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I was having an interesting conversation with a PhD student, Rob, about whether my sculptural works exist as photographs, or as sculptures. His studio is in the room next to mine and he said he sees me photographing the objects a lot, and wondered if this was for documentation, or if the photographs became separate works.

I have used photography a lot to capture compositions of the blocks before either I moved them, they were used for another piece, or before they fell/collapsed on their own, after I’d built with them. I’d never really thought about the photographs as separate works, until I tried to submit them as documentation for my BA, and a tutor said that the photos felt separate and different from the actual objects themselves.

I like that all of the photographs I have of the different block pieces I have could never really be recreated, and they capture a moment that no longer exists. I never really like to re-stage my pieces or performances, and the photos become an archive of each “pause point” in my practice’s investigations.

This was a piece I showed in a crit a couple of days ago, and I just wanted to photograph it from a few different angles to see how the objects change after being flattened. The colours seem to become much more important for me when looking at photographs rather than looking at the objects, and the compositions feel more temporary and provisional.

Also, I’m becoming more and more interested in the damage on the blocks. They’ve not been damaged on purpose or for any real reason, they’re just quite high maintenance because of the pigment qualities of certain paints I’ve used and the bare wood faces are prone to collecting dirt. I would normally, and have before, repaired any damage, but I like that they’re collecting evidence of their activities and gaining some sense of duration.

I do have a very personal relationship with my little performers, we’ve been through a lot together. And I still love them, just as they are, warts and all.

When I was unpacking the boxes of my sculptures in my studio, I came across the blocks from my degree show piece that I didn’t show at the Woon shortlist exhibition. I had carefully photographed, repaired, wrapped and packed all of the blocks to be used in the next show, as the work was being installed by somebody else and I had to make quite specific instructions for their installation. After I’d wrapped all of the blocks for the next show, I didn’t have as much time to work on the blocks that were going into storage, so I quite quickly wrapped them and boxed them up.

I find the blocks really interesting wrapped up like this, because it was so quickly and not carefully done, and I know that some of them are slightly damaged underneath from the paint sticking to other surfaces during the degree show when they were in direct sunlight. Kind of like Schrodinger’s blocks.

They existed in one state originally, for the degree show, and they have been wrapped for transportation, as though they will be opened up again to be used. This state is a temporary state, waiting to become something else, and while it is in this state it is neither one thing or another.

Another piece of artwork I never really intended to make.

I’ve been starting to play around with making stacks of the old blocks I made for other pieces and the new plasticine shapes I’ve made. I like how unstable they are, and how they change as gravity works on the shapes to compress the plasticine. Also, as this happens, the stacks become more stable, as the plasticine starts to stick to the wood.

I’ve been using combinations of different “sets” of the blocks together quite intuitively to make compositions that I find interesting on a visual level. I’m thinking of this as a collaboration with myself, or the artist I was as a student and the relatively deadline-free artist I am now. It’s really enjoyable to try things out without much worry of things not working, or me not liking the work I’m making, as I know nobody has to see the work if I don’t want them to.

I’ve found myself playing with the scraps of cheap plasticine I bought when I first started to experiment with the material. I made these objects without much thought, while in conversation with people in my studio, or while procrastinating and watching documentaries in my studio.

I like the idea of a sculptural doodle, or just the idea in general, of something being made that you never intended to make. I want to make more of these, but I worry that they may become unauthentic if I am intending to make them or consciously trying to make more.

I used the plasticine again to make more maquettes for the next gifts, which are smaller sets of identical blocks. I was undecided whether to scale them up to "adult size", or to use the prescribed measurements set out by Froebel. (I decided to use the measurements that he defined, as this seemed specific, rather than the first two gifts' requirements to "fit to the hand") To make the maquettes, I used a knife to slice the plasticine, as it already comes in squared off blocks, then I could add extra strips to make it up to the size I needed, and then smooth the surfaces with the knife. I really enjoyed the process of cutting and ripping the material and I like how it worked with me to make the shapes I wanted. At one point, I decided to squash the whole shape and mound the cubes from scratch, which was incredibly difficult. I tried a few more things with the plasticine, using it straight from the block it's sold in, with the separate strips and it was really satisfying to rip and slice. This process reminded me of how important it is for me to work with materials with my hands and how satisfying I find working with objects. I especially like how unforgiving the material is, in that it holds and emphasises every action you put on it. More so when you've been working for a while and it becomes soft and warm.

I needed to make a maquette for the second gifts, they are a cube and a sphere made from wood with a similar string attached as the first gift. They are supposed to fit into the child's hand, so I made the first ball of wool and measured it as I made it. I wanted to make a maquette for the wooden ones as the material isn't as compromising. So, I used plasticine to make this cube and it was really hard to get the edges straight and flat, I spent about an hour working with the material and it became quite futile trying to straighten one side and then, in the process, squashing and ruining at least one other side.

