Genuine Interest

Andy Goldsworthy at the YSP

2007-04-16T10:39:00.000Z

http://www.ysp.co.uk/view.aspx?id=457

Well worth seeing, especially on a day as lovely as yesterday. The YSP has got a weird feeling to it though. Somewhere between the visiting, crafts-fair fanatics and the families who just come to spy on artwork and have a picnic like they would at a zoo to watch monkeys doing their daft little things. For all this weirdness it was pleasant enough. I was gladdened to not hear “I could do
that” once throughout the entire day aside from when I said it to a friend, which prompted a quickly ignored question of how many times have I heard it and it has actually been someone taking the piss? Like me.

Most of the work we saw through the day seemed to suffer from being in a white gallery space and both me and my friend felt that it smacked of “taking something ordinairy and finding the beauty in it” relying completely on the seperation of whatever object/image for it to be successful at all. Goldsworthy to me isn't that superficial and I believe that whilst most of the work looked like it 'fit' in a gallery (perhaps thats the problem), it could have benefited doubly from being out in the wild somewhere. The interior woven from trees for example came in at second place when we went outside and explored an ancient yew tree thats growing in the YSP grounds. Outside it might have had more of an impact.

The cone built just inside the doorway of the main YSP building was built in a space that simply wasn't big enough to be honest. If the desired effect was for the viewer to feel dwarfed by it then I'm sure it was achieved, but for me (being so english) the work suffered from being in a crowded room where politeness and "excuse me"s ruled the day rather than people looking at the cone.

Photography was banned when inside any of the gallery spaces and words wouldn't really do any of the work justice, save to say that this is a show worth seeing. All things aside I thoroughly enjoyed it.

2007-03-27T16:24:00.000Z

This is one of the largest pieces of work I've ever done and it has been absolutely fantastic. Working large scale allows you to really get your arm into it and allows the process to be a lot more physically vigorous, making marks that you have to walk (or run) around to make. Working on something that is too big for you to see whilst you're doing it has its own inherent challenges and, whilst I'm happy with the result, I know the next few drawings will be even better.

Details:

Approx. size : 6.5/7 Ft tall - 13/15 Ft wide.

2007-03-25T20:38:00.000Z

You'll have to just accept my apology for the images being in completely the wrong order. This is the second time I've had to upload them due to none of them being landscape format and me not realising that I couldn't rotate them here (watch someone send me a comment telling me how to do it in blogger now... haha). I regret, also, the fact that I haven't been posting frequently at all. I could claim that I've had a family crisis, midlife crisis or third world crisis but I'd be lying. The truth of it is I've been working on the above drawings, going to dinner, reading copius amounts of sci-fi and working on a large scale drawing at college. Said drawing is roughly 15ft X 8ft.

Most of these drawings have been done from the river Aire or from the area between Manchester and Holmefirth (the real windblasted northern plains, haha). The more and more I do it seems that they become more about drawing and less about clouds, landscapes or indeed anything else. The subject matter seems to be a prompt and although it affects the process hugely, it is barely a deciding factor in how many of the drawings look by the end.

Hello stranger!

2007-02-28T20:40:00.000Z

It is I!

I have returned from a week long excursion into the deep and dark that is Londinium. I won't blather on for too long about it as no writings or photographs can come close to the actual things. I dare say, however, that the Kiefer exhibition ranks among some of the best sights I've ever witnessed. Absolutely breathtaking work. I've been contemplating leaving college and either going to live next to his land in a cabin, my deckchair on the roof and binoculars ever at the ready so I can catch a glimpse of the magician working, or going and begging for a job as a technician. My skills in operating cranes, building pavilions and manipulating lead with acid are, sadly, lacking however so for now I'll settle for seeing his exhibitions. I would scan from the book I bought but my scanner isn't big enough.

http://www.whitecube.com/mailouts/?id=9

The next single thing that stood out enough to be worth mentioning was the show at the Tate Modern. Not for me the Gilbert and George floor (seen one, seen them all springs to mind, but I haven't given it the fairest of chances) but Monet's “Water Lilies” further skyward. Odd that a painting as loose and untameable as the lilies was hung directly across from Summertime: Number 9A by Pollock. I have to admit that the Monet captivated me far more and was far less pictorial, which surprised me greatly. A friend with me in the gallery mentioned that if Monet had lived thirty years more he would have been 'doing Pollock with bells on' and I can't come back at him with an argument having seen the lilies face to face.

