The main part of Monday was a review, in pairs chosen by Mark, of our work so far on our final projects. I was paired with Maeve Anne. It was a well-planned exercisse. We each had a copy of the assessment criteria, and were asked to look carefully and thoroughly at everything that our paired student had provided - from Statement of Intent through to sketchbooks, research folder, project diary, samples, whatever. This meant you had to really assess your own work, too, against the formal criteria, which most of us have been cheerfully ignoring until now. And we had the reactions of our 'pair' to our work, as well as, later, a tutorial session.
I learned a lot about my work... not all terribly positive. One big thing, which I can put right but which will mean a lot more work of the finding, printing, cutting, indexing, commenting variety - is that, at present, my research and testing of techniques and samples is all jumbled up in one big sketch-cum-work book. It makes sense as a kind of 'technical file' but not really as a research file, which I need in order to record my exploration of the conceptual basis of my project. Nor, as it stands, is it a guide to my own creative thinking about how to deliver a final piece. My exploratory work so far seemed very tight and controlled, rather formal and unimaginative. While none of us has got close to a final piece yet, some people have been much more ambitious/adventurous/uninhibited than me, and I was envious of their ability to just dive in and try things out. Seeing several other people's work, I realised I need to loosen up quite a lot, to play around more with my ideas, to think about influences from other artists more generally, rather than hugging too literally to those working in paper. I also realise that I need to think on a bigger scale (again - this was an issue in my last pathway project too). In my tutorial session, Mark kept pushing me about the conceptual framework, and what I was trying to say in a general rather than largely personal context.
By the end of the day I felt rather deflated and a bit lost, and have spent the last couple of days agonising over where to take this next. I almost feel like I could turn away and start over with something completely new - but I know that I don't really have time to do that, and also, I know from the pathway projects, that this feeling of hopelessness and failure is part of the creative process and will go as I move my thinking forward. Well, I hope so, anyway.
It hasn't helped either that (a) in the week leading up to the session I had been sleeping really badly, getting rather stressed about the whole thing; (b) (possibly as a result of this) I had a mega-migraine which completely wrecked Wednesday and put rather a damper on Thursday; and (c) last weekend, after about 8 months on the waiting list, I was given an allotment - what excitement! - and of course I have been sitting around dreaming about growing runner beans as well as dashing down to the plot to admire, and plan, and do the tiniest bit of exploratory digging, in between the torrential rain showers. This could be seen as highly creative, or as avoidance tactics.... I certainly haven't done much on my art for a few days, but perhaps I needed a break from it, and some distance so I can reassess.
So where next? I am still keen on the basic concept, which is about deconstruction and reconstruction, about change and recycling. It is rooted in the idea of 'tearing up' my old life (of office work, government reports, politician's briefings and speeches, committee papers, academic essays etc, etc) - and 'throwing that to the four winds' in the quest for my 'new' life in art and retirement. In terms of influences, Cornelia Parker's Cold Dark Matter is still high on the list. Or alternatively, Martin Creed's screwed up sheet of A4, Work No 88, has a strong appeal....
Work No. 88
A sheet of A4 paper crumpled into a ball 1995
A4 paper
Approximately 2 in / 5.1 cm diameter
Image copied from Martin Creed's website here
My raw materials, such as they are, are therefore paper - old Welsh government publications, old committee papers and reports, old essays, library lists, journal articles, etc. I have so far played around with lots of ways to destroy/deconstruct/remodel paper in different ways - making fresh paper, making papier mache, cutting, tearing, stitching, folding, etc. Much of this is recorded in earlier posts on this blog - and in my technical file.
But somehow, it all looks so tame, so neat, so 'craft'-y. And not at all like 'deconstruction'. Even if I follow the logic of 'deconstruction' in terms of stripping back the layers of meaning, it doesn't seem to help at present. It was that sense of erasure (pace Richard Galpin, q.v. here) which took me to various ways to obliterate, erase or simply to white-out or 'redact' chunks of text. That would be meaningful to those who understood what these kinds of a papers were about in the first place - but most people have very vague understanding of what government policy work is like, so it would have limited impact.
