Elizabeth Dockerty Contemporary Art

This blog is for all my art, thoughts and scribbles through out my time at university.

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finished product.

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progress on final piece...

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References - Blog tasks

1.  Shepherd, M, (2001). Learn Calligraphy. United States of America: Broadway Books

2.  Whiteread, R. (1994) House

Retrieved 15 November 2015 from http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/rachel-whiteread-2319

3. Giddings, W.V.  The House in Your Head

Retrieved 25 November 2015 from ;http://www.edgeoftheforest.com/house.htm

4. Robins, F.        Statement

Retrieved 25 November 2015  from; http://www.freddierobins.com/about.php

5. Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and Simulation. (4th ed.). United States of America: The University of Michigan Press.

 1.       During my project for drawing transformations I spent a long time studying the art of calligraphy and general penmanship along with the study of handwriting, it took many books to learn the art of calligraphy and one of the most helpful of these was ‘Learn calligraphy, The complete book of lettering and design’ by Margaret Shepherd. By reading this book I learnt about different pen angles and pen widths and how they make a difference to your marks and therefore your lettering. The most important thing I learnt from this book was this quote “Calligraphy is a fine art like painting, sculpture, print making, drawing and photography – a way of seeing life and of telling what you see. The well trained, intelligent, creative calligrapher can explore the world of visual art as thoroughly as any painter. Through calligraphy you can learn about proportion, colour and line, positive and negative space, depth perception and light.” This showed to me that calligraphy was an art in its own right and therefore could be seen as a drawing transformation.

 2.       Whilst looking into houses and art that had been made around houses I came across Rachel Whiteread’s house from 1994. This sculpture was created by casting a Victoria terraced house in London’s east end. She built this sculpture to create an awareness of the intrinsically human scaled design which we are surrounded by. She removes the objects function in order to show a sense of absence and loss. I found Whiteread’s work incredibly inspiring because for me it showed that when you take away the houses function you are left with something blank to project your own thoughts and ideals onto. This gave me even more reason to carry on with my gingerbread houses because once you took away their Christmas and edible aspects all you were left with was the ideals that you projected onto it, for me that was structuring bad relationships and how relationships change as we age.

 3.       Whilst studying more into houses and what they mean I came across a paper written by William V. Giddings who had written a metaphor using a house to show how we handle stress and also how we can improve our reactions to people in order to create better relationships, friendships and general interactions. In Giddings’ metaphor he uses three levels to the ‘house in our heads’ these are as follows; the attic, “In the attic we feel  resentment, rage and fury over what other people, events or situations have done to us. We feel victimised and are furious about it.” This means our reactions are often blaming others for things that are going wrong in our lives and we tend to be unreasonable and judging others as if we are sat on our own thrown looking down on anyone who dares to comment on our behaviour. Next down is the ground level, “On the ground level our judgements are fairly brief and less intense and we spend more time in the process of accepting and figuring out how best to handle the situation.” This means we are much more willing to compromise and find solutions rather than getting angry. On the final floor is the basement, “Here in the basement we feel hurt, depressed, guilt and anxious. We feel victimised and are sad and down about it. Our self-talk her is full of Shoulds that blame and put-down our Self and we wallow in our own misfortunes and inadequacies and deficiencies.” On this level we find ourselves taking all the blame but not really fixing the issue that lies in front of us. This whole metaphor made me think a lot about the different levels in relationships which is why I decided to lay out my piece in a structure where the top houses were current relationships and the lower houses were past relationships, I also decided to put ‘the pile’ at the bottom to show relationships that had broken down throughout our lifetime.

 4.       Continuing on my house journey I had decided to look at craft artists that used materials that were viewed more as a craft rather than an art. This is when I came across Freddie Robins.” Robins‘s practice crosses definable categories of art, craft and design. She combines these elements elegantly, and with playful wit subverts meaning and making, fusing a melting-pot of approaches to ‘craft’.” Robins was a great inspiration to me as she had used knitting to make houses that explores contemporary issues of the domestic, gender and the human condition. As I was using gingerbread and it just happened to be December I was aware that I would have to have a strong contextual background for using gingerbread houses so it didn’t look like I had chosen that craft as I was surrounded by Christmas advertisements however being surrounded by ‘the spirit of Christmas’ was a huge reminder that I did not have the ‘perfect’ family or home to celebrate in which made me question the relationships I had been through that brought me to the point of life I was in so it seemed only fitting to try and create a perfect gingerbread house to represent me trying to create the perfect relationship in which to have my perfect Christmas.

