The Return of Barry

Oh Lord, this has been sitting in my drafts. Mostly because it's quite terrible. That's because I had (have) too many things to do and not enough motivation! The link is below:

Linky link.

I just wanted to get it out of the way and get on with the essay!

Frame Making!

Last week, with the help of Dad, we made the frame for my weaving! Here's how it was done...

Ingredients
3 x pieces of wood/skirting board
4 x L-bracket
Very thin screws
Chisel
Hammer
Ruler
A good biro

Step 1: Prepare the wood. I kept two planks the same size and cut the other one in half. That makes four. I think. Remember to use masking tape where you saw! It prevents splitting and other nasty defects. File and sand the edges too!

Step 2: There was much discussion about how to attach the L's and how to layer the wood. I needed space to weave but didn't want too much metal showing. This is the compromise below. We found the wood was prone to splitting so we couldn't drill the holes. Instead we developed a very scientific technique of hammering the screw in a little bit then screwing it in by hand (like the olden days) with a screw driver.

Step 3: I started weaving without grooves but it was so difficult! The warp was slipping all over the place and I couldn't keep control of it. So I marked out some lines for where I wanted grooves. As a haemophiliac, chisels are a bad idea so Dad helped out again with this one.

This is the finished result:

Swanky.

Desire Paths

 

A desire path can be a path created as a consequence of foot or bicycle traffic. The path usually represents the shortest or most easily navigated route between an origin and destination. The width of the path and its erosion are indicators of the amount of use the path receives. Desire paths emerge as shortcuts where constructed ways take a circuitous route, or have gaps, or are lacking entirely - from the Wikipedia page

I think these paths would make a lovely metaphor for the way AW lived his life. He always had clear destinations but went about it in his own way. Even though he set out alone, people eventually began to follow his desire paths and now AW's legacy is ingrained in paths across the country.

I found all these images in this forum : www.reddit.com/r/DesirePath/ 

More Techniques + Materials Inspiration

Scrolling through the internet and came across these, not all of the artists/makers tagged their work so I guess they want to stay anonymous, I will link to respective blogs and instagrams.

Ifices I like the surprising materials - a fabric cement block and ceramics seemingly crumpling into themselves. It's surprising and looks like something I want to touch and play with.

Look at it... I love how with the frames weavings become more 3-dimensional, more obstructive. Yeah. I dig this a lot.

DGTRF

What is that weird thing? I don't know. The paintings are all so spare and weird, it's great.

Caption says:

Testable Predictions at Carl & Sloan

Amy Bernstein, Perry Doane, Michelle Liccardo

http://www.carlsloan.com/

“Hot Potato”
 Ben Gocker

It's in New York so I'll never see this in real life but it my god........................ I want to live this life.

I'm also making a (mental) note about curation for these pieces, how they've used and interrupted space. Que me gusta. 

Alexandra Kehayoglou

Alexandra Kehayoglou is an Argentinien wool rug artist. I looked at her because I was trying to find ways people have portrayed landscape through 3-D forms, how do you communicate something on such a different scale? Alexandra uses textiles to recreate the grass of rolling hills, it works so well and is something I'll definitely take inspiration from. I have used rug techniques before, in weaving and on 3-D objects. Her work is very tactile and inviting, using predominantly natural colours and forms - although the landscapes are idealised.

Tove Jansson

I love Tove Jansson. It was suggested to me that I research her work due to the elements of nature in it that relate to AW.

 

The Moomin troll series are my favourites, they're so witty and charming. Jansson makes great use of line in her pen drawings - similar to AW - creating texture and depth with the density of pen strokes. I love it when she combines this with block colour like in the above illustrations.

She also greatly appeals to my love for kitsch. Oh to make wonderfully ugly things. I actually didn't like Moomins when I was a child, I thought they were quite creepy and unsettling. 

Also, her website has a wonderful section showing the island she spent so much time on with some great photos. :^)

It continues...

Found this fella who has taken it upon himself to do a watercolour painting of every single AW ink drawing.

I'm not sure if it's got quite the same magic to it. AW's self-imposed task for the pictorial guide books was just that, self-imposed. He wasn't following anybody else, his inspirations were the Lakes. I think people see the success of this formula and try and latch on to it, is that cynical?

Alfred Wainwright Documentary: The Man Who Loved the Lakes

As part of my research on AW, I've watched this documentary first shown on BBC Four. It references quite heavily a Desert Island Disc episode I've already listened to, I didn't realise that that had been such an important interview in AW's life!

Here are my notes:

• Born with red hair, nobody else in the family was. His mother used to hide him in a  drawer because of this.
• Liked the shape of writing as well as the words, particularly on maps. 
• Made what were essentially zines about his office, complete with caricatures of work colleagues and gossip columns.
• Chucked out 100 pages of his first book because he wasn’t happy with the drawings and wanted justified text. Clearly obsessive.
• Publisher said that he didn’t think anybody had done a hand written book like this since the monks, it's an interesting comparison and possibly something I could build on.
• When he met second wife Betty for the first time it was to tell her off. She had rented accommodation for a charity event from the council and the event had overrun by an hour. After giving her a talking to they never met again for another 8 years.
• He could be very, very funny. ‘Take care and do not start fires. Or so waste all the effort put into drawing these little trees on this map.’
• Hid a shilling under the top of one mountain in a playful interaction with his audience.
• People wanted to meet him! Rumours would spread about where he was and crowds would gather but he was never there.
• Always felt lonely and bereft like a baby. Was a bit of a man-child.
• His first marriage had some serious issues, mostly because his wife did not share his ambitions and that caused tension between them. She was a simple mill girl and he always felt 'inferior' (as said in his Desert Island Discs episode) because of his social status.
• He wrote a story secretly about this time and in it described a magical future wife...
• When Betty wrote again and they began meeting he gave her the manuscript and asked her to read it. She decided to continue the affair
• Poor Ruth found out from the neighbour! She found something in his desk, probably a letter. She was faithful even leaving him, though they never spoke again, she left him notes on how to look after the house.
• AW had no idea how to look after himself. Christ.
• Sue Lawley: ‘It was as though his life was a long slow ascent to a summit’ 
• Gave most of his wealth away to animal charities. 
• His ashes are scattered on Haystacks, along with many others. He says of this, ‘I shall be in company.’

