and the fun starts

today was time to get to work.

the school kids started back today and so did i.

after an early morning walk around the area with gill (and some breakfast) i set myself up in the basement offices. the main thing i started today was a short stills film of the street fair from last sunday. it's a good wee project to get to grips with some software that i'm not used to working with and am quite looking forward to seeing how it turns out. (although i'm a little frustrated at how long it's taking without the benefit of knowing a programmes shortcuts etc... but it's all part of the fun and learning experience)

even though i didn't finalise as much as i'd have like to today, it feels really good to be doing something productive and stimulating again after a summer of random admin and photography jobs.

looking forward to tomorrow! (as per usual)

little or big

today was a day of juxtapositions.

i headed into manhattan with Gill (whose home i'm staying at along with her husband Roger) her daughter and grandson. on arriving we parted ways; they headed uptown to the natural history museum, i downtown for some discount shopping (although i never bought anything.)

manhattan is big. or at least in character and ego. this little island sure does make up for any square feet shortcomings by packing as much as possible into what it has.

as a reaction to this i decided to take in a little more of the character than i had planned, getting off the subway a few stops early spend the last leg of my trip above ground.(despite loosing bearings and travelling a couple of blocks perpendicular to my intended course and then doubling back a couple of stations before eventually heading in the right direction) i came across a menagerie of shops; peoples; sights and sounds that did not fail to fascinate.

chilling out in crowds of faceless people.

and then home to chill out with people that are far from faceless, and i wouldn't have it any other way.

it never fails to amaze me how small a world we live in sometimes. i never would have imagined that i'd be in ny this year, spending time with people who knew me before i did and left the village i grew up in when i was barely at school.
as if that wasn't amazing enough i found out the day i arrived here that a great friend of mine whom i met in taiwan last year (who's korean by origin; born and raised in l.a.) has just started studying in manhattan for a bit.

after speaking to her this evening on the phone (arranging to meet up sometime) i realised how blessed i am that wherever i go i have great friends to share life with; old and new.

cultural expedition

today i decided it was time to really get to grips with the culture here which involved more hard work than expected.

the day began painfully early being dragged out of bed for an arduous exodus to the Hampton's where i was forced to socialise and sunbathe on a white beach for the entirety of the morning before being coerced into lying on a lilo in the back garden pool. after which i had to watch a little baseball and then eat some rather fine curry... it was a hard task but i got through it for the sake of sociological advancement...

today was 'labour day' the predominant reason given to me for this day is to monument the end of white shoes and trousers until the next summer (which in my book should be 'vito'd for more than just three seasons of the year) although i did hear someone mention something about honouring workers...

i like labour day.

home in new york

the cars are bigger; the food is bigger; the people are bigger; there are no pavements; the temperature is higher. i'm in america.

i love it.

this is the ultimate in consumer society - 'we make nothing so we must sell everything' - and although i don't prescribe to that in general, i still love it here.

i've been here three times (once this year already) but never for that long, but while taking some photos at church today (photo's will be added once i replace the card reader that went 'missing' after customs checks) someone grabbed me and gave me a massive hug. turns out she'd recognised me from the brief few visits and was just glad to see me. i was totally taken aback cos i realised that she genuinely meant it.

i spent the afternoon at a street fair and encountered similar generosity and community spirit from a large majority of people i met. (although the most friendly was a very cute little girl, whom, after being introduced to me proceeded to drag me round pointing out everything she found of interest in the area.)

im still adjusting to a slightly calmer pace of life than that of the past year but by the looks of it, i dont think i need to worry about a lack of things to do.

i've been here for 2 and a half days, and feel at home... but then again, home for me has always been wherever i happen to be.

arrived

After what may have been the most on time set of flights I've ever had I have arrived. Albeit lacking in luggage, but I'm here.
I must admit that it feels a little weird how un-weird it feels to be here. But I guess that's because I've just gone from one family to another.
I'm pretty tired, trying to make it to 9 o'clock, but I just can't wait to get stuck into life here for the next 6months!

