This extended post is part of an online a reflective journal that documents my personal, and at present ongoing, journey through the last 18 months of an MA in Education (Artist Teacher Scheme) at Oxford Brookes University.
This post documents ideas and the processes used in order to produce artwork for the final two assignments; the final assignment being the Major Project.
The artwork, ideas and the direction of the final two assignments stem from ideas highlighted in an Action Research project completed over 6 months at the beginning of the second year of the MA. The Action Research project comprised of a 3000 word essay and in my case, a collaborative group exhibition at Ovada Gallery, Oxford, England.
Resistant Forces poster, Ovada Gallery, Oxford, 2016.
Construction Crane (detail)
Resistant Forces exhibition poster and exhibition artwork, January 2016.
Year 2, Assignment 2
This new assignment is practice-based research; the initial creative artefact is a 1970s Palitoy Girls World. This creative artefact, the Girls World, is the basis and the beginning of the contribution to my knowledge Candy (2006) for Assignment 2, Year 2, and formed the basis for ideas for my dissertation. The creative outcomes from my research will be demonstrated through digital media, collaborative art exhibitions (Candy, 2006) alongside links to personally pertinent music, television and media that are connected to my work.
The Action Research project highlighted a need to return to a place I once inhabited as a child, a place I became very attached to. With this in mind I began to research attachment in its various forms.
Place attachment
According to Anton & Lawrence (2014: 452) a broad definition of place attachment is an emotional bond between people, place and their environments is imprecise, and the literature surrounding place attachment debates how to precisely define and measure it. Anton and Lawrence (2014:452) suggest that place attachment is a complex multi-dimensional construct.
Place identity
The term place identity first used by Proshansky (1978) who defined it as a substructure of self-identity consisting of memories, ideas, feelings, attitudes, values, preferences, meanings, and conceptions of behaviour and experience that occur in places that satisfy an individual’s biological, psychological, social and cultural needs ( Anton & Lawrence, 2014:452).
Place dependence
Place dependence arises from a positive evaluation of a place on the basis that it meets an individual’s needs and allows them to achieve their goals. (Anton & Lawrence , 2014:452)
Unfavourable Constellations (Elhert, 2012)
It has been suggested that experiencing hardship and the threatened loss of a home can make attachments to the home stronger, and that the sense of commitment that a person has to their home only becomes apparent at times of loss and hardship (Anton & Lawrence, 2014 : 453).
Once I had remembered her, the Girls World, she was inescapable. I tracked down an image of the Palitoy Girls World I had as a child. I used an image found via Google images because I no longer owned her, part of the crux of the problem, and I didn’t want to purchase another.
I began by using the apps, PS Express and PicsArt, as they are free and I have become very used to using them. I enjoy using the apps, but I am beginning to find the effects that they give limiting.
There was a time when I shunned iPads and apps; the thought of using them was too alien to me. I was used to a laptop, I need to remember how far I’ve come with digital art and embracing new technology.
However, using apps is easy, but is it art? I still feel a fraud using a computer to make art.
I remember leaving the Girls World on a table with a lot of other toys that couldn’t come with us. The Girls World’s face was a horrible green and pink colour, a mixture of uncleansed, cheap eye shadow and lipstick. The head on the table was striking, partly because it was just a head and partly due to the colour of her face.
In terms of artwork outcome, my main aim was to try and get a stained look to the face using the two apps. I cut the face away from the background in PicsArt and then using the same digitally manipulated image I switched between the two apps trying to recreate a streaky look using different techniques.
Once I started to experiment with the apps other effects started to ‘appear’ and the images began to take me back to that time. The first batch of images I experimented with were a mixture, (in my mind), became a mixture of late 1970s early 1980s discos and Hammer House of Horror style images.
Farah Fawcett style image
Digitally manipulated image
Digitally manipulated image
Google image cut out using out using PicsArt
1970s / 80s Disco style image
Original google image
Digitally manipulated image
Werner Lin et al. (2009) propose that children who relocate across great distances and suffer profound transitions have their sense of security and safety threatened, including place attachment disruptions. Werner et al. (2009) go on to discuss how severed attachments are made worse by children having to relocate and transition into a new environment, compounded by the loss familiar place such as schools, home and therapeutic environments.
Brown and Perkins 1992 cited in Werner-Lin et al. (2009; 133)describe ‘home’ as possessing an emotional and physical geography that provides children with anchors that orientate them to the physical and social world. Brown and Perkins cited in Werner et al. (2009; 133 )discuss the effects that manifest when children are severed from the security and safety of their homes. Effects that manifest include homesickness or a longing for a place that no longer exists , either physically or existentially. The authors go on to suggest that loss of place should be grieved more visibly like socially acknowledged losses.
My childhood involved considerable geographical disruption (Werner -Lin et al.2009) and as a family we all needed to be able to slot in to different cultural, linguistic and topological settings effortlessly.
Experimenting
After experimenting with the Girls World image on the iPad, I printed the google image out and experimented with it on the photocopier, again trying to get a distorted, wretched look.