Another few bite the dust

A few more drawings here, dear god have they taken a long time. Its great! I've been dismissing out of hand all the concerns that painters labour themselves with (composition, colour etc) as though they weren't part of my agenda before I started doing these drawings and I can't do anything other than admit that, in certain respects, I was completely wrong. To believe that any rectangular, worked surface mounted and put on a wall wouldn't bring forward concerns and questions with regards to the painter's issues was extremely naïve. The 'paintings' I started this blog showing you were far from paintings in this regard (bad paintings maybe). Colours were chosen almost arbitrarily from what I had scrounged and there was very little brush-work or indeed much of anything involving a craft or trade skill. Whilst I think that the notion behind the inquiry is sound, I freely admit that I'm simply not equipped to tackle it yet. The skills of colour mixing, drawing, painting and observation aren't developed enough nor is my experience of my subject. To remedy this I think I will finish out the remainder of my first year at college drawing and nothing but. Maintaining a rigorous work ethic and developing my hand and eye will benefit me no end. Outside of studio time at home I will return to very straightforward landscape painting.

Time for a bit of reading

In other news – I've finally got the chance to start reading The Story of Art by Gombrich. I decided that (with my driving test looming ever closer and my bus-reading time diminishing as a result) the books weren't going to read themselves and that there's no better time than now. Gombrich is an amazing writer judging from the little I've read and from his other book: “Art and Illusion”, HIGHLY recommended. He writes about ancient Chinese landscape painters:

“[Paintings were] ... less for the teaching of a particular doctrine – as Christian art was to be employed in the middle ages – than as an aid to the practise of meditation. Devout artists began to paint water and mountains in a spirit of reverence, not in order to teach any particular lessons, nor merely as decorations, but to provide material for deep thought.”

Since leaving sixth form and going onto foundation I've had a problem with things that are purely decorative that pretend to be other than. I am pleased to have had it explained to me (whether correctly or not) that we are to be about far more than artifice and that we are not at art-school to learn hobby crafts. What I am about to type is almost word for word the things I've had said to me in a discussion about this months and months ago that has only just made complete sense.

The above definition of the purpose of art and painting particularly is pleasing for me to read as, at least for Buddhist artists circa the thirteenth century, painting served as far more than either of the two most common 'purposes' of art. I am not, not have I ever been, religious. I dare say though that from reading more and more landscape artist's writings and seeing more and more of their work that we seem to be using it to fill our spiritual quota. I think that, despite scientist's claims of it being otherwise, people are forever going to be enchanted and intrigued by the world and that some of us vent it in an almost shamanistic ritual. This may be evolutionary hang-over from when art was considered magic. From when (again, citing Story of art) Norse longship captains were asked to remove their terrible dragon carvings from the front of their prows lest they scare the local spirits away. But I honestly think that it goes a little deeper. I believe that despite people not wanting to believe it, you can approach the world (and life perhaps) in a very spiritual (maybe just romantic?) way without needing to hide behind god or science as an explanation. I am happy to admit that I don't believe I will ever find an explanation for the feeling that I get when stood out on a hillside, wind whipping my face and my feet squidging gradually deeper into mud. I think scientists could say “you get this feeling because of such and such a hormone being released from X and Y parts of the brain” but really they're only analysing the results of this unobtainable thing that prompted the reactions.

Sabbatical

2007-02-11T16:17:00.000Z

I've been rediculously busy for the past few weeks and, short of the odd rant about the education system as it is now, I have had very little worth writing about.

Drawn back in

This drawing project possessed me! Having not taken this much care/time with a drawing since leaving sixth form it was massively refreshing to return to. The drawings are as brain-dead as you like but a bit of aesthetic toss occasionally to keep your hand in isn't a crime I suppose. The disheartening thing is that my tutors unanimously decided that I'd be better off abandoning what I was doing in favour of drawing. Their reason was that they believe it to be the next 'big thing'. Apparently, because you CAN do anything in visual arts now, people do anything to avoid the difficult disciplines such as drawing and painting in the traditional sense. I can understand the logic but I don't see the sense in compromising what I love doing and what I find interesting for the sake of what would amount to pandering to one of the most fickle crowds in the world. Thanks, but no thanks, its not an option.