All done

I finished!!! (and with a pretty decent grade too)
As a result (and also cos I moved to a place with no internet a few weeks ago) I will be bidding this page fairwell until the end of august. (when i go to New York for a few months)
So yeah, that's it.

two days to go

the cables aren't working, the paints not going on thick enough, it's a plethora of plinth-ridden madness!

it will be okay.

the latest freak out is the fact that people are actually going to be seeing this work, some of which is pretty personal (although the only person that'll probably know that is me.) i'm really looking forward to the whole exhibition buzz: the feeling that you've created something an are actually communicating it in public. but there are certain people (who unfortunately i can't not invite) who i really don't want to be there. i'm anticipating criticism of my work and can take it from people who i respect as artists or people who don't know me, or even friends, but from people who don't fit into these criteria give nonconstructive criticism, i don't like it. it just nullifies all the work and preparation you've put in.

hopefully this won't happen. but sometimes, on the other hand, it's the not knowing how people are reacting that's harder.

it will be okay.

influential life

it's down to the last few days and the stress is high but there is a definite 'light at the end of the tunnel' feel to this week. that said, given how quickly the last few years have gone by and how surreal this all feels, it's hard to imagine that it'll ever end. even thinking about a summer with no thoughts of going back to uni at the end of it, i can't get my head around it.

while writing up a 'to do' list the other day i started thinking about influences. how do you define an influence? the films you've seen, the music you've listened to, the things you've done, the art work you've seen, the books i've read, the people you've spoken to, the places you've lived, the wine you drink.

this year has been filled with such a disparate array of these that it's hard to pick out the few that have had an obvious affect on the work i've created. there are a few obvious ones, like the changing of spaces i use to reflect, meditate, study, ponder. or the trip to venice last year that opened up a whole new scope of amazing people, artwork, food, coffee and wine. but what about the random people i've met at bus stops, or on planes. or the random music that's on my ipod at the moment. do they really play that big a part? enough to be recognised and recorded?

i decided to write out a list of all the films i've seen lately (that i can remember) and realised that, apart from the few shockingly panny entries on the list, most of them have inspired me in some way. my conclusion: it all counts, but it doesn't all count. suitably vague indicator of the fact that i'm none the wiser than when the thought initially entered my head.

detached connectivity

it's the title of the first piece i finished up today and is (ironically) what i've been thinking about today.

this morning i realised i had no food in the house so before punctuating my week with a flying visit to the beginning of church, then going to uni for the rest of the afternoon, i decided to spend the morning in the park, getting breakfast when the shops opened. normally when i decide to chill out in the park for a bit, i'm the only one there but today there were loads of people. all on their own, but all aware of the other people there. some were reading, some sleeping, some just taking in the hot sun and city style peace.

a lady came along with her dog and was struggling to hold it back while she kicked broken glass out of its path so i decided to give her a hand, clearing the path near me. unexpectedly she stopped to thank me making a comment about how people don't generally think about other people (hence the broken glass.)

later on, when the shops opened, i was ordering a coffee when she turned up there too so we said hi again. this time she helped me out. the till wasn't working properly so i had to give the person serving me exact change, which i didn't have, but thankfully the lady from the park did.

it was a bit of a non-event but it the whole thing just reminded me of how important it is to help out other people, with no agenda. you never know when you might be the one who needs help from other people.

10 days to go

After a week on crutches there's a lot of catching up to do, but I've had some amazing friends stepping in to help out. Doing everything from being honourary carry monkey to priming and painting my degree show space (the person who had it last year left it a lovely shade of dark red, and I need it white.)

So today my parents came in to feed me and help with the last coat of white paint (although it looks like I got more on me than the walls) leaving me freer this afternoon to do the final touches on a couple of films.

The subject matters of the films are quite emotive, but it occured to me that my relationship with them is quite detached. While listening through the final cut of one film in which an old fisherman talks about the loss of a friend of his (along with several other men) in a lifeboat accident, I suddenly became very aware that other people are going to be watching this, some of whom may be familiar with the event, and almost all of whom wont have the same amount of detachment from it as I've had. I must admit to getting a little emotional when I watched it through today and got a little freaked out that I might make someone cry. While on the one hand, it's not nice to make people cry, the relationship of trust between artist and viewer is one that has always fascinated me, and that I've been thinking about a lot this year, so I think it might be quite interesting to see how people interpret what I'm showing in that respect. Whether some people might feel a little exploited (although I'd hope not, since that was not my intention - although it had crossed my mind) or if they'll get it and realise that it's about more than just representations of moments of 'life' (or death.)