And I take Mark's point that my piece ought to have some wider resonance than purely my ow journey away from an office-based job. On the other hand, I rather like the look and feel of some of the sheets I have altered with paint or thick strike-through pen lines. And the reference to 'redaction' smacks of all those ridiculous published reports (e.g. the MPs expenses claims) where so much was 'redacted' that there was nothing left to read. Hmm. Not sure I could make this stand up - Martin Creed might be able to, but not little old me.
Another strong theme when I began on this project was the idea of exploding - as inspired by Cornelia Parker
or Damien Ortega
Image copied from here
- and I have thought further about some kind of suspended installation, or kinetic, mobile, piece. The trouble with this is that I am working with shreds of paper - and I am not sure that this would have any visual impact, nor that it would be clear what I was trying to achieve. However, it is a route I still haven't really explored, and perhaps this is what I should do next.
Talking about all this with Charlie the other evening, produced the idea of creating an installation which might replicate, to an extent, my former working environment (desk, screen, files, etc, etc) but using re-formed old paper as the construction material - either in papier mache, or modelling in some way. It would be a sort of ghost office, a shadow of my old world (thanks to Maeve-Ann for the idea of shadows in this context).
I am also conscious of the maxim that 'less is more' and that I need to avoid trying to over-engineer my piece, nor to over-state the underlying concept. It should be there for those who choose to look for it, but the piece should also have some visual or sculptural aesthetic attraction of its own, I think, so it can stand as a piece of work even if the viewer doesn't take on board the conceptual underpinning. One idea I have been playing with is simply to turn a whole box of the old paper into new paper - some elements of the old would remain, e.g. in fragments of text - and leave it at that. This idea didn't find favour with Mark, but I am tempted, a bit, to work on this further - I like the idea of having something very bland and simple.
Another of the thoughts I have had about my old world, in working on this project, is how hugely ephemeral most of that kind of work is. You sweat blood and tears in endless meetings, and stay up half the night writing some great report, checking every reference and smoothing the language to get just exactly the right nuance... and for a few days or perhaps weeks it is the only thing that matters. And then, like gossamer or dandelion heads, the problem passes, there is a new fuss about something else, and it is gone - we've moved on to something new, no-one is interested anymore, the papers get filed and forgotten. And sometimes even when the thing seems to have some permanence, the reality of the political world is such that, next year, someone has a new idea, and the wonderful policy you worked and worked on, is no longer wanted and we all turn around and invent something new and different. Like inventing, fiddling with, and trying to reshape (or demolish) the NHS, year after year, government after government, civil servant after civil servant. Or the school curriculum. Or (re-)(de-)nationalising the railways. Or whatever.
And indeed, when someone leaves (like me, after 35 years in the same organisation, I know, horrible to contemplate) it is almost immediately as if they had never been: other people move into your old room, job, desk, team - and the work keeps on turning and your name and all your efforts and small achievements slide into oblivion.
Ephemeral. Transient. Deconstructed. Decomposed. Wow. What a life. I am realistic about this: it isn't anything personal, it's just the hard facts of the world of work. The work is just as ephemeral as the people who have done it. I am sure it is just the same in other professions and organisations. But it is this sense of transience, of the ephemeral, 'here today and gone tomorrow', in terms of both the subject matter and the people, that I want to capture in this project, as well as the physical deconstruction of all that old paper.
Perhaps that gives me a title, anyway, something which Mark has been chivvying me about. I will ponder on this: "Here today, gone tomorrow".
So, this has been rather a long ramble, and some clearer thoughts have emerged, I hope, about what I'm trying to convey. But not much progress in terms of how I will achieve this, and I'm still not sure where to go next. I think the best thing will be to just plunge into my sketch book, stay away from computers and books and research folders for a few days, and just draw, doodle, play around with a pen in my hand, and see what emerges. I tend to take shelter in my comfort zone (the written/printed word, of course) when what I should be doing is closing the books, turning off the computer, and letting my right brain, the instinctive, creative, visual, tactile bits, do some work for a while.
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