Jack Strange did a lecture at Northumbria a couple of weeks ago, and I managed to sign up for a tutorial with him. We had a good chat and he questioned a number of things for me, but something that's stuck with me over the last week or so, was something he made after listening to me talk about what I'm intending to do currently. He said "maybe the sense of self-deprecation becomes a way of actually making work". I think this is one of those things that I'll think about a lot but never share my answers or write them down. Not just because I'd find it difficult to articulate, but also because the statement says enough for itself, and talking about your own self-deprecation seems slightly ironic.

This is the first gift of my Froebel gifts. I am going to make the first five gifts, and use them to play/make/learn in some kind of documented way. I'm not sure how to do this yet, I definitely want to make some kind of video piece from this, as I think that a live performance would alter the authenticity of my actions too much. I also want to be able to observe my own interactions with the objects, as I'm not really sure "where the work is" at the moment. I just want to make the actions out of interest, without them feeling too prescribed or intended towards a specific piece that I have already planned out. My main issue with this is to do with framing. I don't want to limit the frame too much so that I'm constantly thinking, while performing, about how the camera will pick up the movements, or worrying about whether the actions are in shot. However, I don't want the video to be too wide that you can't see the intimacy of my hands and their action on the objects.

I was getting some of my old sculptures out of boxes to take to a discussion and stacked them up on the table like this out of convenience, but there's something I really like about them like this. I've never arranged them in stacks before. Because I made them with the intention of showing them in a specific way, it's difficult to imagine them differently to that. I like that this happened by accident and I saw them differently.

I've been thinking a lot about the studio recently. My studio situation is very different now to what I'm used to, for a number of reasons, and I am trying to redefine this space for myself to allow productivity in a new environment. Frankie, one of the MFA students, and I ran "talk studio" last week up at Northumbria Campus, with the topic of "the studio". We structured the session based on the introduction text from Wouter Davidts and Kim Paice's book, "The Fall of the Studio: Artists at Work". We asked questions and spoke about ideas that arose in the text but the most important part of the discussion for me was thinking about the actions that happen in the studio and also fear of being unproductive in the studio, or the studio's misuse. I am definitely very fearful of not doing as much work as I should or of wasting time in the studio and I find that, now I'm more settled and busy in my surroundings, I worry less and feel much more productive. A couple of weeks ago I went to a lecture by Jess Weisner a couple of weeks ago where she spoke about the modern day culture of constant productivity and productivity guilt, where we feel constantly obliged to be doing something worthwhile with our time, even at rest. She also spoke about Timothy Morton's idea of the "Hyper Object" -the idea of an object or idea so vast that it's impossible to fully understand it, so we just rub up against it, knowing that it can never be fully understood and having to accept that.

These are a couple of photos from my performance at The Stand last week. Just to quickly explain what I was doing, I had two full blocks of red and yellow plasticine that I used to mix to make orange balls. I made the first ball and then used that as a reference to make the next ball in the exact same colour and size. I used the cups to cover the balls so that I could only see the one previous to the one I was making. I've not had chance to get much feedback yet, or see the video documentation, so I wanted to reflect on it on my own, and think about it before seeing it from the audience's point of view. I was quite careful to not plan the performance too much or even to think about it too much, I'd kind of hoped I'd get a better idea before the event came round and I'd do something more interesting. But I am happy that I did this now, the event was very experimental and a good casual environment for testing things, and there were a number of quite improvisatory performances. I thought that the performance would be really dull and boring to watch as I worked with the plasticine in my hands, even though I really enjoy the action. But the only real feedback I've had so far was how intense the process was and how drawn in people were. I'm not sure how that changes the piece but I'm happy that an audience does find the actions of the hands on the material interesting in a similar way that I do. Also, all the balls ended up looking the same at the end. I really expected them to all be slightly different, as I'd probably misjudge them slightly each time. I was really quite disappointed by this, but in the 15 minutes I did only manage to make 6 balls. I wonder if I carried out the same action for longer, whether they would start to become more different and create patterns. But then I also don't really like the idea of a second draft of a performance that was designed for me to find something out. If I was to do this again, I probably wouldn't show it as a performance for this reason, I'd show it as a sculpture. I was also really interested in the table after I'd finished and before I started the performance. I think there's more room to think about this yet.

I’ve also been testing out more how the different colours mix and I love the irregular-ness of the spheres and the prints of the inside of my hands on them where I’ve been rolling them and the material has become warm and soft

I was asked to propose a performance piece for an event coming up in Newcastle and I had an idea which I was a bit unsure of so I spoke about it in a “performance group” discussion today. The actual idea for the performance is quite simple and, definitely by the end of the conversation, isn’t the most important part of the work.

