A birthday, two new cut-out stamps. I’m making smaller circles from my tax disk collection and also cutting up the Korean financial times, wth a stamp-shaped cutter. Problem is, when you discover a new tool like this, you want to make stamps and shapes out of everything. These two are sketchbook scans, may go further with the financial times stamps… en mass. ?
These glue moulds are like an untidy and unorganised version of the piece ‘Ladle Moulds’ I exhibited at the Surface/Space/Time exhibition back in 2009. This time, working on a flat surface. It’s made with Drawing inks and a pva/water mix. I’m have been adding bit by bit for the past year. It takes a long long time to dry, so it’s been another ongoing thing, which is now done and I can now find another use for the massive shower door which has been looming over my studio space (as much as a glass door can loom)
Still thinking about how great this weekend was, full-on-studio-time. So good to commit days and elongated hours to it, not just snatching some time here and there, or never going at all. I completed six frames, started and finished – ready to hang. That’s never happened! On top of that I created a couple of collages, and wrote lots of notes in my sketchbook. Completely productive and fulfilling!
Here’s some of the scanned sketchbook pages:
Don’t know where this came from in my head, but I like it. Poo Bin / Camping. Using unwanted photographs and a nice thin pen. These two go hand in hand. You know when you’re in multitasking flow, and you have things going on in different areas of the place you’re working in, and things like this just appear out of you? No? I didn’t either – that’s why this weekend was so great!
Today is the THIRD day IN A ROW that I’ve been in my beautiful studio. It feels great! I’ve made more time for it, and a free weekend has been a lovely way to ease myself into making more time for studio and creating. I have made some things I really like, and which were fun to make. Working with multiples, thinking about an exhibition / arts trail event, where I show all the ‘multiple’ work I’ve been creating. Mostly centred around the Poppy pieces, but also on other multiples, things I have collected, like these metal triangles, which were in an old frame, keeping the back on and in place. Some of them are rusting, they are very sharp, and I used some extra strong and thin double sided tape to attach them on. It seems to fix most things, although some of the objects I have created are 3D and I’m playing with a glue gun today, to test the fix of that.
I have started a shopping list, what do I need to make what I want to make, and have on-hand in the studio instead of being out and up and down Gloucester road shopping for big rolls of paper. Also I’m measuring up my old frames to find big paper for, or glass to fill the frames with, if it’s been smashed or used for something else.
Love Chief. Making a stencil with sticky lettering, using the most beautiful map ever for a back drop. The map is so creased though, I’m not sure I can iron it out… and unsure about weather or not to cut it down to size of have map boarder.
A business trip to London. Lucy and I got the chance to see some art too. We spent the afternoon in the Tate Modern, after hearing much hype about the Ai Weiwei Sunflower installation in the Turbine Hall.
“Sunflower Seeds is made up of millions of small works, each apparently identical, but actually unique. However realistic they may seem, these life-sized sunflower seed husks are in fact intricately hand-crafted in porcelain.
Each seed has been individually sculpted and painted by specialists working in small-scale workshops in the Chinese city of Jingdezhen. Far from being industrially produced, they are the effort of hundreds of skilled hands. Poured into the interior of the Turbine Hall’s vast industrial space, the 100 million seeds form a seemingly infinite landscape.”
This artwork satisfied me – my love of repetition, of process. The muted colors of the landscape and the understated accumulation – what I love most is when a huge amount of time is spent on something, but that’s not realised – these look like real sunflowers, nothing special, but it’s within the process that I am impressed. The 15 minute film which accompanied the installation was more interesting to me than the completed piece.
It’s very interesting to me that Weiwei was made to alter the artwork; up until 22nd October, visitors were invited to walk on the sculpture. Health and safety regulations came into play and a barrier was put up – the porcelain dust was too harmful when breathed in. It’s this kind of ‘mistake’ and alteration to a life’s work which is interesting – how does Weiwei feel about this huge alteration. The whole work is changed – the viewer cannot interact or have an encounter with this tactile work. Something is lost. Why didn’t he think about the issues around H&S before? Tate changed the work from an invitation to walk upon, to stating this:
“Sunflower Seeds is a total work made up of millions of individual pieces which together from a single unique surface. In order to maintain and preserve the landscape as a whole, Tate asks visitors not to touch or remove the sunflower seeds.”
You could post video questions to Weiwei, he selects some to answer. Lucy and I asked him this: http://aiweiwei.tate.org.uk/content/701626778001
I was very glad to be part of the Surface/Space/Time at the Crypt. Sam Clift and Eve Wheate did a brilliant job curating, and I invigilated on three different days with three different lovely people: Joohee Hwang, Rona Smith and Lucy Fergus. It’s great being around other artists, sharing advice and referenced. Lucy Fergus uses off cuts from the hairbrush manufacturer Mason Pearson, she has inspired me to arrange some factory visits to further explore my love of process.
Ideal Factory Visits:
There is a scene in ‘Tommy’ where the mother is working at the ball bearing (?) factory and she feints, pulling hundreds of balls off the belt? And in ‘Babes in Toyland’ in the Toy factory? And oh when there are scenes of the news-paper printing factories on TV. I love the idea of working in a factory, and nearly worked in the Lush soap factory in Poole when I was younger. How do they make stuff? It’s so interesting to me.