It's all a little daunting right now with so much work to be done that part of me wishes that I didn't have to go through with the whole thing, but thankfully that part is well overshadowed by the rest of me that is just really looking forward to showing work that I actually enjoyed making (to a point) and getting a major sense of relief that (hopefully) I've achieved something.

reflections

“Robert Frank’s The Americans (1959) is not read as a “masterpiece of incisive social criticism [as] it has come to be considered,” but instead as “the somewhat narcissistic reflection of a personality caught up in the romance of the existential dilemma.”
- James R. Hugunin talking about Andy Grundberg’s ‘crisis of the real’

Talk about a harsh criticism. I quite like ‘the Americans’ and happen to disagree with Andy Grundberg on this point (although perhaps I’m slightly biased since it’s a photography literature collaboration between Robert Frank and Jack Kerouac, whom I’m totally lovin’ at the moment) but this is something that I worry about with my own work from time to time.

I did a series of photos of shops in a street as the start of some research for a potential piece about immigration in the area, but after I did them I realised that I was simultaneously far too emotionally attached and far to detached to create something of worth. I couldn’t look at the images I’d taken without thinking about memories of the area, and I didn’t have a feeling of belonging there, so was quite apathetic about it. It ran a very high risk of becoming a “somewhat narcissistic reflection of a personality caught up in the romance of the existential dilemma.” So I cut its ties then and there and moved onto a whole new project.

It was a hard thing to do, as I had planned for it to be my main piece so had put a lot of thought and research into it, but at the end of the day I stand by my decision, and think the work I went on to do as a result has been better and conceptually more happy with it.

It got me thinking about another of Grundberg’s musings “For many, history has become entertainment instead of instruction, and the future is whatever we care to make it.”

If art is a reaction, or reflection of culture and society at the time (which, to be fair, it would be impossible to divorce itself from) then taking note from other artists’ downfalls or misinterpretations by critics is an important thing to do, just as much so as taking caution from history otherwise we “return to Plato’s cave and do not pass go.”

When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full
meaning. There is a proliferation of myths of origin and signs of reality;
of secondhand truth, objectivity and authenticity.
—Jean Baudrillard

amazing

it's almost over

So stress…

This last run up to the degree show is tense to say the least. I’ve been remaining outwardly calm to get work done and periodically venting on friends’ shoulders when away from uni. They’re amazing people, consistently encouraging me to keep going.

One such friend (who happens to be a midwife) on one such occasion decided to impart some encouragement in the form of an analogy: ‘ it’s like giving birth, except you’re the baby. In the last stages you get squeezed from every side, but once it’s over there’s a tremendous sense of relief and achievement.’

That was on Sunday night.

On Monday night I spent the better part in A&E and left with crutches and a serious urge for a strong expletive. (I had a blister that covered the whole of my heel, somehow it managed to get bigger and because I’d been trying not to walk on it, the front of my foot was in agony and I’d sprained my ankle and knee a little so I couldn’t really walk. So am now under strict instructions not to put any weight on that leg or foot.)

I was more than a little angry so I texted my friend with the analogy how much more squeezing was going to occur, since I already felt like I was cracking, to which she replied ‘ this is your last lap hop along! I’ll carry you if I have to!’

I don’t think I’ve ever realised how important it is to have people like that in your life. I guess I’m probably being a little over dramatic but I really don’t think I could have got through this year without those people that bring you back down to earth and give genuine love and support when you need it.

I am stressed to the max, but I will get through this.

time management is not a strong point

Well, it’s getting in to the last leg of the journey. The final push before the degree show and finally things are starting to make a bit more sense. I have a fair amount of work to show as an installation type dealio with different pieces working off of each other, and a fair amount of stuff not being shown, as secondary work, so although there’s the inevitable, I could have done so much more or better thing going on, I’m starting to enjoy it again and feel like it hasn’t all been a massive waste of time.