Lili + Marcus

Lili Scratchey


I love Lili's sweet kitschy ceramics and illustrations! The forms in her work are wonderful and imaginative. :^)

Marcus Oakley


I really enjoy the direct style that he uses, and the colours too ~

Artist Research - Tim Spooner

I've been trying to get some inspiration for the manifesto and found Tim Spooner's work, I like the textures and odd shapes. The way he photographs 3-D work using a scanner is really interesting too!

Animation!

Our finished animation! It turned out pretty well, some of the animation is a little jerky and working in a group is hard but overall we had fun making it. Nobody killed anyone.

Some kind of weird dog

Voila!

Here are some images from the making process:

(There are more to come...)

I also made it poop confetti:

The looks on their faces say it all:

Images from the parade!

Costume Project Research

My character design is almost complete. I am quite mammalian, in that I am a mammal but also that I'm sort of hairy and cuddly, so I wanted to combine aspects of mammals with more microscopic creatures.

My 5 primary needs are the following:

1. Bin bags
2. Yellow
3. Band-aids
4. Glasses
5. Space

Naked mole rats are fairly disgusting creatures but actually represent my character pretty well, burrowing and nesting are things my creature will need to do to survive. They're also quite blind and that ties in well with my need for glasses.

This image shows some intestinal cells. The cells absorb nutrients using their long finger like fronds, catching any food floating by. This links to my small hoarding habit (the reason for bin bags being included in my list!) and also that I have very long fingers.

I love fried eggs! My big Tachen Book of Symbols says that eggs are highly revered in most societies. Not only are they very nutritious but often they are compared with the sun: round, life-giving, and yellow. I will give my character egg boobs, breasts primary function is to give milk to infants, it's a way of showing my nurturing side.

Head lice are weird creatures, associated with hair and dirt and unkemptness. I like the idea of my character adopting little parasites to help them clean up the environment they live in.








I'm struggling a little with band-aids and glasses, would it be too human to just have the character wearing them? I will consider this over the next few days.

As a side note, I also have an excellent book on pre-Columbian art that I have been perusing, unfortunately I can't upload images from the book but I shall bring it to crits and tutorials. The styles of the costumes in the book are incredible and worth referencing in my work.

Subject/Object - Making of the Final Piece

As I had recently done a digital media workshop I felt it would be a good idea to use what I learnt in this project. I want to recreate a collage but digitally, so I used Adobe Illustrator. These screenshots show the different ideas I went through:

The final piece ended up looking like this:

This has been a fun and challenging project in terms of materials, I've really enjoyed pushing myself this way.

Winter Solstice

For this project we've been asked to create a campaign poster relating to an article from the primer work. The article I chose is about winter solstice and the science of time. For the research stage of the project I'm looking at how and why different cultures celebrated (or feared) the solstice.

Jul/Yule
'Yule' comes from the Anglo-Saxon word 'iul' meaning wheel, it marks the rebirth of the Sun and the beginning of the New Year, it's name refers to the cyclical nature of time and the seasons. This ancient tradition has combined with many of the Christian religious celebrations brought to Europe.

Wild Hunt
Related to the celebration of Jul is this ancient folk myth told through Northern Europe, it is sometimes referred to as Odin's Hunt. It is essentially a ghost tale, something to scare naughty children on  dark and stormy winter nights. Traditionally the hunt starts on October 31st and continues on until the New Year, when the days get longer. It is an ill omen to see the hunt.

Sköll
Another myth of winter solstice involves the warg (or wolf) Sköll. The warg spends the year watching the Sun goddess, Sól, flying through the sky on her chariot. As the year progresses her horses get more and more tired and flow lower and lower. In some versions of the myth, on winter solstice Sköll swallows Sól and the world is plunged into darkness (in countries such as Iceland it is not uncommon for days to occur without sunlight) until other gods rescue her and restore the light (usually Thor and Odin). At Ragnarök, Sköll and his brother Haní will succeed in eating the Sun and Moon marking the end of the world. This did not mean a disastrous apocalypse to the Vikings so much as a change in gods, the old hierarchy being destroyed and a new one replacing it. It fits in with the themes of rejuvenation seen throughout solstice celebrations.

Saturnalia
Saturnalia is the Roman winter feast in honour of the god Saturn, a god of time + agriculture. In Saturnalia roles are reversed and Roman social norms are foregone, slaves are permitted to eat with masters, good times are had by all. It began on December 17th and was then expanded to the 23rd to allow for even more feasting, drinking and gambling.

Yaldā
This Iranian festival is celebrated on the longest night of the year. Family and friends come together to eat, drink, and read poetry to each other. In particular Hafez is read. Pomegranates are significant to the feast, their red colour echoes the colour of dawn.

Dōngzhì

This is an East Asian celebration for winter solstice. It harks back to the yin and yang philosophy of cosmic harmony and balance, the solstice marks the beginning of longer days and the turning tide of positive energy. Traditionally dumplings are eaten as they are a nourishing food good for the winter months.