Spending three whole days in The Crypt was quite an experience. I was shown the secret half of the crypt – hidden behind old doors, perhaps to one day be renovated and used as a larger art gallery. It was very spooky. Some photographs:
I have been prolific today. I was in the studio till 8pm, inspired, I kept finding more things to do and I’m only home now because I’m hungry for fish and chips mmm. A Friday night treat from Bishopston Fish Bar!
Today, I have: caught up on last night’s Big Brother with my neighbour Mia, taken home all the crockery from my studio and put it all in my dishwasher, recycled, taken rubbish to the dump (I’m the ‘head housekeeper’ of the studio you see), done a layer of papier mache on the balloons ready for the Big Lebowski festival tonight at The Lanes, Bristol, put up a wall in the studio, painted that wall, watched 4 episodes of the L word whilst doing most of the above, made a friend a birthday present collage, bound my birthday blind-drawing papers, wrote this blog, started my glue molds,
So these ‘glue molds’, they are for my my exhibition: ‘Surface/Space/Time’ at The Crypt Gallery, London (26th Aug – 9th Sept) which is curated by and also showing the work of Sam Clift who is a nice chap that I went to uni with.
I have been meaning to get on with starting the glue molds for months. I created some whilst at uni, and made this small quilt with them:
The idea I have for the exhibition is very similar, but with edited colors and on a much larger scale. The patchwork is made by filling big spoons with a mix of PVA, water and ink. They take AGES to dry, and the final stage sewing the patches together (but i’m thinking about spray-mount??)
Today I started working out the quantities of glue to water I need to make the perfect mixture for the molds. I have five plastic cups, 1-5, 1 has 30 parts water to 70 parts glue, 2= 40:60, 3= 50:50, 4= 60:40, 5= 70:30 I need the mold to be the perfectly supple, and not brittle. I have poured the liquids into 5 different ladels, and I’ll wait (about a week?) to see which mixture makes the perfect consistency of mold. Process! It’s been a long time since I focussed on process. It’s where my heart lies with my art, and it felt really good to get into this again today.
I have been working pretty hard on my ‘Text Project’ and needed some escape from that. I’ve chosen it to be mundane and repetitive, and I love that, but sometimes I do need to release some more creativity within some other format. And yesterday, this came through mono printing. I used my little roller, and a piece of acetate to ink up, it’s so easy and mess-free. I used some sequins too, and got involved with drawing a lot of small squares, again – very repetitive, I can’t get away from it! The little pictures are not hanging on a washing-line type of structure in my studio – I have always wanted a studio with things hanging from washing lines, and now I have it. I’m so lucky.
My Artist’s statement on my website:
“Hello I am Lucy Barfoot, I have a degree in Fine Art and it feels good. I live in Bristol and have done since graduating in 2008 with a Fine Art degree from the University of Creative Arts in Farnham, Surrey
I create a large variety of work, but my love is within sculpture-installation. I enjoy making stuff from ready-made stuff; apples, syrup, lists, petals. I like to make tiny sculptures, sew little lines onto paper, make ink + PVA molds, and blind draw.
The word ‘quirky’ is often used to describe my art – I’m not sure if I like that or not, but it fits. I combine process-led, repetitive actions with a satisfying, sensual aesthetic. I’m greatly attracted to objects, I feel a compulsion for things, and I listen to my intuition – this is my starting point.
My work is mostly ephemeral and I like to mix the natural with the man-made.”
I used to spend a lot of time on DeviantART, an online community for artists which provides a place for any artist to exhibit and discuss works. I used to upload all my art to there, since i was young till the first year of uni, and my gallery has culminated over 13,000 page-views. I’m heavily mentioning my website on there, so that the followers of my work can have a look, because for 13,000 people to see my current work would be really exciting. Anyway, My deviantart thingy is HERE if you want to have a look.
Barfoot and Duggan in action! Lucy and I are using Trevor’s reciepts (he has collected every reciept ever since he was 16) to create some kind of mountain. We’re working out the aesthetics and concept continually, but getting close to the material – covering it with glue, pushing it around, into cracks and peaks.
We’re making small ones, well not really small – 4ft x 3ft mountains, and then taking them on location, on a sunny day, filling in the gaps to make one big mountain, then after lots of photographing and thinking, deconstructing it and bringing it
home.
This Saturday I showed my apples in the window of Room 212, which is a tiny Art Gallery in Bishopston, on the Gloucester Road. Three in each window, close to the glass so that people could peer at them and wonder what they are. This great little place is usually brimming with paintings; i got a few funny looks. Here’s my profile on the Room 212 website.
Today i was at Fairfields Art Gallery in Basingstoke setting up ‘Sense’ to show as part of the ‘Young Contemporaries 2008′ show. The circle or apples look a bit ridiculous to be honest. It’s tiny! There is no impact. The original circle of the 1,200 will be included in the catalogue, so there will be a history shown.
I forget sometimes how process-led I am. It’s important for me to savor the process of the making; it is just as important as the finished piece. And i love the process of cooking. Obviously eating is pretty good, but the real enjoyment is in making.
I especially love the terribly boring things. You would not believe the stillness my brain has whilst doing these dull things. It’s like a little vacation. I get sucked in.