So, what have I been doing?. I attempted to apply the style and technique I was studying to the figure but the results were varied (due to my indifference about the subject matter I believe). When I started drawing clouds that issue resolved itself and I had something I could really get my teeth into.

Back in the saddle

I have one week to build a machine and get some results out of it before I make a video presentation to the rest of my course. The presentation is fairly important as it is what the decision of who I am to be paired with for a collaborative unit is based on. Thankfully the module isn't as hellish as I first imagined. The tutors announced that the collaboration can be as loose as each pair wants it to be, which suits me down to the ground.

Misnomer

2007-01-30T17:23:00.000Z

I’ve missed a few instalments and for that I am sorry. Real life issues adding into what was already a pretty hectic weekend.

“Bow down, lowly peons!” Or not…

I think that I may be coming across as slightly more smug than is the case. Talking with the other students and staff at college I always find myself feeling that they’re disingenuous but with almost all the students on my current course, that’s simply not the case. They’re interested in what they’re doing but their overall aim is something massively different to mine. The work I am doing justifies itself to me as with anything else (be it research/whatever I’ve ranted about before). I am not doing the work to get a degree, grade or job – it is of interest to me on a personal level. The majority of students I meet treat their subject matter as a weapon of choice with which to obtain what they really want. What they really want seems to consist of the following:

The gratification that comes from a job well done.
A pat on the back from tutors.
A career that guarantees the happiness they’ve been promised would come with higher education.
Kudos and/or the appearance of being ‘an artist’ (and therefore dynamic, intelligent and mysterious to the lowly outsiders).
Simply to avoid having to get a job or make any adult decisions.

The first is normally found in the mature students and students that have come from design courses. Sacrificing performance to course criteria in favour of something exciting and interesting to you personally is beyond their understanding. When the aforementioned idea is finally conveyed to these students it is met with a kind of sympathetic condescension. “Bless… You’ll realise and get it right eventually” is the vibe I get. This assumption that there is a universal standard of right or wrong normally accompanies the desire to do well in my experience. Instead of discussion you’re told how to ‘do it right’ instead of whatever silliness you’re already engaged in.

I could go on to discuss all of the list at length but they aren’t the focus of what I’m trying to say. I am much more selfish in my activities than these other people. This attitude is almost self-destructive when I think about what possible careers or pathways it leaves me with after I have to leave the studio space. Being this selfish allows me to set the objectives of the work itself take priority over anything else thus giving me access to a level of freedom that is what I can’t help but think anyone working in a creative practise would want. I see it as being on the same level as financial freedom whereby the cost of things wouldn’t be a concern when it came to making work, and who wouldn’t want that?

“The Little Draw”

The drawing project we were set has come to a successful conclusion in my case. I am late handing in my submission (tomorrow as opposed to Monday) and I don’t honestly believe the format that the work is in will be received well by the tutors. The success, therefore, lies in the drawings I shall scan in tomorrow. I won’t go on at length tonight since, without the images, anything I say is pointless. Be satisfied with the promise of something solid to actually look at tomorrow instead of all this babble.

So you thought that was good!

2007-01-25T22:02:00.000Z

Well watch this...

Sometime today I stopped and read the five sentences above the drawing I was working from. AGAIN (I really need to sort this out) the lack of scanner and googles surprising inadequacy stops me from being able to show you and for that I apologise. And ye did laughter peal forth from his throat. Here I had been thinking “Skilfull bastard! What a wonderfull representation of something so solid and uncompromising” (the image being of a roman building consisting of ornate collumns and decorative masonry). I thought that he had sat down somewhere and set-to with his pen. It turns out that the image was made completely from his imagination. Christ! The skill and sensetivity is intimidating.

The discovery got me drawing areas and buildings I remember playing around when I was younger and the exercise turned out to be extremely enjoyable (if not a little too self-indulgent). I'm not quite sure what the members of staff will make of my complete departure from the brief, but true to my word I've been consumed by my interest in certain aspects of the project thus-far. Line quality and the ability to represent as much as possible in a single mark have become details which I am exploring backwards. I worked from vague images to ones where a very real likeness (to people who knew or had seen the models around) was achieved. The interesting thing is that I put barely any facial features on any of the drawings and, in that regard, a lot of them might as well have been stickmen.

