female characters were secondary and dominated by male protagonists

Manipulated women are seen as sexual objects

Repeating, 2015

Hitchcock Staircase, 2015

Playful suspense 

Psychedelic Westerns

Layers of different angles of an area on top of each other to create a new place.  

Dream-like reality 

Draw upon stage sets turn 2D images into sculptural forms

Lay of the Land (and other such myths), 2017

Invite the viewer to enter an imaginary reality

Challenges female identity 

Hetrotopia 

Spacial Strangers 

[abigail-art-blog]

ARTIST TALK: Sam Curtis

Responsive work

No particular format to work

Interested in alternative forms of knowledge of the everyday 

Tends to work collaboratively 

Interested in working with people that aren’t artists

Curator/artist/fishmonger

Artist’s in residency; applied to 10 Downing Street & Buckingham Palace - Set up to fail, but wanted to see if it was possible

Worked at the Fish Counter in Harrods

Everything in Harrods is about theater in a way

“Artists in stealth-mode” 

Bound by a contract not to talk about the job

Created Fish Displays

Ice would melt and fish would be sold so the display would change and evolve throughout the day

The display was changed everyday

Collaborated with Cilla Black exploring identity

She had a “Mrs Jones” persona as a coping strategy

Embodied food politics (book)

Labeling people makes them feel obliged/feel like they are these things

Center off Innovative and Radical Fishmongery

Fish Printing - Rubbing Fish - Japanese print making technique using edible squid ink to transfer the image

Worked with a plumber to create a copper sculpture

Interested in working with high street spaces and everyday laborers

[abigail-art-blog]

13th-15th March 2017

13th March; I decided to split the marketing team into two smaller groups in order to manage the tasks that we had to get done. 

Alex, Lauren and Sam handled the 250 word summary of the exhibition and creating the Facebook page.

Today Alex, Becca and I started designing an image for the exhibition poster. Today we drafted a few designs, the first being the idea of a strip of everyone’s work lined up together, the second having the text over a background image of one of my photographs of the glitter layered over some crystallized bricks.

Quite a few people preferred this image in black and white;

I felt that the second idea fitted the idea of the heritage of the Spode Factory with both the colour scheme and through the use of bricks. As well as this, I felt that the crystallization on the bricks and the inter-fusion of the glitter, salt and clay would fit the theme of the exhibition. That being an inter-fusion between all our practices within one exhibition. 

14th March; Following yesterday the sub-group of the marketing team didn’t like the initial idea for the poster design of the strip of the artworks, it was too bright and detracting from the information. 

Due to this Alex created a less vibrant version of the image in which we had the image turned to landscape and set at the top of the document in order to try and minimize the detraction from the information.

15th March; However after having shown these designs to the whole group there was a split of opinions. Sophie and Juliette in particular suggested having the layout in the first design, which looked much better now that the colours were less harsh on the eye. This is the final poster image that we decided to go along with the information on the poster.

[abigail-art-blog]

Preparing for the End of Year Show at ACAVA Spode Works

09.03.2017 

Today we had a meeting about the end of year exhibition and assigned different groups to help prepare for the show. I chose to be in the marketing group which consists of working with other students to design the show identity, setting up a social media campaign and advertising. 

As well as this today as a group we were introduced to writing a public facing artist statement and were asked to answer the following questions.

What is the work in the show?

A sculptural piece exhibited with film 

What does it relate to/what is it about?

Relates to current events; cryogenics, suspended animation, but also acts as a warning to the effects of pollution, what kind of world would people wake up to?

What is it made of?

Plastic containers filled with small sculptures layered with water, salt and glitter dust.

How was it made?

Pouring water, salt and glitter into the container at different intervals and allowing the natural process of crystallization and allowing the sculptures to dissolve and be effected by the water, its new environment.

What is the most interesting things about this work and why?

The viewer is able to see these mysterious worlds within this mundane object. In the video it makes the objects seem larger than life. The most interesting thing about the work is its ambiguity. 

What is the context of this work (other artists/ideas)?

Shelly Love, Saskia Olde Wolbers

What do you want the viewer to experience when seeing the work?

A curiousness about the work. A romantic connection between the piece and the narrative.