5.  Baudrillard’s book on simulacra and simulation taught me that nearly everything in our lives is merely a figment of our joint imaginations, created to give us a false reality in which power and money mean everything. “Today abstraction is no longer that of the map, the double, the mirror, or the concept. Simulation is no longer that of a territory, a referential being, or a substance. It is the generation by models of a real without origin or reality: a hyperreal.” Focussing on how the simulacra and simulation work made me realise how powerful the media and fashion can be which is why I focused on current issues and Madame de Pompadour’s dress in the portrait painted by Francis Boucher in order to use the simulacra to my advantage just as Madame de Pompadour used it to help her stay in a regal status despite being nothing more than a kings mistress.

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Quotes - Blog tasks

Throughout my project work I have continuously been researching methods, ideology and other artwork to help influence my work and also question how I can improve my art. In my studio practice this year I have covered many crafts and techniques and have explored with a huge amount of materials such as paper, photography, painting and the most outrageous one so far, gingerbread. Which brings me to my first quotation; “Freddie Robin’s practice crosses definable categories of art, craft and design. She combines these elements elegantly and with playful wit subverts meaning and making, fusing a melting-pot of approaches to ‘craft’.” Freddie Robins is a senior tutor and reader in textiles at the royal college of art. She tends to use knitting in her work and is often faced with the question of whether her art is actually just craft.  To overcome this she uses “playful wit subverts” to give her work meaning and make it deal with contemporary issues such as gender and human condition. Nearly all of Robinsons work has a sense of perfectionism, with their neatly stitched lines and perfectly executed finishes. I chose this quote because whilst making gingerbread houses for the alter ego project I found myself becoming obsessed with how they looked, wanting to cover every bit of gingerbread with sweets and spending a lot of money on different chocolates and other edible products to find the perfect pieces to stick on my houses. I also found myself questioning my project as whether it was enough to call it art and not just craft however with my strong conceptual side focussing on different relationships and how they change as we get older I felt I had enough connections to explain my edible art. Another craft I have studied this year is calligraphy. I first came across calligraphy when doing the project, drawing transformations. I became truly engrossed in this art and still practice every day since finishing the project. Whilst studying the art of calligraphy I read many books that taught me how to hold the pen correctly, which size nibs to use and the perfect way to form my lettering. Throughout my research I came across a book called ‘Calligraphic lettering with wide pen and brush’ by Ralph Douglas. This book was extremely helpful to me as it taught me to practice strokes before starting to write letters, it also showed me huge amounts of different styles ranging from Spanish round gothic to more simple roman lettering. The most important thing I learnt from this book was “Do not press with pen hard enough to spread the stroke. Let the pen write.” My reasoning for this is that whilst doing calligraphy it is very easy to get wrapped up in the technical side of things, for example what exact angle you should hold the nib or exactly how much pressure to put on the pen and when. In this quote Douglas tells us to ‘let the pen write’ which is incredibly true. If you naturally follow the way the pen wishes to go you will feel freer to enjoy your writing rather than your writing become rigid from trying too hard. Throughout this year I have tended to use my art to question the things that happen around me, for example my first project of the year was very much based on fresher’s and how putting us all together and exploiting us by giving us a huge sum of money and then throwing nonstop alcohol advertisements in our faces was asking for a spread of sexual diseases, colds, flues and general illnesses. Whilst studying a sense of place I came across an artist called Jamie McCartney who created The Great Wall of Vagina. I found this piece fascinating as it was a wonderful way of showing woman that everyone’s vulva is different which in itself is quite a touchy subject especially brought to attention by a man. On the website created for The Great Wall of Vagina it says “Female genitalia have long been a source of fascination, recently of celebration but generally confusion.” I chose this quote as my final quote as my final piece for the drawing transformations project was a plain piece of paper with the word ‘pussy’ written in decorative handwriting on it. I chose the word pussy to highlight how women can often feel that their vagina is misunderstood by men and sometimes their sexual prowess can be neglected through lack of knowledge on how women orgasm.

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Definitions - blog tasks

Deconstruction

Deconstruction is a way of criticizing artwork. Deconstruction was created by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 1970s. Derrida taught us that there is not only one definite meaning to be found in a piece of art work but rather many, these meanings can also often be conflicting. To deconstruct a piece of art work involves discovering, recognising and understanding the underlying and unspoken ideas, assumptions and cultural forms that surround the piece itself. For example François Boucher’s painting of Madame De Pompadour we can see that Madame de Pompadour is reading a book however we have no idea what book it is. Knowing which book she is reading could tell us more about Madame de Pompadour herself and perhaps why she had asked for the portrait in the first place. Only Madame de Pompadour herself knows why she asked for the portrait so making an exact analysis of the painting is quite hard.  