I moved the photocopies around on the photocopier as they were being photocopied and this gave a twisted, distorted almost melted look to her face. The photocopied images were then photographed and manipulated in PicsArt and PS Express.
I painted over one of the photocopies with drawing ink, again trying to get a distressed look. A look that would produce her look as I last remembered her.
By accident, one of the photocopies was enlarged so much so that that I was just left with a quarter of the doll’s face and her eye. I liked this mishap and thought that I could use this to my advantage later on in the project. The child’s face that looms up behind the Girls World was also alarming.
Distorted image using photocopier, PicsArt & PS Express
Photocopy, drawing inks and PS Express
Distiorted image using photocopier, PS Express and PicsArt
Photocopied image (enlalrged)
The experiments with the photocopier and the ink weren’t as successful as I had hoped. I then decided to try and create a background first, and then place an image of the face on top. I did this by scraping a mixture of different coloured paints along an A3 piece of paper using a cardboard squeegee, photocopied the Girls World head on to acetate and placed the acetate layer over the paint.
In order to further fine tune the colours, I photographed the original paper and acetate based artwork and re-worked them in PS Express and PicsArt on the iPad.
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Poster paint, acetate overlay, PS Express and PicsArt
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Poster paint, acetate overlay, PS Express and PicsArt
Poster paint, acetate overlay, PS Express and PicsArt
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Out of all the images that I produced using the Girls World head, the two below are my favourites.
Digitally manipulated image
Digitally manipulated image
I wanted to print a much larger image of the above, but because the image was a poor quality lifted image from google, it was too grainy when even slightly enlarged. I was disappointed as I imagined this image would be magnificent on a much large scale.
This caused a dilemma. I didn’t want another Girls World in my house, but I did want a much larger, clearer, crisper image.
It was more difficult to purchase an original 1970s Girls World than I thought. I managed to track one down in an etsy shop called the The Miniature Imaginarium.
I bought a brunette rather than a blonde one, not exactly the same, however, the images of her were going to be digitally manipulated so the colour of her hair wouldn’t really matter. And, it was difficult to find a blonde Girls World from that era.
And she didn’t come home. She was delivered to and lives at work.
Vintage 1970s Girls World by Palitoy
Vintage 1970s Girls World by Palitoy
Vintage 1970s Girls World by Palitoy
Vintage 1970s Girls World by Palitoy
Vintage 1970s Girls World by Palitoy
I took some basic photographs of the head against white cartridge paper in the art room, and then started to play around with the images using PS Express and PicsArt. I wanted to recreate the green and yellow image that I’d produced using the google image, however this has proved impossible to re-create.
Hammer House of Horror style Girls World
The realisation that the I couldn’t re-create the image has led to a greater appreciation of working in digital form.I realise that if I can’t re-produce it, others will find it hard to re-produce it too, and the images becomes a one-off, an original.
1970s album style image
1970s sepia style image
Late 70s early 80s disco image
The images that came from the next set of experiments using the newly acquired head were very different to the images produced using the google image. The new images became more gaudy, and I felt that they had more of a 1970s feel rather than an early 1980s feel.
The top left image became a potential late 1960s early 1970s album cover, whilst the sepia head, (middle top row) reminded me of a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid album we had at home when I was a child. I seem to remember that the sepia look was prevalent in the 1970s; the 1970s dressing itself up to look old. Whereas I feel the third image, top right has more of an ABBA disco feel to it.
The Cruelest hand just turned an eye
Chadwick, G. (1988)
Inspired by the accidentally enlarged photocopied eye, I decided to focus on the head’s eye. After photographing it, the eye was then manipulated in PS Express and PicsArt.
The eye of a Girls World, manufactured in the 1970s by Palitoy. The images have been digitally manipulated using the apps PS Express and PicsArt.
The eye of a Girls World, manufactured in the 1970s by Palitoy. The images have been digitally manipulated using the apps PS Express and PicsArt.
The eye of a Girls World, manufactured in the 1970s by Palitoy. The images have been digitally manipulated using the apps PS Express and PicsArt.
The eye of a Girls World, manufactured in the 1970s by Palitoy. The images have been digitally manipulated using the apps PS Express and PicsArt.
I am very pleased with the outcome of these images. I find it hard to believe that they are originally a Girls World toy, they look quite real.
Through creating these images I began to realise how I create images using photography and digital manipulation. I realised that i create the work unconsciously. I did not set out to produce dark, sad images of an eye. I did begin by wanting to manipulate an image of the Girls World eye using a photograph that I had taken and manipulating the image using two apps. I found that as I was producing art, I didn’t feel particularly attached or conscious of the decisions that I was making as I altered the image.
Evolving Forces Exhibition, Oxford Brookes University, 2016.
Evolving Forces Exhibition poster
For the Evolving Forces exhibition, I wanted to present an enormous image of the green Girls World head, but , having used a google image instead of taking an original photograph, the reproduction was far too grainy. The new images that I was experimenting with using the newly acquired head weren’t quite ready so I went with the original image in a smaller format.
The piece was a composite of distinctive childhood memories. One was the Girls World head on a table in amongst other toys that were to be left behind when we moved on, and the other was of comics that were left at my maternal grandmother’s house for my cousins to collect that I was not allowed to touch.