[abigail-art-blog]

Level Meeting

06.03.2017

Following today’s level meeting the group decided to have a small meeting afterwards deciding how we would formulate in order to plan for the final exhibition. In order to do this, we separated ourselves into smaller groups to ensure that there would be a somewhat equal member in each to secure different parts needed to create the exhibition.

Logistics and Planning

Marketing

Event Planning

I opted for the marketing group, a job role which mainly focuses on advertising and social media seemed to be the one best suited to my skills. I felt that since it’s the end of year show I should probably go with something in which I feel I would be good at because I wouldn’t want to be a burden on any of the other groups. 

The exhibition will be discussed in more detail on Thursday, but as a group we are already beginning to draft potential titles for the exhibition:

Exposure

Interfused

Collide

Perception

Inconclusive

[abigail-art-blog]

Artist Talk: MISHKA HENNER

Mishka Henner originally studied sociology at university, but he didn’t want to just analyse culture, he wanted to really partake in it. He tried to be a writer, painter, dance and partake in theater, but all these processes just didn’t feel natural to him. However photography opened his eyes, for the first time he saw art that was non-expressive, that was detached from emotion in some cold, bland way. 

He noticed that when you take the drama out of art it really begins to become interesting. He became particularly interested in the landscape bears all of the wounds from these environment and other causes. In his endeavors though he found that there was something artificial about photography and the relations to it. People work more with screens, the internet. He discovered that he could use the internet to make work. 

He found that in particular at this time the social media site Facebook to be particularly dominating among society. People would try to look their best for a profile picture, it would almost become a fake depiction of themselves. He then began to photoshop a picture of his neutral passport photo onto the faces of “winners”, people who have won awards, and then published a book of all these images collated together. 

His next work also relied heavily on the internet, using images from Google Maps to view fifty one US Military Outposts, none of which were censored at a time when terrorism was a serious threat. A contrasting case to this was the military bases in Holland, there was the most censorship used there. They instead used a digital intervention on an analogue surface image. Henner said “It demonstrates the absurdity of the fear of terrorism.” as the more people try to obscure something, it makes it more visible. 

[abigail-art-blog]

24.02.2017

Placement Day 5

Unfortunately my final day of placement couldn’t be where I ran my own workshop due to a lack of materials at the end of the half term and not enough time to advertise the workshop prior to the end of this week. It was suggested that the workshop be ran next month on mother’s day, but again there was a difficulty in gathering materials. Therefore it was decided for me to do my last day of placement helping to run today’s workshops, which, again was similar to the ones that happened previously this week. 

Although the workshop that I intended to hold couldn’t happen, I did try to encourage the children to talk about or create something important to them, or something that protects them. (This is why it was suggested that the workshop should be held on mother’s day so they could make these sculptures together with their mother.) 

Although there was still a difficulty getting some children to follow this prompt, as it was just a drop in session, quite a lot of the children were younger so most were un-willing to follow this as they would rather have fun and create whatever they wanted, rather than something of particular significance. However, it could be argued that by creating their own sculptures, ignoring this theme that they were creating their favourite thing; these things could subconsciously be things that they deeply care for or holds importance to them in some way.

Similar to in previous workshops, I encouraged the children to use a range of materials; pipe cleaner, googly eyes, buttons etc as these materials were particularly popular around the younger children (e.g. 5-10). One child in particular created an Ostrich which reminded them of a happy memory. The Ostrich being their favourite animal and was the favourite moment for them when they visited the zoo for the first time a few years ago. 

Overall the placement provided a great opportunity for me to learn about how to work professionally in a creative environment, very different from volunteering at a school. Where although I did work in art classrooms, the way that sessions are carried out are incredibly different. Through this placement I met and worked with a various amount of different people from different creative professions; a fine art graduate, a photographer, an illustrator and an artist. It was interesting to see and learn about the different processes in which they take to achieve certain goals, but also how they approach working within their practice. I learnt a lot from the illustrator who ran a session with the children about how she goes about creating stories, books and characters, it was interesting to see how her practice varies so much in terms of how the work is created from being a fine art student. But the processes to get to that point are fairly similar; a lot of experimentation and taking things from real life; commenting on things, events.  

