Ames Truscott @amesctruscott - Tumblr Blog

Wiring up of my lighting.

unfortunately, we have had a lot of problems with my lighting. from the aurdino not working, the code being too big, then having bugs, as well as not wanting to connect to my phone, power supplies failing. It took me and mark 4 days to finally get it working! I am so happy we finally got it working but it was 100% a struggle to get there!

It is still not fulling work as we just don't know why the aurdino's don't want to connect to mine phone! They need wifi so they can connect to Twitter, but they just kept on losing the connection or not holding on to it!

I am so grateful for Mark's support with all of this as I wouldn't know how to even start!!

Social Media Case Study: Fruit Salad Queer Cabaret from the Yummy Mummy Collective

This is a new collective based in edinburgh. they are about Queer community and showcase different actors/creatives and performers.

Looking at their social media they have a very perticual aesthetic that they keep to. This helps to brand their posts and to create a harmonious theme to their work. it also helps you when you are scrolling if you see the pink and yellow to think ohh is that a fruit salad post?

by having the same background on each post and just layering on the different performers and their name and pronouns it helps to give a uniform and cohesive feel to there page.

i really like how in their highlights they have each performer- showcasing who they are and what they do as well as give people the space to find them.

They also make each post accessible for text readers as well.

They look at post something every few days as well as posting on instragm stories.

I want to look at this case study for my own social media campaign. as they have created such a positive and welcoming environment with their content.

Where do I want to be

Where do I want to go?

I would love to be able to exhibit at Corning Museum of Art, Tate Morden as well as Coburg Glass Prize and Pilchuck and RSA. I have always said that I want to be the one interactive exhibition in art galleries and museums.

To realise this dream I want to completely different residences and internships. Particularly at the Glass Hub, Northlands Creative. I really want to go abroad and see how european, american and Canada glass artists and how they create and make work.

Photoshoot

These are some of my final degree show collection photo shoot. I am so grateful for Chris for helping me! They look so professional. the lighting have made these look so expensive and professional. i feel transforms this pieces 🧡

Social Media Case Study: Fruit Salad Queer Cabaret from the Yummy Mummy Collective

This is a new collective based in edinburgh. they are about Queer community and showcase different actors/creatives and performers.

by having the same background on each post and just layering on the different performers and their name and pronouns it helps to give a uniform and cohesive feel to there page.

i really like how in their highlights they have each performer- showcasing who they are and what they do as well as give people the space to find them.

They also make each post accessible for text readers as well.

They look at post something every few days as well as posting on instragm stories.

I want to look at this case study for my own social media campaign. as they have created such a positive and welcoming environment with their content.

Social Media

This is my new social media accounts for my social media campaign. I think I am going to start it around 5/6 weeks before the degree show or any earlier exhibition. I am going to look at the case study of Fruit Salad- A queer collective in edinburgh who hosts carbert nights for the queer comminty

Exhibitions dreams

We talked about our dream for our exhibition! for this work I would love to be in the Turbine Hall in Tate Morden in London. I could have all my glass pieces and make so many more. Collbratioing and making connections with glassmakers all over the UK and the world.

I would want then to have the queer and LGBTQAI+ artists I have collaborated with next to me in the same space. I would also want to have a focus on having artists from across disciplines and from across the UK and globally. Just to be able to be in this space and physically hold this space for one another. I would also be able to pay for everything single artists' and glassmakers' time and energy which I think is really important because exposure does not pay the bills.

Then people could walk through to the end of Turbine Hall and there would be space for in-person on-site interaction and collaboration with the audience.

Either like Yayoi Kusma's Obliteration Room, where audience members were given a sheet of colour dots and allowed to place them anywhere in this white room. Or just space where they can draw or create something in response to the work that they had just experienced.

This would be my dream exhibition. Just the space and facilities that this would offer.

I am aware that this might never happen but this is just a dream!

Social Media campaign

Because my work is based on social media connections I know I need to have a strong social media campaign to help this encouragement of community. I am looking at having a instagram, Twitter and tiktok under #TheQueerSpace.

This is what my work is going to be called. I am looking at having takeovers on the instagram of the different artists I am working with.

With my twitter and my instagram I am looking at having it moderated just because I want to make sure my artists are as safe as possible.

Instillation

We were talking about my exhibition and how it would it feel if it was just an online exhibition. I think it would suck if people couldnt come and see my work! It could still exist in the online sphere but it would be perfect for people to see my work!

I think this work stills needs a strong online space as that is crux to my work. I want people to be able physically be present with the works, especially because of the link between bodies and vessels. I think have it sole online will make it something that it not. There is still this connection to objects and physically object in the space with my work.

Mark Lighting

This is one the last sessions with Mark to trying to work out my lighting. We have realised we are looking to have my clear pieces to have more of rainbow colour scheme. Looking at moving throughout the whole colour wheel (almost). We are missing out the colour red due to the connections on the red colour.

We realized that no matter what colour i had my yellow pieces on, they looked awful! So we are cutting them!

I need to double check with Jess where they are all going but I am going to get the templates over to him this week so we can cut out the discs for the lights. We have reaslied I have to work out my neo pixel sizes now for my pieces.

My neo pixel sizes:

32: 1

24:2

16:8 ( but I have 10)

12:3

U: 6

Now i have my sizes I just need to double check the pieces and then I can start lazering them out!

