Art Studio IIIA - Week 8
Week 8
Tuesday 2nd May
Formative Assessment
For this work, I wanted to test out the idea of the unfired clay urn and the cyclic nature of life. The urn used was made form unfired paperclay, using the form of a local waterway that was significant to the person as a design element, filled with ash form the fireplace and placed around the base of a native tree species.
The work speaks to how we plant trees in memory of our loved ones, and how we can honour the person and the process in a way that sits outside the norm. I wanted the elements of the work to have a dual purpose and be reused. Keeping it in sympathy with the natural environment was important to me.
As home, my husband was a keen gardener, with many hours spent creating spaces in the garden using materials that are recycled and repurposed. With his job, he would often come home with lots of treasures in the way of large rocks, old native fence posts, old power pole arms, plants people were pulling out and dumping. Most of our garden is scavenged!
We have an area at the front of the property that Glen was building up with natives. We had been given a kowhai to plant on honour of Glen, and so I was looking for another interesting native tree that he would enjoy. The tree chosen was a manuka hybrid that I will be planting in the area. the potting mix, was to add extra soil/height but to also be reused.
I considered if I should just place the urn and ashes outside at a re-existing plant around the campus. I decided that the studio would be a more suitable environment, as if the urn was outside, it wouldn't necessarily speak to the plant being placed there for a reason, so I felt that it needed to be obvious that the plant and the placing of it was an intentional part of the work.
I thought about making a lid for the urn, but I felt that seeing the contents was important to be to read the work properly.
Cycle, 2023. Unfired Clay, ash, soil and tree
As I was about the place the urn around the base of the tree, it broke and spilt the ash all over the soil.
Although this wasn't an intended part of the work, I just had to go with it and in a weird sort of way it became a reflection of life at the moment. The work had been carefully made and carried all the way over to Wellington, only to break suddenly when I wasn't expecting it, leaving a mess and suddenly having to take a new direction. For me, it really spoke to the fragility and uncontrollable nature of life, and opens up another avenue of exploration that I hadn't considered.
The discussion was really interesting and again, offered new areas of investigation. One of the comments was that the tree felt awkward and out of place. A sense of dislocation. Although the work isn't necessarily about this, it was interesting that was picked up on and it still speaks to me of the feeling of losing a close loved one. There is a sense of feeling out of place in the world, your world is changed drastically, and you longer know where you fit or how you work within it. Very much like the tree in the white cube.
It was asked if there was a sense of hope - was there enough hope with the tree, given the sense of dislocation? It was thought possibly not, given its location and how it isn't likely to live. Although with enough nurturing and care, trees can live very happily inside.
The feedback was really helpful and has given me lots of think about in terms of where to take the work. It may be that some of these ideas will need to explored more thorough through other works.
Key themes are - fragility and uncontrollability, dislocation and feeling out of place, and what signifies hope.
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Yellow Ochre Room - 2015, Christchurch Art Gallery
Room of Time, 2022, City Gallery, Wellington
The thing I took away from this lecture was the idea that work didn't need to be permanent and could exist just for the duration of the exhibition, or until the work had reached its natural end however that might be.
This is an idea that fits in with what have shown in my formative assessment. The idea of works breaking down, changing form and being temporary, along with using materials that can be returned or repurposed fits with the narrative of the work when dealing with subjects such as death. I feel like the cyclic nature of the work is very fitting and speaks to the fragility and impermanence of life.
Research
Motoi Yamamoto
Strait, 2022. Salt
Yamamoto use salt to create his intricate large scale floor works. The work is created in honour of his sister who died of brain cancer.
The use of salt is significant as in Japanese culture it is seen as a symbol, for the source of life, as well as being a purifying element that is often used in ceremonies celebrating life and death.
After the show, the artist returns the slat to the sea, which to the artist is just as important as the work itself, signifying how the body returns to the earth after death, which speaks to the transience and temporary nature of life. See links to the 'Return to the Sea' project below.
https://youtu.be/eLIJuQSOJis
Lauren Winstone
Lauren Winstone - Gathering and Scattering, 2021
Lauren Winstone's ceramic pots are stems from a request to make an urn. A series of small ceramic pots were made and remade, refining and changing the form over the process. The pots are not urns, but still hold the ritualistic qualities.
Making
This week was a continuation of making the neuron structures, but more of them. I decided to video the making of the structures, the footage may in incorporated into a video projection at a later date.
The footage below was shot on my DSLR and then put together on Adobe Premier Pro. Premier is a new programme for me - I am just at the very beginning of learning how to use it.
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