Next week we begin a new module where, hopefully, I will be able to return to the work regarding weather and the world that had me so obsessed before I had to commit all of my studio time to this drawing project. I hope to build some machines I have plans for (which I WILL show when I have the means, blah blah sick of hearing) which will make a visual rather than numerical record of wind, rainfall and other elements of the weather. These would have been done by now were it not for the fact that the only time I have in which to do it (as well as the only time where the tools/timber are available) is studio time.

The catch!

Of which there always is one. The catch is that the tutors, in their abundant sympathy for how difficult it is to be fumbling around in the dark trying to grapple with an emerging practise, have decided to pair up the students for the module's duration and force us to work together on collaborative pieces of work. Whilst there are some people in the group that I think would mesh well with me in terms of the work actually... well.. working, there are plenty of people who's work is so completely alien to mine that I think, whilst the resultant dialogue would be interesting, neither party would progress. One particular student and I simply couldn't work together as she has made it abundantly clear that shes not a person I can get along with for great amounts of time. We're civil but outside of the necessary we don't have much to do with each other. Time will tell as to how successful or torturous the whole scenario will be.

My baby! My baby! Who threw out my baby!

2007-01-23T21:31:00.000Z

This one may be a bit brief. “Phew” I hear you say.

No I don't care what you've been looking at, I said go do some RESEARCH!

I had a conversation today with some mature students about research and what it means. In true edit fashion I asserted my contention that research meant being aware and actively searching for visual references. I went a little further however and mentioned that an awareness of the visual qualities surrounding all things around us can be nothing other than research. I might have been deliberately baiting a completely predictable response but I felt like having a discussion. The aforementioned ‘predictable response’ was that research is ‘devalued’ unless you can prove on paperwork, to external educational authority moderators, that you’ve done some. The word some is important here because, to the external moderators, the only thing that matters about your research is that you have photocopied something that looks something like it MIGHT be artwork.

Forgive this slightly jaded view of ‘professional moderators’ but my experience of education thus-far has taught me that success means duping or putting the shine on your efforts so as to convince the moderator that he or she is looking at exactly what they want to see as a high grade body of work. Educational success therefore is defined completely by how a pupil performs to over objective and numerically based criteria. This archaic system will (I hope) be swiftly trumped in years to come by the sheer volume of uneducated and uninterested people who are separated from the general population of England by the fact that they have a degree, not that they are educated enough to get a degree (not all of them will be). A tutor of mine put it best when he outlined the logic behind the government founded coercion of pupils to entertain the idea that they NEED higher education:

“There are a lot of intelligent ((not knowledgeable, intelligent!)) people who attend university. This must mean that if we make everyone in the country attend university – our people will all be made vastly more intelligent. Eureka!”

Back to the title. I may be combating my bathwater+baby removal disorder. Though I had it preached at me that despite the benefit my own research has for me, the people around me and my work and despite the fact that my tutors and the people around me are made aware of it constantly by my lip-flapping – I did come away full in the knowledge that I should use a filing system to keep a hardcopy of key pieces of research if only for easy access. I had thought that using a research file was naught but a waste of time when I could just as easily (and probably come out comparatively better off financially) get copies of the books I would otherwise be photocopying from.

Like drawing blood from the space in stones…

Today marked another turning point in the drawing project. I see-sawed from having a disastrous morning of drawing to some of the work finally taking shape in the afternoon. Instead of doing exactly as I was told, I began working straight from life – drawing the other people in the studio. I’ll be honest I didn’t tell any of them because I don’t want to stop anyone working or make anyone uncomfortable. I was forced to work quickly as the original drawings were of some of the biggest fidgets I’ve ever seen, sat swiveling on computer chairs. Needless to say, these were the less successful attempts. Eventually I sat behind a mature student who works at the other side of our studio. I’ve noticed that she tends to move around only to charge/wash her brush or to change her seating position. It happens periodically more or less every couple of minutes, perfect for quick studies. The line quality I achieved whilst working with this rapidity was much closer to that of Piranesi’s original sketches. The same can be said of the amount of lines I began to use to describe the student’s form. The challenge became largely centered around describing as much in a single line as was possible.

I’ll post some of the better results as the week goes on if possible. I’m falling asleep typing this in bed at the minute.

Like drawing blood from a stone

2007-01-22T20:52:00.000Z

More on “The Little Draw” drawing project.

