Light

I haven't posted for a while mainly because photo quality was really dire, since then I have acquired a new camera and, lo and behold the sun shone in Manchester...

Window Dressing...

What I noticed lately when I've been out and about was a thing for masking over windows and buildings that were being renovated or were standing empty.

 I hadn't really noticed how popular this seems to be until I started to actually look for it. I suppose the idea is that as a passer by, you're not supposed to notice the difference and so universal equilibrium and oneness with the world can be maintained. 

Seems like a lot of effort to me. If you're going to bother, then why not cover the offending architecture with something a little bit less ordinary that we can all get a lot of enjoyment out of?

 However I do like the idea that you can just wrap an entire building in a digital print, complete with reflections in the fake windows (see the Starbucks building). My favourite so far has to be the hand painted board over a bedroom window (below) taken in Whitby.

University of Manchester

Starbucks building Manchester

Stockport - Look closely, this shop must sell Travelodges when it's not being empty. Maybe that's why it's empty.

Whitby 

Enclosures...

It's been a while since my last post because I've been trying to juggle work and interviews and what-not so these photos were taken several weeks ago on a morning walk around Manchester. 

It was the bicycle/table enclosure that caught my eye first since it just looked so odd, but afterwards I started to notice others. 

I don't know exactly what it is I like about them, maybe just that they look so deliberate but so ridiculous at the same time. Weird urban installations or assemblages.

Bicycle Table zoo                                                                  

Dangerous Fence

Fish Shop Conservatory

Drawing...

Drawing is pretty much the life force of everything I make. Most of the sculptural stuff comes out of drawing and the process of mark making so after the haul of the degree show I wanted to come back to some research and using drawing as a way of testing methods and rules.

The book on top is 'Afterimage: Drawing through process', it contains a ton of drawings from 24 artists including Eva Hesse, Robert Morris, Barry Le Va and Marcia Hafif who use varying (and often fairly eccentric) approaches to the idea and materiality of drawing. 

I ended up coming back to ground charcoal and repeated scattering for the first attempt...

I wanted to see what kind of geography the charcoal bits would produce through the repeated scattering so I let it build up over time. Probably one of the things I like most about doing something like this is that you can use each attempt like an investigation. Once I begin, I can only make observations without necessarily knowing what the end result is going to be. 

First Post...

I'm new to this so thinking of something fitting for my very first post took a bit of pondering. I thought I'd start by posting some of my influences over the last year.

Not easy to sum this one up in a single sentence but if you're at all interested in art, craft and its relationship to labour (and you don't mind reading a densely academic book until your forehead bleeds) then this is the book for you. 

Jill Townsley 'Spoons'. Jill Townsley is brilliant, this is her website: Jill Townsley

The Craftsman by Richard Sennett. A more forgiving read about the essence of craft and its place in society. 

Liza Lou's 'Kitchen'. Pretty much all of Lou's work entails every surface inch being painstakingly covered in beads. Dazzling, sinister and slightly mad: these are a few of the reasons I love it.

Manchester. Can't live here without it getting under your skin and in your art!