Slow and steady wins the race?

Well ... it's been a while and its nearly December! Aaargh! Where has the time gone?! I feel so guilty for neglecting my blog and have been documenting the past couple of weeks mentally in the back of my head to catch up in an uber blog post!

The month started off by visiting the Tate Liverpool. I saw Rothko's Seagram Murals and Jean Tinguely and Michael Landy's special exhibition which were amazing! I wasn't expecting Tinguely and Landy's work to affect me so much, but it was one of those exhibitions that you see and are just like ... wow! Unfortunately photography wasn't permitted : (  even though I tried vainly attempted to take some photos on my phone ... the invigilators weren't too impressed! I really liked in particular the drawing machines that Tanguely used in his work; not so much the machines themselves but the randomness of the mark-making that they produced. After treating myself to an absolutely delicious chocolate cake in the cafe, I

decided to have a wander around the docks area around the Tate for a while. It was so peaceful walking around there it was hard to imagine I was actually in a city. There wasn't a soul in sight either which enabled for some post-Tate and chocolate fix reflections ...

The last couple of weeks seem to have been slightly unproductive in comparison to the crazy textstallation week. Ive been teaching extra days on the Foundation course which has been really great and have really enjoyed, but Ive been so tired Ive hardly managed to do anything ... I think though that something clicked when I was working with the students particularly as we were exploring colour and the floral : ) which I found particularly inspiring and I found myself wanting to create the work with them! The result at least is that its made me feel excited about drawing/mark-making again which is a kind of ephipany as it's usually writing and text which seems to take over any creative output.

The weekend before last, me and my lovely friend Georgie Barney managed to take some time out for a trek around The Long Mynd in Shropshire. It was absolutely beautiful despite the weather which gradually got worse the nearer we got there and despite us both being ill since!

I am now making preparations for getting back on track ... I feel less ill and more relaxed and hopefully far more productive! We shall see ...

textstallation//researchstallation

Last week I had been working in the Margaret Street gallery space at BIAD to create a textstallation//researchstallation of my research. I only had a broad idea of how I was actually going achieve it, as I wanted the ideas to evolve from working with the materials and in the space and through the processes of writing and making. I wanted to create a physical map of my research, developing the idea of mapping being a methodological tool to allow ideas to form and relate to each other through a sense of interdisciplinarity and complex interweaving and interrelations of thoughts and text.

I began by writing and using Letraset text to map out areas of importance or particular ideological concepts onto the gallery wall; gradually interlinking and interconnecting them through the space using thread, strips of handwritten text and texts by Derrida, Barthes and Cixous and also text taken from Chinese, French and Polish newspapers.

I also went to the private view at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and saw Jann Haworth's exhibition POP and Vered Lahav's exhibition Sleepless. There was a really great opening speech as well about their work; siting the artists as working against the masculine framework of Modernism which I though unintentially linked with my research and appreciate it more! I was lucky enough to indulge in the complementary Krispy Kreme doughnuts and wine as well! I particularly liked the images of books and glass and feathers pieces in Sleepless.

I was also priviledged to meet little baby Max last week who is the most beautiful little boy EVER! (even though he was sick on my scarf!) and gave him my gift - a small canvas that I painted to go in his dinosaur themed room.