My ego took a serious thrashing today as I rediscovered how poor my hand was with regards to what I was required to do. Having made what I considered to be some headway in the task on Sunday afternoon/evening I have perhaps taken todays short-comings to heart a little more than I should have. C'est la vie.

Now children, I want you to draw like good little boys and girls

The drawing project we have been given is pretty much an art 'Stars in their eyes'. Pairs of students have been given the name of an artist and have been instructed to copy said artist's drawing style, techniques and pieces faithfully imbuing your efforts with the same visual flavour as the original artist. Forget this being a life's-work, we have been given two weeks to do it. Last Monday was a painful anniversary for me and it pretty much crippled my work efforts when combined with a day on an assessment panel and a day preparing for and being assessed. To put it plainly I have one week to 'get' the drawings of Piranesi.

The Piranesi work I knew of wasn't exactly drawing. I have a small book of his etchings and engravings (which incidentally are beautiful) and when the name was called out I have to admit I felt a moment of what can only be described as the 'white noise' of glumness. Well... wouldn't you be a little apprehensive? :

I spent a few hours attempting to reproduce the looser etchings of prisons that Piranesi did in Biro, the results varied from extremely poor to mediocre. Last Friday afternoon, just as I had started really, one of my tutors noticed the pieces I was working from and swiftly admonished me for the selections. He procured a gorgeous book full of Old Master drawings and pointed to a lush pen and ink study by Piranesi (Which has since had a minor accident involving an ink spillage, no seals or swans were hurt). I felt relieved to the point of elation, not because of the task being any easier, but because it had gone from impossible (and, since the invention of the scanner/modern camera, quite pointless) activity of rendering something perspectively perfect and polished so as to give the illusion of being the most faithful record possible to being an exercise in drawing. Drawing I use here in a very traditional sense involving analytical studies of a subject where tonal, linear and compositional qualities are of the utmost importance. I enjoyed the challenge and no sooner had I started on Friday when I was forced to pack away my gear and head on home.

Ink drawing by Piranesi (again, apologies for the lack of scanner/camera)

After a Friday with the beer-monstrosity I'm proud to call my mother and a Saturday spent mastering the art of rising from the dead I sat down and began making a hard-nosed, full scale forgery of the drawing. Two hours yesterday, three hours this morning and three quarters of an F grade pencil later and the drawing has failed. The perspective and composition were completely off and the line quality just didn't match that of the original. I believe that he was using a much thicker nibbed pen (quill?) than I am. Attempting to restart the study as well as attempting to make studies of some of his other drawings all resulted similarly. Safe to say that by the end of this afternoon I was losing the will to live as well as my hair.

Though we've been basically ordered to only work on studies from the artist's drawings I'm more than a little tempted to disobey (what a shame eh?) tomorrow and work from people sat around the studio in the spirit and flavour of the Piranesi drawings. When questioned my reason would have to be that the original task, whilst not appearing so initially, is counterproductive and ill-thought through (or perhaps ill-executed on my part?) at least in the case of the drawings I am to study. This is because of the two fundamental goals of the project:

a) Reproduce a faithful and accurate copy of the original work.

b) Come to terms with the drawing and, via de constructing it/them, begin to master a control and understanding of the artist's style and methodology.

Even a novice like me can see that for anyone without a remarkable innate drawing/copying facility the two objectives should remain exclusive as one makes the other all but impossible. The Piranesi drawings are done in an extremely quick and intuitive manner with most of the forms being nothing but the very loosest illusionistic devices. There are figures made of two or three markings, occasionally just the one shape which are clearly done rapidly. On the one hand I am being instructed to copy this image before me so that the two could be lined up together and a clear reference made (and therefore a judgement of quality on the reproduction skill I [don't] posses) and, on the other hand, I am being instructed to work in a loose, experimental and intuitive manner very quickly. I am no forger but to make a convincing replica of anything requires nothing but the very hardest-nosed perfectionism with regards to recreating the original article, working in a loose way by its very definition negates this end result from being a possibility.

Thought you'd escaped the rant?