[abigail-art-blog]

23.02.2017

Placement Day 4 

Today was very similar to the workshop that was done on Tuesday as it was another drop-in session. However this time we moved away from the theme of “surprise pies” and encouraged them to make whatever they wanted instead. 

However without prompts like the children had in the workshop yesterday it was sometimes difficult for them to decide on something to create. It meant that I had to begin asking questions about what they liked; favourite animals or things. Perhaps there should be some sort of prompt sheet. There were books today to help the children create things but they were rarely referred to, perhaps due to how informative they looked. Children at this age don’t seem to like to follow instructions and like to feel independent or in control over their own design. 

Things made today:

Unicorns

Cats

Dinosaurs

Ducks

Dogs

[abigail-art-blog]

21.02.2017

Placement Day 2: Surprise Pies Theme, 11am - 3.30pm

The children were asked to create something they liked or something surprising to put into their “surprise pie.” This was heavily influenced by the colouring in activity in which they had to draw something to go into the pie and colour it in. The concept was created by Kate Leake, whom I believe is also helping run the workshops tomorrow. 

Again, like my last time working with the children, they were encouraged to make whatever they wanted and experiment with the day.

My surprise pie design: 

Before the session took place Emily and I had a brief meeting about what kind of workshop I would like to run. 

A clay workshop; 

Lucky charms/things that they love/things that make them feel safe. 

They could create a dictionary language for these charms. Give them meaning or stories (Like the language of flowers) 

I explained how I really wanted something to link to my dollhouses and Middleport who are currently commissioning an artist to create another dollhouse replica of the factory. 

Emily really liked the idea and thought it fitted really well with Middleport and what is currently going on in the factory. She liked how I designed the idea to center around the idea to center around the children’s passions, what they like. (As that always helps keep them focused).

This time, both me and Emily ran the clay workshop. It might be because its half term, but the children see,ed more rowdy than usual. This meant that they were not as focused on the activity. I sat with these children to show them how much fun they could have by asking them questions about what they liked, encouraging them to make these things and showing them how to make them.

Today there were a lot of mixed media things to add to the clay; pipe cleaner, soft shapes and googly eyes. (The googly eyes and pipe cleaners being the favourites). These additions were really good, they allowed the children to be more creative in many ways. They could then experiment with different colours and textures. As well as this, the pipe cleaners were used well as limbs, particularly for younger children who had difficulty molding the clay.

Things made today:

Aliens

Pokemon

Cats

Rabbits

Snowmen

Ponies

Flowes and Vases

Teddy Bears

Volcanoes

Dragons

(It was very busy today so I kept on forgetting to take pictures. I need to do more of that tomorrow!)

[abigail-art-blog]

Artist Talk: SHELLY LOVE

2002, Little White Bird;

Shadows, dolls, children

Stop frame animation with human movement as well

Experimentation; the first time she worked with a camera man

She did an artist residency at this time at London Contemporary Dance School where she trained and worked as a dancer.

2003, Scratch

Worked with a puppet maker

With both the music begins on and off

Interested in puppets, inanimate objects moved by dancers

Static object being moved

2002-2004 Delila and George (Backward series) 

The whole piece runs completely backwards

Interest with working with plastic, paper, sound as well as human movement

But even the human movement in a way is quite static

Mating rituals of birds and humans

POD 2004 (Backwards series) 

Latex and bin bags

More interested in narrative

Clingfilm (Backwards series) 

Working and experimenting with materials; clingfilm

A channel four commission 

Worked directing music videos for some time which gave her time to experiment and learn.

[abigail-art-blog]

29.01.2017 Monkey Fun Day Professional Practice Day 1: Volunteer work at Middleport Pottery, Stoke-on-Trent 

All photographs with children’s faces present were given permission by their parents. 

The activities for the day lasted from 11am-3pm, I arrived at arrived at 10:30 to be briefed on the activities that would run for the day surrounding the theme of monkey fun; a clay workshop, face painting and a colouring competition. This was an even that was largely popular with the visitors last year. I was instructed to inform the parents about the clay; that it was air drying so the children could paint their creations when they got home. As well as this I was told to encourage the children about today’s theme. 

