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Creating physical object in shape of a 16 page Zine. A story told in poetry and image. The transition into a corporeal form leaves a tangible mark and meaning. FIrst attempt a bit messy but can tidy up and create more from all digital QS pain work.

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WEnt aginst my instinct to go large scale and instead took down in scale to fit with small rectangle frame. A containment of the image , of the pain , the way both I and others minimise the impact and act to confine and limit.

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Took figure images and created mask in Photoshop in which I placed some images from my pain QS sketches.

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timeloopwithwords

From MIni PRoject Time from Helena , Fadzia and Jaquie

Went through old video clips and trying to find one from the time I was receiving treatment, my own timeline and biography. Found one from when I was in Mackrahannish with my children and grandson. I was in the middle of treatment and felt very slow , sluggish and nauseous but was enjoying the time spent with my closest family. It was a pivotal time , not sure yet whether treatment would work and wondering if all the side effects were worth it. The place I was felt very old , at the end of the Argyll Peninsula at nearly at the outermost part of the West of Scotland. 

I found a video of me walking along the beach towards my kids with my grandson and looking back now this was a positive turn , going towards rather going away. The image  I took from the video is one where I’m back lit and in silhouette, it has always drawn me. A moment of potential.

I also found a video of the sea lapping on the shore and rocks , this always reminds me of deep time. The rhythm and rhyme of sound and movement repeated for millenia, slowly eroding and moving the shore inwards. Each tide turn a moment of potential.

I then took from my daily digitals montages that I had created incorporating landscapes I have visited and photographed with images of cervical cancer cells. Each image represents the tension between nature doing what nature does, these cells have no malintent their only agency is the urge to reproduce, it is only a byproduct of this action that wreaks havoc on human bodies. The landscape creates moments of  mutable and dynamic intra action with me. In putting these montage together I hope to create potential movement.

I first put material together in photoshop and working on the justopositions and new connections made by using variety of blending tools I put together in small video clip. I added the image and sound of sea as an transparent layer. I then watched through and responded quickly in a short free verse poem. I then overlaid this spoken word and exported as video clip.

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WB 17 April Daily QS Sketches and updated montage and text book.

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Mini Project Genus Loci ( Christi , Iain and Lynne)

Used randam route through hospital on way to and from appointments , taking photos whenever something caught my attention. Reviewed when home , images of empty chairs both single and multiple appeared to me to signify the individual and community loneliness and silence experienced in hospital . Silence is the usual sound that accompanies appointment and waiting rooms. Anxiety and fear contained. The long corridors always act as funnel to waiting areas.

I collaged some elements , creating a window into a single moment of stark silence. Then using fractured poetry responded to the feelings and anticipation of each appointment, using my own handwriting.

Digitally collaged using image and writing to obscure and distort image of chair. I hope I have created an embodied moment where the internal world is juxtaposed with the external silence.

May do more collage with the images I took.

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This weeks daily Pain sketches / essays. Difficult week , platelets dropped again and blood sugars still high !! Just makes the chronic oain a bit more difficult to deal with. Drawings reflect the fogginess I have felt , difficult to clear through to clarity of thinking. Like a haze over brain sometimes feels like grasping for thoughts through treacle. The montages illustrate this best. Layering.

Updated Zine digital

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MArch 2023 Daily DIgital Rough First copy.

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THis weeks daily quantified self sketches. Stripped of any colour an embodiment of my body this week. An internal fight being carried out expressed as these black tonal ink drawings. Wet paper and ink drops then made to flow with either brush , air or movement. Uncontrolled initial momentum. More measured marks after stopped, inscribing specific motifs at specific points.

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So ironic !! Feel like been stopped in my tracks. Disease and uncertainty return with a vigour which both shocked and frightened me. Routine blood test showed dangerously low platelet levels in blood. Thrown back into fear of cancer, images of cervical cancer cells having swam in sea of lymph fluid through my body either settling on bone or creating ruptured in blood. Immediate treatment extremely high levels of steroids which interrupt the antibodies attack on platelets.

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Updated Quantified self

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This weeks pain sketches, very heavy and dark. Superficial lightness in some. Mostly responding to corporeal fight , platelets versus sugars resulting in amplified pain , fatigue and brain fog. The confused and distorted thinking is something I hate. Reminds me of chemotherapy and the kind of brain fog. I am so used to having the capacity to think , to reflect, to make connections that when slowed down is frustrating. I have added montage and poetry to ongoing publication.

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Collaboration with Iain in relation to Quantified self, Created a mini project brief from which we worked. Loved working with the images. So lightly expressive , marks and textures really resonated. Reminded me of times when struggled with depression and pain. I always used as a mental metaphor the idea of " a well" , however far down the well I felt, was a pointer to where I was mentally . Maybe the visual marker of the 'void" is the expression of that ? Its not necessarily a well but a void of some sort ? In these images I see , Iris , centred circles , the marks , colours , textures appeared to me to dance around , in and out . Really confirms for me that drawing / painting is an embodied process. Anyway , hope you don't mind but have done 2 versions of montages , one static and one moving with some expressive text.

It is strange but ideas of abstraction as a way of connecting with or somehow conjuring " essential" " universal" motifs have gone out of fashion. From early proponents like Hilma Klint to later Jungian psychotherapy models. Post modernism and structuralism has put moved the focus from maker to viewer. I am still constantly drawn to ancient motifs , they arose across the world at the same time and not all can be accounted for by people movement.

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Following Amy and Ben's seminar on sound from Friday I took the recording that made and layered with image and poetry. Ideas about Dissonance arrived when recording and playing recording of my movement and footsteps and the sound of my stick on the ground. We were asked to take a small walk and record , then take the same walk whilst listening to the recording. I immediately noticed how out of step it was second time round, my steps and rhythms were slower , a pattern that occurs when I get tired or in more pain I walk slower and use the stick in a heavier manner. This emerged as an expression of my own dissonance. I still am surprised by the change in my gait and slowing of pace because of pain. My mental picture of my own physicality is out of place with the actuality. This dissonance always feels surprising and invokes feelings of sadness , frustration, anger and dismay. It also led me to think that other people also ignore or don't see the invisible limits on my physicality , if leading me to a room or table they set off at a pace that I can't possibly keep up with despite me having a walking stick.

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Video from collaboration with J and J.

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Week 4 of my quantified self pain daily sketches. Just looking at the images for the week I can feel the intensity of days , times , movements and stillness and how experiences of pain are expressed in and on my body. These become embodied in these quick drawings. Towards the end of the week I did have unexpected health issues , which in looking at my sketches were clearly threaded through. I have also montaged these and created more photo poems.

I have been reading Karan Barad and MAterial Feminisms this week and clearly see how some of their discussion and propositions are becoming embedded in my work. The performance of these sketches are just as important as the image itself. They don't reflect directly objectively an experience in the traditional science and art sense of representation. They individually and in their combination become a phenomenon , an intra action as materiality , experience and feminist discourse are brought act together within and across.

Blaze

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February Daily Digital , Rough and Ready version. Still to review and edit .