I forgot to mention in the outline of the brief that we have been told that we must have ten study sheets, including up to three full sized, large scale copies of the original drawings. Having spent two of the six days I have producing a mediocre and unfinished drawing doesn't fill me with confidence that I'll meet these requirements. What disturbs me however is the fervour with which the requirement will be thrust in my fact that despite that fact that (unlike most people without the valid excuse I have) I have been in the studio working for 9 hours a day as I should have been. How could I physically have produced more work? Staying up all night and not sleeping? If I am to be frank I think it would be grossly petty to enforce such rigorous requirements over a two week drawing project in the first year of a course at art-school. The demand simply isn't there. There are no clients who have paid for example.

I worry about how much these deadlines and requirements could be detracting from the progress a lot of us could be making. Clearly some people need strict guidelines as they aren't strict enough with themselves and, come the eleventh hour, are normally seen scrambling around cobbling together whatever bits of shit they can to scrape through. This, to my mind, has to be largely because the student isn't engaged with the subject they're pretending to study. I think scraping through shouldn't be an option and that these requirements shouldn't exist for people to hide the fact that they are completely uninterested in visual art despite whatever skill or talent they have. Getting a lot of these students who don't belong in study to admit that they're completely uninterested is the first step towards them being much more self-aware and much, MUCH more happier because of it. Again the national curriculum stigma attached to not being particularly interested in anything other than your creative home/social life and having a job to afford to dabble in it comes into play.

At the minute it seems that education is not providing fully for the people it should be because its too busy mentally crippling and breaking the other people who, without it. if we're honest, would have been perfectly happy by dogmatically shoving the “education:good – no education:you're a piece of turd” garbage down the student's throats. I wonder if people really think that the population of England is getting any smarter or happier because a lot more of us go to university than in decades gone by... I'm sure some middle-class suck ups would love to think so, but the bigwigs they're sucking up to can't be anything other than completely aware that all they're doing is making more OFSTED positions for their cronies.

Inception

2007-01-21T14:25:00.000Z

Well, I think its about time I get this underway.

The beginning of something like this always seems quite difficult until you sit down and start scribing. For the record - As part of my course structure I am required to keep some form of journal. Blogging was listed as an option and now it seems by far the most appropriate, what with me losing or ruining most scraps of paper I normally use. Regardless of the course requirements, I think this is something I'll keep up to. The journal so far has been a great help in summing up and exploring experiences in the light of day.

Where to begin?

I named the blog Genuine Interest because I feel its what I have. This might sound obvious to some people and less obvious to others, but I feel that if you don't have a driving ambition or passion surrounding what you intend to study at university /art-school /college /etc then you ought really to rethink whether you should be studying it at all. Coming out of the national curriculum leaves a massive contingent of people brainwashed by the notion that:

"Unless you go to university, you are a failure."

Most of said 'students' are unaware themselves of just how deeply rooted this mantra is within them and will express complete bafflement when confronted with the idea that "maybe its not for you". Said confusion has rarely turned to anything other than anger or distress in my (admittedly limited) experience. I dare say, through conversations I've had with teachers who are more experienced than I, that the rule applies across the board with very little exception these days.

"What?! Not for me?! Are you saying I am a failure and that I'm destined for a mere living?! That I won't be one of those inspirational, interesting and exciting personalities that I based my 'career choices' on?!"

I (and this may read as being arrogant) am proud of the fact that what I do fires me up. I'm not pompous about it and the pride isn't something that I go telling on the mountain often since I think it SHOULD be a standard component to any student's reasons for being where they are, doing what they're doing. None the less I feel enthused by the fact that I have this passion and drive to study the things I am doing, despite the exact focus of the study still shifting occasionally. The reason for calling the blog Genuine Interest lies with my concern of how many people are being 'square pegged' in the round hole of education and not with some gloating sense of superiority to people mistakenly putting themselves in debt for no real reason. I felt the distinction had to be made.

Process and history.