Today I ran a clay workshop which allowed the children to begin creating small sculptures in regards to a monkey theme, but had the option to create whatever they wanted. For example, the younger children had difficulties creating those kinds of things so I encouraged them to use the tools to create patterns in the clay and cut out shapes with cookie cutters. 

The older children managed to create some great sculptures related to the theme; monkey’s, banana’s and palm trees. Others even created rabbits and cats. I encouraged some of the older children who for some, it was their first time using clay to make things like snowmen, butterflies or flowers as they are all created with easy shapes to build. 

I got a lot of positive feedback from both parents and children saying that they enjoyed today’s session, some parent’s were surprised that it was my first day working a placement at Middleport and thought that I worked there first time because they felt that I was very professional and fun with encouraging the children to be creative and helping them use the clay. The general feedback was that they enjoyed how involved I was with the children, how I helped them create things, did demonstrations on methods of how to approach creating their sculptures. For example, encouraging them to use a rolling pin to flatten the clay.  As well as this the parents liked how I talked to the children about their likes and interests and how I was attentive to what they were creating and giving them feedback on what to add to their creations. 

I was surprised about how easily the children opened up and were excited and willing to participate considering that when I first arrived at Middleport today I was very nervous. I didn’t know if I’d be any good at the workshops or would even like doing the activities with the children. I wasn’t sure about how to approach them; whether I should just sell the clay or to sit down with them and really interact with them so at first I sort of mimicked my coworkers behaviour; happy, smiling and enthusiastic about meeting and being involved with the children. After working with the first two children I began to settle into a more relaxed routine and was really able to have fun with them and enjoy the activity. I became more enthusiastic about the workshop and really started interacting and helping every child and parent that came in, asking the children what they were making and if they needed any help with what they were making. 

With the ones that needed help I had some really great conversations with them. I was particularly interested by one seven year old girl who told me about what she was learning about in school; blood in science and the fairy tale Jack and the Beanstalk in PSHE. 

This was interesting to me, because for one I thought that it was odd for a seven year old to be learning about blood, but mainly because I feel that I could relate this to my practice as in semester one I began exploring nursery rhymes and revealing their darker meanings or origins. The two topics link and are being taught to her but in a innocent and unrelated manner. In the nursery rhyme “the giant fell down and broke his crown, and the beanstalk came toppling after”. Losing his crown means beheading, this phrase also appears in the Jack and Jill, a nursery rhyme that I previously researched in semester one.

Also one child made me a doll for my artwork. This lead me to thinking that I could progress to do a doll making workshop out of clay or one where the children could make trinkets - this would lead to a larger range of options and designs. As well as this I have thought about creating some sort of doll colouring competition for the children as this was done today with monkey’s and was very successful. The design of the doll would be a rough outline so the children could draw a dress, shorts, whatever clothing they would want on the dolls. I figured that the best designs could be created by me and put in my dollhouse or I could have people dress up as them if I were to bring the dolls to life in a full scale house in the future, perhaps for an exhibition or photo shoot.

Overall, I really enjoyed today at Middleport and feel that my placement here has real potential in helping children but also improving and progressing my current practice for semester two. I received great feedback from my coworker running the session with me, whom stated that “I was awesome” and that she “really appreciated” me coming along as things got so busy and she would have had to run the workshop by herself if I wasn’t here to help. 

I’m really excited about attending more days at Middleport in February! 

Here are some of the fantastic sculptures that the children made today:

[abigail-art-blog]

Proposal

Proposal:

Workshops at Middleport Pottery

I’m interested in exploring a workshop opportunity at Middleport Pottery, shadowing and learning from the experience. I’ve previously had a great deal of opportunities with working with mainly children, assisting in classrooms and planning small workshops with them within their classrooms. Middleport seems like an ideal place for my placement because the workshops that are offered are very diverse and a lot of them are centred around families and family fun activities which would be a great opportunity in allowing me to develop my skills as a workshop provider.

I’m also interested in researching Middleport’s archives as the notion of archive and memory is becoming a more prominent factor within my work. As well as this, my work surrounds notions of Victorian aesthetics, so Middleport would be valuable in helping develop my studio practice further as well due to the great history it has linking it to the Victorian era.