The little black table is part of a set that has travelled around the world with me since childhood. It struck me whilst in a local vintage shop that I could use my own possessions, not second hand ones that reminded me of my original possessions.
The Brazilian doll was gift from my father who travelled extensively during his career, mainly in South America.
The piece was purposely exhibited low to the ground, more at a child’s level. The work was also both hidden, in as much as it did not take pride of place and the picture wasn’t hung, but at the same time protected as two concertina doors either side buffered the work.
The piece refers back to a time when as a family we moved home without really saying goodbye or letting anybody know we were going. Although the artwork was static I tried I decided to move the display much like we had had to move although years ago. Loosely following the storyline from my childhood I decided to take down the exhibition piece early and I left without telling anyone.
The Non-House
Place attachment influences both high and low effort pro-environmental intentions and the components of place attachment, place dependence and place identity, are correlated with environmentally responsible behaviour and advocacy for the environment. (Anton and Lawrence, 2014: 451).
Autumn – Hardcastle Crags – Philip Dean
Photograph, Tim Munsey
Photo by Rebecca Greenwood
Anton and Lawrence (2014) suggest that people who live in rural areas may have a greater place attachment than those living in urban areas.
‘When I was a boy the sun shone everyday and threw us out to play’
Brown, D. (1993) Rainman, London, Big Life Records.
Rollero & De Piccoli (2010) state that being active in a physical environment leads to the development of a higher place attachment, and, that attachment to place can develop over a relatively short period of time.
Bottle garden
Bottle garden
Bottle garden
Bottle garden
The verdant surroundings of this particular place of my childhood extended in to the house too. My home was filled with plants; geraniums in particular. The front garden had various plants and rockeries, moss gardens and rhododendrons. The back garden, was dark and overshadowed by the tall tress of the garden we backed on to was never cultivated but each summer became alive with foxgloves.
A house I used to visit at the end of the street was the epitome of hippiedom, and although I didn’t know the inhabitants well, I felt very at home there and the interior of that particular house has stayed with me to this day. What I particularly remember of that house is their bottle gardens; huge green bottles filled with plants.
There are two strands to my current work, the inside of the house, and in particular the Girls World and the terrariums; and the outside of the house, the garden and the extensive countryside that surrounded the house. Plastic and ferns; pink and green, green overall.
Bottle garden
Dual text, dual meaning
SONY DSC
I’ve started to buy things from Oxfam online. What a find! Browsing second hand bits and pieces from the comfort of my cluttered home.
The ‘free yourself from stuff’ leaflet arrived with some Magic Roundabout pieces I’d bought for my sister-in-law, and it made me laugh. I do free myself from it, stuff that is, and then I go and buy some more.
Over the summer I did get rid of lot of ‘stuff’. A skip load of stuff went, as did car loads of stuff to the tip, and probably a skip’s worth of stuff to our local Sue Ryder second hand shop. I took so much to them they asked if we were moving. No, I said, I’m just a woman on a mission.
In the autumn I received a letter telling me that our mammoth donations had raised £234.00 for Sue Ryder. Excellent.
Belk et al. (2007) cited in C.A Rooster et al. (2016, p.34 ) describe clutter in symbolic terms as ‘dirt’ 0r ‘feces’ that provoke feelings of disgust, guilt, embarrassment and shame that translate to a ‘ disorganised life and a fragmented and chaotic sense of self’ (2007, p.134).
‘In worst cases, excessive clutter is indicative of compulsive hoarding’ (C. A Rooster et al., 2016, p.34).
Bagpuss & Co.
I’ve been thinking why I give things away, and when I do discard my possessions, I give them to charity rather than selling them. And it occurred to me that one of the reasons might be the Bagpuss effect.
Collecting the lost lost and once loved
References
Anton, C., Lawrence, C. 2014. Home is where the heart is: The effect of place of residence on place attachment and community participation. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 40, pp.451-461.
Bachelard, G.1969. The Poetics of Space.Boston, Beacon Press.
Brown, D. (1993) Rainman, London, Big Life Records.
Candy, L.2006.Practice Based Research: A Guide. Creativity and Cognition Studios Report. University of Technology, Sydney. Available at http:/www.creativityandcognition.com . Accessed 17 November 2016.
Chadwick, G. (1988) Christine. England. Creation Records.
Ehlert, U. 2013. Enduring pyschobiological effects of childhood adversity.Pyschoneuroendocrinology. 38, pp.1850-1857.
Rollero, C., De Piccoli, N. 2010. Place attachment, identification and environment perception: An empirical study. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 30, pp.198-205.
Werner-Lin, A., Biank, N., Rubinstein, B.2009. There’s No Place Like Home: Preparing Children for Geographical and Relational Attachment Disruptions Following Parental Death to Cancer. Clinical Sociology Work Journal. 38, pp.132-143.
Making, thinking and doing; an artist’s process This extended post is part of an online a reflective journal that documents my personal, and at present ongoing, journey through the last 18 months of an MA in Education (Artist Teacher Scheme) at Oxford Brookes University.