I feel that it is important to understand how I got to where I am currently. Coming out of junior school, I got a scholarship to a Grammar School. I would like to say that I was poached there with promises of how exceptional the facilities and environment was but I would be lying to do so. I went extremely willingly and, of all the examples to randomly pick just now, the facilities and environment were excellent. All the lads pulled together to make sure everyone got through alright and, even though not everyone got along perfectly, the camaraderie was beyond anything I've seen outside of war films and documentaries about the national service. This is boasted to be one of the many boons that adolescents will receive when coming to the school, but if the staff thought that the parents understood why the camaraderie was necessary they would sing quite a different tune. The boys stick together because its us vs. the teachers (a subject that would lead me off into some tangential rant or another and therefore best left alone). We were taught not to chase grades, but to obtain them. Chasing would imply that you're constantly behind the target and our teachers were paid to make sure that, at the cost of everything, we could achieve the grading in the marking system that would instantly make potential employers interested.
In retrospect I can understand how farcical this makes the whole system but at the time I worked hard to achieve the goals set out for me and I honestly thought - "If I keep plugging away at this, I'll get a good job and I will be happy". When I thought I was being taught about Seamus Heaney (who I, regrettably, can't go and see tomorrow at Sheffield) or being invited to enter a dialogue about the poems, I was really being taught buzzwords and essay technique for the national curriculum graders and standards. Things that, regardless of my lack of understanding or sensitivity, would get a mark here and there, ultimately leading to "a more than successful result" I remember one teacher saying. I feel that the opposite is true and whilst memorising facts, figures and jargon can be an assistance, it should surely not be the totality of your education or a guarantee of understanding. To me, the memorising of all these facts and figures without a context or any further understanding of their meaning is as useful as teaching the same data to apes so that they might answer correctly for a banana. I put this to a significantly better tutor from my recent past and he would just laugh, proclaiming that the banana hunting is exactly what he has to put up with in his Foundation Art course. The thing that leads him to despair (or used to) is that with most of the pupils, even when the offer of a more interesting experience is thrown up in the air, they're either too broken or too uninterested to even attempt to catch it.

I believe that, particularly in a subject as personal, intuitive and uncertain as visual arts, the educational ideals of "memorise to pass" and "understanding is a luxury you can't afford yet" are absolutely crippling. Much of this belief was passed to me via a tutor who I shall no doubt frequently mention as he has been my therapist for just over a year now, haha. I still grapple on a day to day basis with the stitching that going to the school I did has left embedded in my brain. Presumption and prejudging work in particular are very dangerous problems with regards to the production of work. You can often bully yourself out of doing work by second-guessing it. To try and grade work (A,B,C+ etc) in such an uncompromising and 'pigeon-hole'y way is absurd when you consider how broad a range of work you'll encounter from different people. The notion that everyone can be universally graded on a set scheme can only possibly be held by people who are insensitive in the extreme to the fact that creative arts, by their very definition, are not united in their agenda, aim or application. Again, I could go on to rant (as I fear I am beginning to do) about how un-necessary grading is to a large extent in all fields and how only a guilt and image-obsessed culture like ours could sponsor such a shallow perception of educational achievement, but the discussion is too lengthy to have here.

I am now part of a degree level course at a small college in the north of england. I am happy, healthy and raring to go every time I hit the studio. I have great difficulty in dealing with the beurocratic and box-ticking side to the system I am in but, when all is said and done, I do what I have to to be allowed the money, space and time to work with. My current tutor claims that I have thrown the baby out with the bathwater whenever we talk about education and how deformed it is from the ideal. He means, of course, that my past encounters with the education organisation have given me some almost equally crippling ant-establishment ideals. I can't say that hes completely correct or incorrect just yet, its something I'll have to deal with on an 'as and when' basis.

What do I actually do now?

I have had a fairly formal and traditional upbringing in terms of my awareness of Art. Every tutor I have had(until now) has been a painter and all of them were older than 45. I began (as everyone does I suppose) with hard-nosed, old master, landscape painting and drawing at the age of 14. This venture was notably unsuccessful when I proved that I didn't have an innate drawing or painting talent. Combine that with my lack of effort and you've got a recipe for piles and piles of half-arsed mediocrity. At foundation level this changed when I was introduced to a wider array of techniques, processes and artists. I had preconceptions and negative attitudes based on unsubstantiated generalisations forcibly removed and most importantly, I was given no-where to hide. Laziness, bluff and pretense put aside there was a clear interest and passion in making surfaces out of paint.

To find a vehicle to hang the passion on to start with we went back to the basics, ultimately deciding on landscape as a subject matter because of how well it chimed with the process appealing to me. This being the idea of natural process. Erosion, waterfalls and stains led to the first large body of work I had ever undertaken seriously. I produced 4x6ft unstretched canvases and applied very thin paint in strips across the top, allowing the paint to run freely down the loosely hung fabric. I'll have to apologise for the lack of images but I have no photographs or camera at the moment with which to take any. I was basically given a book on a female painter who painted waterfalls in the same way (god will strike me down if my tutor doesn't first for me not remembering her name, perhaps you could put a comment in with who you think it might be) and told to copy it and see if it was enough. At the time it was, but eventually there were other questions that I asked myself and other concerns were brought into the fray.