I’d like to mainly shadow workshops that are already happening to gain experience, but if the opportunity is provided; a chance to run or organise a workshop of my own would be a valuable experience to take from this placement. If this opportunity were available, I’d like to perhaps do some kind of character design workshop where children could create their own dolls or dress up in some way. But after visiting the site, it may be valuable to actually produce some works in response to the site as I’m interested in the history of the factory.

[abigail-art-blog]

I exhibited ‘Jinzou Companion’ as part of the Limbo exhibition. This artwork is a continuation on my fascination with the fictional pop stars known as Vocaloids and how they exist in their own animated reality, MMD. I feel that my focus has surrounded the concept of the realms and capabilities of the virtual world and reality, I wanted to begin exploring what happens when the fictional characters begin to consume more of our reality. As people, we begin to prefer the comfort of our artificial image of man and begin to lose touch with other synthetic, real beings; are we becoming artificial ourselves or should we embrace this new reality? The animation represented a glitch of the character trying to enter the 3D world but not being able to fully embrace and exist in reality, she begins to fade and degenerate, as a character she is seemingly immortal within her own reality, but a hologram can only last for so long and demonstrates that these characters can only exist with the physical existence of equipment in the real world.

‘Transendence’ exhibited in the level four end of year exhibition ‘This is This’. The video consists of three layers of projection, the fictional character, myself portraying the fictional character and myself. I acted as the digital character, performing dances to her songs. The work became somewhat of a performance piece even though it was not the “real version” of me, but simply a projected version on stage, almost like I was the hologram character which I was cosplaying (dressed up as).  Due to the nature of how the video was recorded in the same room layout it made it appear that I was really in the room even though the image of myself couldn’t fully function into the 3D world as I essentially became like the character I cosplay, a virtual character.

The decision to start creating dollhouses and these fictional realities came from viewers in the previous exhibition, This is This referred myself to be a doll inside a dollhouse. I started expanding on concepts of the uncanny and psychoanalysis, creating realities that are overwhelming and sickly with materials which are known for having positive responses. I am interested in the contrast of making something like a dollhouse which is safe and positive to become something worrying and eerie.

 The second dollhouse I created targeted specific personalities and characteristics of people; this one being a hoarder. I am curious about how the cluttered room looks as a whole; the way that the viewer isn’t really sure what is inside the room, the way that the items are too overwhelming, but also how they have this shiny quality similar to the glitter. I’m interested in layering to create something new, using childlike materials; cardboard and tape in particular as they are things that are fragile can be transformed into something strong, the glitter glue solidifies the structure as well as making it appear to be fragile. I’m interested in recreating dream-like areas which provoke the viewer into questioning what they are viewing, and seemingly thinking what it would be like to be in a room like that, why does a room like that even exist?

I created the dollhouse scenarios in life size because I want people to feel overwhelmed and confused themselves rather than seeing it from an outside view on a smaller scale. I want the life size rooms to allow the viewer to question their own surroundings; they’d know that they aren’t actually in a dollhouse but being in that scenario enables you to question your own reality and in ways revert back to feeling like a child. I’m interested in the concept of liminality and liminal space, a kind of limbo of adolescence when as a person you feel lost and have a lack of presence in society. The work revolves around how people are forced or convinced to change to fit into adulthood, a certain way that someone should dress, act as if their life is a role.

[abigail-art-blog]

Letter of Introduction

Dear Teresa,

I am a second-year Fine Art student at Staffordshire University looking to do a placement in a workshop setting during February as a part of my coursework this year. I would like to find a placement where I can volunteer my assistance shadowing or assisting the activities included in the workshops that are provided at Middleport Pottery.

I am particularly interested in taking up a placement at Middleport because I feel that I could gain a lot of experience as the workshops that are offered are diverse and engaging to visitors. I have previously volunteered assistance in secondary schools helping children engage in activities to help them develop artistic and literary skills. This included running a small workshop helping some of the children in the class to draw with oil pastel and charcoal.

As well as this, Middleport is a well reserved heritage site with plenty of history, dating back to the Victorian era as it was built in 1888. Middleport would be a valuable place for me to gain experience in workshops and would help develop as my studio practice as a large part of my work explores and comments on Victorian aesthetics and lifestyle.