How would I feel about my piece without my collaborators

I do not how I will feel if I couldnt have my collaborators with my work? I feel that it would lose the element of being the community i want to create. That by having other artists in space it is a very visual thing of these people are my community and they deserve to be in the space with me. We deserve to have this big physical space that we can take up and grow in. Having this large display of community together. I think this work is something that can continue to grow with me when I meet different artists and we can create work together.

Articles

"Whatever your reason may be for being in the closet, there are ways to make you feel good about yourself and to make you feel feminine, wit

These articles are about different ways queer people are dealing with the world right now. In this article- 7 gender affirming activities for transwomen- talks about finding at community online:

'Join Your Trans Sisters and Siblings on Twitter

It doesn’t take a lifetime of hormones and surgeries to become the woman of your dreams. Becoming your authentic self can be as easy as accepting Twitter’s Terms and Agreement. You can stay as anonymous as you’d like or create a profile for the real you. Regardless of your choice, you can surround yourself with transgender people, make new transgender friends, and expresses yourself queerly and freely on Twitter. Make a profile and spiral down the rabbit hole that is #TransTwitter.'

this underlines the desire for community and how we can make and grow these communities online.

"I told myself that the only way my identity could be valid was to achieve androgyny, and the ultimate way to reach that goal was through th

What size should I go to so I could feel both masculine and feminine, or both at the same time, or neither, depending on the day?

What does it feel like when someone uses the wrong pronouns? I find it helpful to compare it to physical pain. Misgendering feels like a pun

The rest of articles are just truly beautiful descriptions of queer and gender expressive peoples. I love this website it holds so many beautiful stories from people.

Contemporary context for my work

Where do I see my art to be?

I see my art in galleries. I have always said I would love my art to be the one interactive exhibition in a big gallery or in a smaller one. I would to be shown by the white cube and high end galleries like that but I know I am only accessible to small amount of people. I would love to have the opportunity to do public art and create work for everyone!

The context of my work?

In my context for my work I see myself as a fine artist or a multi displinicy visual artist. The work that I make is in the art context more than the craft conext. As my work relies on more on the concept rather than the physical hand skills. I think my work is based in the fine art spectrum of queer art, especially queer joy. I do think my work is heavily influenced by social media and how we have a certain colour aesthetic or a particular aesthetic to our work. I think I am more aware of how I need to be seen as a brand and how everything needs to be currated as a brand. I think this is why I end up not posting as much on my social medias about my art. I need to think of my context. I think I am in the context of youngish(?) Millennial/ genz queer artist. My perspective comes from as well being white and middle class. As well as being raised in a deeply christian context, going to public and private school and having that education and life experience. And I think this perspective is seen in my work and helps to give it context.

Where do I see my piece to be?

Who is the audience to my work?

The audience for my work is both for queer people in having this support network. But it is for everyone who deserves

Costing my Work

I find it difficult to cost and sell my art. I think I am happy to sell my work to galleries, so I have this interactive exhibition enjoyed by so many people. I have always said that I would love my work to be the one interactive exhibition in the galleries. I think selling the pieces I have made with my collaborators feels very odd! I think because they were made at a moment in time with others it would be difficult to recreate them! But I am happy to sell my other works. Works that I made by myself in response to the work I made with other people.

In costing my work I need to factor in the time it cost the hotshop- £300 per day. ANd the cold workshop 150 per day. I can make around 10 pieces per day in the hotshop but it does take me like 2 days to cold work everything to a high shine. I can do 10 in 2 days. ANd the colours of the rod I am using are the more expensive I need to factor that into any pieces I am making. I am also aware that high glass art sometimes is not affordable to many people. And I want to have a sliding scale to make sure that the people that want my work is accessible to them.

Cost that go into the work:

£300 per day hot shop

£150 per day Cold shop

Rod colours: Orange £23

Yellow :£20

Uranium: £63

LED lighting: £200 for 20 pieces

My time and energy : £? free for people who can't afford it but £10 per hour for those who can.

20 pieces: all together(not including my time) : 1206- 60.30 per piece

Fluidity of materials

In my work, I have focused on free-forms glass pieces. I look at having this very organic understanding of the glass. It is interesting that the two materials I work in: Glass and acrylic sheeting. Both come from industry. Plastic comes fully formed and uniform and it is up to me to make them fluid and organic. With glass, you have to manipulate and transform this fuild material into forms.

Gender is a Performance

We are constantly performing gender. Creating our gender fits into the roles we have been told at birth. That even subconsciously we are told, that there are fundamental differences between men and women. We have to spend so much time and energy trying to maintain this performance that is it at all nature or learn? If it was so natural why would we spend so much policing and demonising people and keeping them in these roles which we have so genoursly cavrered out from them.

As the song Nvr Pass by She/Her/Hers says:

'I was told all the time how to be a man Fit a mold, cut your hair, we'll tell you what to wear

I don't want to spend the rest of the life I have Trying to squeeze into a box that's even smaller The only difference I could find is that it's painted pink It's not the color I don't like, it's the obligation.'

As well as 'Gender is Boring'

Gender doesn't tell you a damn thing about me Doesn't tell you what I like or how I act, it doesn't tell you how I speak...

And I think it's time that our culture moves past This fucked up notion of the way we act Is it dictated at birth or that we have to choose It's an imposed binary, either way we lose So do what you want And dress how you feel Don't let anyone tell you that gender is real It's useless, oppressive, and boring Worthless, and hurtful, and stifling I think it's time that we put it in its place So come on let's force gender into an early grave'

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Ames Truscott