As it stands I have chopped the work straight down the middle so that one issue doesn't cloud the other. Perhaps later when I'm more equipped to deal with the complex issue that is beginning to show itself I shall, but until then, this is more than sufficient.

1: The notion of landscape from slightly more scientific point of view. I am particularly interested in identifying the processes that lead up to its formation and exploring the nature of how landscape is and can be represented/explored in a visual arts context and the light of this knowledge.

I am becoming an avid reader of as much scientific exploration of the physical world as I can get my hands on. This has had me seeing landscape in a very different light. I notice different things and a knowledge of the landscape as a result of many processes that I am gradually becoming more familiar with has prompted my own visual exploration of said results. In particular I have been experimenting with paints and what happens if I allow different types of paints to just sit together and/or slowly drain from a flat surface. The results show an uncanny resemblance to satellite photographs and top-down images of landscapes that, until I had done this work, I had never seen the likes of. For a specific reference to the kinds of landscapes and natural phenomena I mean I refer you to a book called Earthsong by Bernhard Edmaier.

A few details of one of the early pieces of work will help the comparison along (Links to larger images supplied below the smaller versions):

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/Ross1986/FIRST0.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/Ross1986/FIRST2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/Ross1986/FIRST6.jpg

For this particular piece of work I took many (earthy for the base) colours and large quantities of watered down acrylic paint and applied it to a wet surface in a tray that had been almost waterproofed. I then applied other immiscible trade-paints and materials (gloss, emulsion, varnish and hammerite) to the mix before another massive helping of water. I left the tray on a bed of newspaper and allowed all excess to drain off and the work to dry. Large, graduated washes, trails of paint and archipelagos of solidified pigment remained as the water dissipated.

More recently I have taken a more rigorous approach to the notion of these works being experiments. I have set up series' of them and made sure that strict guidelines and conditions are adhered to. The most recent have been works on polythene sheets where all application of paint is done in the center of the material then allowed to move and dry based on whatever creases and dips exist in the loosely tacked surface. This still from one being hung vertically shows ravines and tracks of paint as it has fought its way out of the thicker substance and carved its own path wherever gravity has taken it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v381/Ross1986/DSCF0260.jpg

I am now aware that as well as the idea of natural processes and essence of landscape, the cheesey, romantic in me won't let the aesthetic of a landscape alone in my head. This is most probably because of my pretentious, self-indulgent associations and feelings I get when reminded of being in the English countryside or just generally out and about surrounded by weather. Combine this with my penchant for hurling materials around, interest in the craft of painting and working in a raw way reminiscent of defacing a surface rather than creating one and you have the method with which I tackle the second issue. This being:

2: The point at which an image becomes a senseless flurry of marks and visa versa. Having begun reading about optics I was fascinated by the idea that sight is also governed massively by the other senses and that our brain is guessing most of what we see. The idea that our own eyes aren't giving a faithful, hard-nosed account of the physical world begs the observation of the complete ignorance of the media and other critics who decry a lot of modern painting confronting the idea.

I am trying to tackle this subject by simply digging in my heels and lurching on into the unknown. With the guiding hand of god knows how much history of painting and sculpture I am fairly confident that this exploration of my own, subjective (as opposed to the previous objective agenda) and idealised view of the world around me will yield some interesting results, all be it not immediately.

I think this has been enough of a read for one post. I'll add in the details of a drawing 'project' we have been given recently. The nasty, anti-establishment attitude that was written about earlier kicked in and I railed against the necessity of 'another poxy a-level-esque project' stating that I'd rather be doing the work and developing a practise. Its easy to forget that your tutors aren't imbeciles and that their decades of experience in teaching and making a point add in to the things they ask you to do. They've told me to imitate some of Piranesi's ink drawings as they feel it will ground me a little. Fair enough so far, I'm enjoying the challenge of using a dip-pen and having to imitate a style.

Stay tuned and tell me of any bad blogging habits I may have, I'm new to this.