Thursday 23 January 2014

trying out the performance,

 I have had a couple of tryouts this week in the studio, we videoed them. The first time I wore a tee shirt, jeans, had low lighting.


  and drew, explored, overlayed, it was very internal,but you couldn't see the drawing process very well as I was in front of it.











The next night I tried again, I moved around, made the drawing very large, wore costumes, etc etc, But although the drawing was large, I made the face too small and put arms and a body on it, I was rushing a bit so the drawing is too cartoon like. But it was very useful. I know I want it to feel Renaissance in colour tone, but have a raw quality, I don't want to worry about looking attractive, etc, indeed that's part of the point; although the point is getting a bit muddied. I want to say too much. So this weekend, I shall try again, see what that brings up. - gotta start somewhere.



  • Further thoughts
  • I like the muslin- its use was spontaneous but I think I may utilise it further
  • it links from swaddling through to shroud
  • its both timeless and place less.
  • multicultural
  • its the stuff of Renascence Madonnas and girls shifts, its domestic, intimate and simple.
  • its cheap
  • it comes in very long lengths. 
  • it can bind and cover, stretch and float
  • you can film on it and see through it.
  • it can be the pregnancy and baby - I have used it before like this.
  • I can make a mountain of it and climb over it




Friday 17 January 2014

I am constantly turning ideas over and over in my mind

Bloody obsessive state. grrrr
I have checked out some of the artists Robert has suggested. Ron Athey Gifts of the Spirit on you tube
and  Gina talked about Jo Spence 
 I remembered  Marina Abramovic advice to the artist
so. the latest thoughts.

Under the skin. 17/01/2014
Personal to the general
Latest thoughts
·         Set up easel with large board and paper at one end of room
·         The  Audience sit either side of long catwalk
·         Perhaps a frame around the easel area so the performance is within a pros arch.
·         With other frames at intervals along the catwalk.
·         Lighting is by lamps.
·         It has the atmosphere of a Vermeer or Rembrandt.
·         Perhaps the paper is the window and I am the figure that appears in my paintings.
·         The light is off I talk in the dark.
The drawing begins,

·         Empty paper, using charcoal outline of a figure, child like, a face.
·         Wiped away,
·         Charcoal creates shadows over the page, large areas of dark and light that is rubbed in with a cloth, perhaps a diaper.
·         Rubbing a form emerges, is rubbed away, different figure shapes are tried, responding to my mood and the room sounds.
Now I need to look at outside influences, fashion, independence, society’s expectations.

·         Do I use props, slides, film, sounds?
·         The drawing responds.
·         I explore facets of identity using make up and costume.

I am ageing. At some point I depict pregnancy, hope, loss,
More drawing.
Now I am pregnant again. The one is two, independence has a constraint.

·         I think I shall use balls of string, perhaps dyed as the children.
·         One can fit in the hand
·         Two needs two hands, how do I now draw? I have to support them, leave them etc.
·         Three is difficult.

The drawing and the manipulation continue. Now the drawing becomes a woman.
·         The balls become entangled.  At some point I use a woven basket to carry them all in. as the individuals become a unit.
·         Now the self restraints start to be a web.
·         I use the strings which I attach to the frames to create actual barriers that I have to move to get to the drawing. (I may construct the frames at this point using gazebo poles.
·         When I have made a doorway I may explore strings that are more conceptual, made of light and sounds to make continued barriers.

How do I show my perceptions of society’s expectations of women and mothers? Which barriers are real and which self imposed. Film, slides, make up, costumes?

·         At some point I remove the string, only the conceptual string remain.
·         I explore a kind of freedom; I explore costumes and identity again.
·         The drawing comes to some sort of conclusion but remains unfinished. Perhaps I wipe it all away so none remains; perhaps I just rub out some areas.

Tuesday 14 January 2014

I've had to cancel my Wednesday evening class

Due to a drop in numbers. It's not really viable. Such a shame. The recession hits us all.....
The Tuesday morning one is still going strong tho'. Hooray! So come along to that. 

Wednesday 8 January 2014

Happy new year and all that!!!!

One of the good things about the Yule Tide festival; - apart from all the kids being under one roof, pressies, murder mystery games and fun, is that all that prevented me from going in the studio. -it was full of boxes and bikes. But now its back to work... or the sort of idleness that I call work.
A quick update. After meeting Robert to go over my very embryonic performance plan, we drafted some thoughts, which I copied up when I got home...I  chatted  over them with Hudge, and let them mull and marinade over the holidays. Now I am to begin... eeeek! I am going on a pottery course. Hopefully I will create some of the 'eggs' I describe below.
Some of Roberts notes.
look at,    automatic writing Ron Athey ;- Gifts of the spirit
·         mind map
·     Questions
·         Tension between being a skilled expert, a ‘professional’
·         Need to develop an action plan, including how to develop project. (And maybe funding to feel validated.
·        
·         Q engaging work often comes from risk or urgency – what are you putting ‘at stake’

·         A “my painting, /I’ll fade away if I do not do it. Age/ not about body, - but my inside, /what makes me tick, not what you look like.

·         Q you said you make paintings that your kids and mum can see, but performance is a different medium. If we acknowledge they are not party to all the aspects of your life is it the same economy with the work? If yes why? And does it need to be yes?

·         And it does not need to be yes, /not about selling either. So this is wholly liberating,/ only me, (Annabel) questions if I am a painter, nobody else cares.

·         ‘Celebrating the small’

·         By the time we ‘receive’ trends or ideas often these have been mediated by a commercial force. We might therefore think this nullifies the original intent of the radical originator. (E.g. Vivian westward invents punk, which then becomes massively successful.) but possibly this makes those ideas accessible. If we acknowledged the ‘elephant in the room of commerce, wheres the issue?

·         Q what is your quality control?

·         Tenets from foundation, through a lifetime of self criticism/ measuring against shit work/ knowledge of experience.

·         Check out the work of ‘Suka- off’ in relation to stretched skin

To Do’s
·         Seeing work – performance space in hackney wick
·         Look up Sinead O’Donnell
·         Check up Ron Athey ‘gifts of the spirit’
·         Work out what own measures of success are
·         Sara Davies in reading
·         Think tank
·         Performance space

Suggestions
·         Set yourself some physically demanding tasks, (i.e.: stuff a pouch with heavy chains and wear until you reconnect with an existing body memory)
·         Set a deadline for a sharing before next April
·         Question and re question every matter and decision


 So here are my Under the skin thoughts  so far.
Drawing can be of other things that are then blotted out, rubbed, worked, as the piece is process the viewer will see this unfold.

·         Precious things
·         Chains
·         Gold chains
·         Gold bars
·         Egg shaped?
·         Hand held
·         One easyish
·         Two harder to work with
·         Three too hard
·         Baskets/bags to hold them in???
·         Decorate them
·         Glue
·         Glitter
·         Gold leaf
·         Can I leave them
·         Darkness
·         Not talked about
·         Vulnerable eggs
·         Detroux
·         Children trussed up
·         Hard to look at
·         Dark emotions
·         Leave eggs whilst drawing dark inner self that can be drawn over later
·         Elements of life that go to make up self do not have to be part of the face but other drawings that go to make up the layers.
·         Start with other lighter parts of life,
·         Real clothes from life
·         Drawing stops for a while to have eggs.


 
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