I was talking to another studio member at Baltic 39, Tim, and one of the MFA students, Markos, about how uncomfortable I’ve been finding it to meet new people here in Newcastle. I am constantly introduced to people as the “Woon Fellow”, or worse, people already know who I am before I meet them. People keep talking to me about how great the prize is and how I’ve got so much opportunity and time and space to make stuff and all the pressure is making me incredibly anxious.

As we talked more about my performance proposal in the group today, I said I was worried that my performance was going to be quite boring or not work out how I planned, but I don’t want to do a test of it because I don’t want to know what’s going to happen before I’ve done it. When I was talking, I realised that I was listing off all my fears of things not going how I want or expect them to, but from experience, the things that actually will go wrong, I won’t be able to predict. And these are usually the most interesting things.

From what I know of the event, it will be mainly BA students showing work and watching the performances, so I am really interested to hear their feedback. I’m hoping that the event will be quite open for feedback as most people will be students and are used to talking critically about each other’s work. Though I am worried that people may not approach me in the same way as a graduate.

I’ve submitted the proposal anyway, and might not even be selected yet, but it could even go really well and actually be interesting yet. So I think I’m quite happy in knowing I’m fully prepared to embarrass myself with the first work I’ll show while on the residency in front of people who think I probably know what I’m doing. Maybe if it does turn out to be alright, I’ll be a bit disappointed.

Just a few images of some different shapes I've made and testing a few score compositions. But there were a few other things I've been thinking about while doing some playing. I feel like, after just having finished 18+ years solidly in education, I'm trying to regain a sense of limitless curiosity and embracing the failures I may have with what I'm making, rather than having any pressure of deadlines or grade ambitions. It's like learning how to think in a more abstract and naive way. I'm not really sure how to put it into words, but by removing the pressure of trying to be successful, I feel like it will open things up a lot more. Also, in relation to this, playing my clarinet again after not really having played at all for over 5 years, and after spending so much of my time before that playing sax, I've somehow forgotten the classical training I have with the instrument. I always think of the clarinet as very precise and delicate in contrast to my loud banging away with playing jazz on sax. When I played in the studio, I felt like I was playing clarinet as a sax player (even though clarinet was my first instrument), remembering which fingers to put down to play simple arpeggios and making some horrible sounds as my embouchure re-familiarises with the instrument. I can't help but parallel these ideas/feelings I have. I like that it seems unfamiliar because it opens up more opportunity to change or add to what I think I already know. The gap of time where things all became a bit formal and other things have been forgotten is something I'm trying to get my head around and embrace for what it is, and the new potential I'm seeing as a result of it.

My original idea of playing with the plasticine was to create a sculptural score, or notation of myself playing clarinet. When listening to my recording back, I was really interested in the cracks in the notes and the definite "woody" sound of the instrument. I decided to try out mixing sawdust with the plasticine to see how the material changes and to creat a less "soft" finish to the notes. It does seem quite literal but I'm really comfortable and even comforted with that idea. I worked with the green ball for a long time, mixing larger and larger amounts of sawdust into the green plasticine, and it completely changed the texture to a crumbly consistency. The pink ball is just dipped into the sawdust, which I think seems to give a similar effect to the red, where the sawdust is mixed into the plasticine just until it's combined. However, I do like the way the plasticine begins to crack when the sawdust is mixed in, I feel like this quite well expresses my idea of the notes I played on clarinet when they cracked. The blue and yellow balls have different amounts of sawdust in them, I decided not to crack these and I just wanted to see how they held their shape and texture as spheres. The sawdust seems to have made the plasticine dry and slightly hard as obviously it pulls the moisture from it. The blue ball, I spent a bit of time with, dropping it from different heights as I really liked the thud it made as it hit the table and the fact that it didn't bounce. It seemed to add weight to the object because it was soft enough to be affected by the surface rather than bounce of it. The result of all the dropping made the ball look like a stone eroded from a larger rock. I was reading earlier today about Friedrich Froebel, and came across an idea of connection he had with geometric shapes in nature, such as rock faces, and the development of the young mind based on their fixed laws and systems. I think I need some more time to think about that.

I've been wanting to work with plasticine for a while, and now access to a wood workshop is slightly more difficult, and I don't have much in the way of deadlines coming up, it would be the perfect time to try something out. I just bought a cheap pack of different coloured sticks from Wilkos and I've been trying a few things out. I noticed that the darker colours are much harder and paler colours are softer, but I think that is mainly down to how cheap the pack was. I think that a decent brand would be more universal in texture. I wanted to see if the colours could be mixed so I didn't just have to use colours that I could buy and it seems really successful so far. A lot of my initial observations with the plasticine are of how similarly it behaves to paint. The effect of the pigment on the material and the ability to mix colours made me wonder in what other ways I could use the material.

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Kayt Hughes