If there is an opportunity for me to do a placement or volunteer work. I would like to meet with you soon so that we can discuss the opportunity further and develop a proposal of what kind of work I could do around February. Thank you for considering my proposal and I hope to hear back from you soon.

 Yours sincerely,

Abigail Sharpe

[abigail-art-blog]

CV

Curriculum Vitae

Abigail Sharpe

Abigail-art-blog.tumblr.com

 Contact:

Abigail.Sharpe97@gmail.com

 Qualifications:

2015 – Present, Staffordshire University, BA (Hons) Fine Art, Currently Level 5, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire.

2015, Stanground Academy, BTEC Level 3 Subsidiary Diploma in Art and Design, Grade Distinction, Peterborough Cambridgeshire

2015, Stanground Academy, A Level English Language B, Grade C, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

2015, Stanground Academy, A Level History, Grade C, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

 Exhibitions:

This is This, 2016, Cadman Studios, Stoke-on-Trent, End of Level 4 Show.

Limbo, 2016, Cadman Studios, Stoke-on-Trent, Exhibiting and Curating Group Exhibition.

 Placements:

Work placement in a school, within the art department I worked with both Years 7 and 8, and taught students in small groups. I also supported a non-specialist member of teaching staff deliver a figurative art lesson, 2014, Hampton College, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire.

Work placement in a school, I have worked with a few Year 7’s in my own school by listening to them read and helping them develop their English Language skills, 2014, Stanground Academy, Peterborough.

 Skills:

Competent computer skills which includes having knowledge in digital programs such as Photoshop and Autodesk Sketchbook Pro.

 Commissions:

Currently undertaking three private commissions.

 Employment:

Retail Assistant, I worked well in a team with my colleagues as well as assisting customers and stoking shelves, Dec 2013, Savers, Westgate, Peterborough.

 References available upon request.

[abigail-art-blog]

WOT U :-) ABOUT? - Rachel Maclean. Home Gallery, Manchester

Yesterday, I visited Rachel Maclean’s WOT U :-) ABOUT? exhibition.

The show comprised of fabric prints “WE WANT DATA!”, mixed media sculptures “:-) & :-( U SHALT NOT LIKE ;-) THINKING OUTSIDE THE BOX :-) THINKING INSIDE THE BOX :-(” and a thirty minute video “IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE THAT COUNTS”

The fabric prints explored themes of data management and consumption, fame, ego and worship. They feature a “Kardashian-type demigod, more cyborg than human” This post-apocalyptic nightmare demonstrates how society is reliant on digital media; having an obsession with social media and technology, particularly hand held devices such as phones and tablets. The citizens are infected with a plague-like disease, looking worse for wear and lacking energy and enthusiasm in anything other than the need for more data. The search for greater connectivity seems to be their only desire. 

The mixed media sculptures follow the same suit, with their bodies being rocks, almost plaques with the rules of social media carved into them “U wil not post unauthorized commercial communication such az spam”

The film expands on humanity’s addiction to online validation through the use of social media. The need to be a better you, and to be yourself but an idolized version, one that is accepted by the masses, one that will give you all the attention, admiration and conformation that you are the best you that you can be. It questions the concepts of identity and individuality when the protagonist of the film essentially becomes a look a like to popular figures within the digital culture, the Kardashian’s for example. The film demonstrates the risks to doing this; alterations of the body, filters and photoshop, all for what? A particular lifestyle influenced by capitalism and digital culture. Because you’re not you without you’re “wake up coffee” 

[abigail-art-blog]

Artist Talk: KERRY MORRISON

Kerry Morrison is a socially engaging environment artist, who discovered her interest in wanting to help communities and environments in the Liverpool Biannual, 2009. Her artwork consisted of gathering information about the canal, which concluded in her revealing that there was a large amount of obstructive fencing in areas where it was not needed, eg. to fence of green spaces, trees, grass, parks. In her art piece she aimed to remove the fencing but this was never achieved due to issues with who owned the fences. 

Morrison moved her interest to helping her own community instead, providing an arts space for an abandoned mill, with her team, insitu, she helped bring it to life again. Her community work was inspired by Project Row Houses which she visited shortly after the Venice Biannual. Project Row Houses turned derelict houses into a series of galleries, a communal space and housing to assist young mothers and generally help and build a safe and happy community.