Simulacrum

Simulacrum is essentially the copy of a copy which makes it a degraded form. As used in post modernity the simulacrum is the idea that nothing is an original source and is merely copied copious times until the original is completely lost and the copy is no longer anything like the original. For example, Madame de Pompadour was seen as a fashion icon of her era and also was seen as very regal when in reality she was only the King’s mistress. The reason people viewed her as regal was partly to do with the clothes she wore and she wore these clothes in order to keep the simulation that she was royalty. The simulacrum is that she is copying royal clothing, whilst royalty copy each other’s clothing therefore Madame de Pompadour’s style is a copy of a copy making it the perfect simulacrum.

Transformation

Transformation is a marked change such as the caterpillar transforming into the butterfly. A transformation can be found in form, nature or appearance and can also be found in the process of one figure, expression or function being converted into another one. Within my work I have used a lot of calligraphy and focused on handwriting. I used old artefacts such as identity cards and ration booklets to see the difference between handwriting from the 1900s to the 2000s and how handwriting has transformed over the years. I then used my new found knowledge of handwriting and calligraphy to transform my own handwriting through consistent practice especially in my lettering and how to join up my handwriting so that my penmanship could be achieved with one consistent line and flow naturally through my letters. Now my handwriting has been transformed to have more of aesthetically pleasing appearance.

Metaphor

A metaphor is where you make an analogy between two things to show how one reminds us of the other. For example  in William V. Giddings work about the house in your head, as he uses a house to represent what goes on within our minds as we are faced with difficult issues such as arguments. In his paper he uses three levels to the house; the basement, which is where we feel hurt, depressed and anxious. In the attic we feel resentment and anger where as on the ground floor we feel accepting and calm. So his metaphor is that we move through the house or our minds by emotions, each group of emotions is a different floor and on each floor we handle things differently. So if you were angry in the attic you would react much differently to a situation than if you were feeling reasonable on the ground floor.

Infinity

Infinity is forever, it’s used in many ways such as the mathematical Pi for instance which is a number that goes on and on. The symbol for infinity is ∞ which is the same as a piece of art by Stephen Murray called ‘The come down’. Murray created a human rollercoaster that was a velodrome in a perfect figure of eight, also known as an infinity symbol. He created this in the spirit of the common wealth games.  I first came across the infinity symbol when studying calligraphy, I found that this particular loop was very commonly used as a signing off point for calligraphy users and was also a great way to practice letting your hand run freely as it writes. It was also a great way to practice how hard to push with nib and when.

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printing with veg.

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Vegetable clothing. 

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Lady Gaga Explains Her Meat Dress: 'It's No Disrespect'

"If we don't fight for our rights, pretty soon we're going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones," Gaga told Ellen DeGeneres in a post-VMA interview.

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I smoke, therefore I am

Lighting up in public may soon be a thing of the past - but in the movies it is more popular than ever. Forty-a-day smoker Lynn Barber celebrates her filthy habit.

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Make your own Claude Glass or Black Mirror

So earlier today I saw this post from PetaPixel. I am a long time reader of PetaPixel and both myself and Kiteman have been featured on there (no doubt many more). I liked the idea of the Claude Glass, having a large collection of film cameras myself, I thought it would be the ultimate hipster way to take a picture. This is a very simple instructable, and as you can see I got some nice results. If you read to the end, there is a bonus 'Quick & Easy' method too. Wikipedia explains a little more about Claude Glass - A Claude glass (or black mirror) is a small mirror, slightly convex in shape, with its surface tinted a dark colour. Bound up like a pocket-book or in a carrying case, black mirrors were used by artists, travellers and connoisseurs of landscape and landscape painting. Black Mirrors have the effect of abstracting the subject ...

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Jeppe Hein creates 18 whimsical installations in Brooklyn park

Sculptural park benches and a maze constructed of mirrors are among the pieces by Danish artist Jeppe Hein featured in an outdoor exhibition in New York

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Bottled Smoke Art by Jim Dingilian

Jim Dingilian creates incredible subtractive images from bottles filled with smoke. The artist begins by coating the bottles’ inner surfaces with smoke. He then uses brushes and small …

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Laura Williams - Photography

Laura Williams photography and graphic design

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Cowspiracy

A documentary on how our agricultural farming is causing most of deforestation and CO2 emissions.  -want to make this more famous so we can stop eating as much meat to help save the planet.