There’s no way that the last four years could ever be counted as a waste of time. I’ve learned more about life, people and art than I ever could have imagined. When I was in first year I remember this guy coming up to me and asking why I was here (ie art school) to which I gave the proverbial answer including something about a passion for art. He cut me off with a ‘no you’re not!’ and proceeded to explain that I was here to learn about life and to ‘think and live outside the box’ (nb- I hate that phrase) and he was right. In the grand scheme of things, I’m still a pretty normal person, and I still have a long way to go, but I definitely see the world differently and with a far more open mind now than I did back then. I expect a lot more out of life and in turn am generally amazed at how much it has to offer.

It’s got me thinking about wastes of time. I recently was roped into acting in a film, which took up more time than I would have liked. I had been really ill and in an attempt to ignore said fact, agreed to do some production stills in the morning. By the time I got there I was wiped, so when their actor pulled out at the last minute and they asked me to do a test reading, I didn’t really have the energy to say no. (I know it sounds stupid, but had I been a little less dead I probably would have thought rationally about it and been more reluctant.) I’m not an actor by any stretch of the imagination. By the last day of filming I realised something. I had learned more about the production elements of film and how a director should work than I ever would have otherwise. As well as acting I had stepped in for the odd bit of sound recording, camera operating and a second opinion, when asked for, on lighting. I’ve vaguely worked with film periodically over the past few years but never felt all that confident with it as a medium. Now however, having seen and been around the whole process from initial idea and script to end editing, and having had the chance to experience the filming part from the other side of the camera, I’d feel far more confident, and be more than happy to give it a proper go in the future (something that I think might be of great benefit, and I’m keeping in mind for an up and coming trip to New York.)

What I had first thought might have been a rather spectacular waste of time, turned into a very beneficial experience.

thoughts from the past few weeks

A while ago I came to a realisation and have decided to do something about it before the end of uni.

It occurred to me that I’m a bit of a collector.

When I move to somewhere new, after a while, I take out my camera and explore the intricacies, and general points of interest for me in whatever place I’ve adopted as a place of meditation (aka that chill out and breath space), generally the garden.

My current place is a garden.

This kind of garden is like the forgotten fingerprint of a place. A tell tale imprint of tenants past and present: The remnants of a proverbial flat BBQ; a stone placed haphazardly on a tree by some friends, mid conversation; a sofa, threadbare, exposing its weather-worn rusty springs; a thread of strawberry plants, once cared for and cultivated, now barely distinguishable amongst the overgrown, under tended foliage.

A garden.

Not in the traditional ‘white picket fence plus one’ sense, but a place of being, attached to a building. A little bit of outdoors, a shameful attempt at nature, that does barely more than facilitate a gap between one building and another. This says something about a place. This is what I collect.

So now I’m at a point where I have four or five groups of definite documentations of my spaces I find and don’t want to let another one go by without realising. This one I want to respond to a little, like some sort of thank you to the space for letting me use it, by using it a little more.

These photos have been a big influence on the work I’m doing now, but don’t fit into the whole degree show thing so I’m going to do it as an outside thing so as to bring some sort of context to the work inside.

Saturday

So Saturday…

I had a friends wedding Friday night so didn’t get home till very late. All week I’d had one of those hovering cold things where one minute you feel fine and the next you feel dead, I thought it had gone but by the time I got home the next morning I felt like rubbish and it didn’t really go away till about today.

So Saturday, later (but still early) that morning I headed up along the coast to a farm to spend the day there in the hopes of capturing some footage of lambs being born. I didn’t get an actual birth but I did get some newly born ones with their mum, which was pretty cool. I couldn’t believe how quickly after they’re born they get up and get going, it was pretty amazing to watch. Most of the day was spent with the farmers wife, showing me round the field and barns, feeding sick lambs, eating soup, and generally getting aquainted with the whole sheep lamb thing. I had no clue how much work was involved and definitely have respect for anyone who does it.

In the afternoon we spent a good few hours watching one particular ewe that looked as though it might lamb. (I became very aware of the fact that I’ve never stared so intently at anyone’s bum before.) It was a bit chilly so we spent the second half of the watch in the farm van in the middle of the field. Some time had passed when I suddenly realised that I was asleep (more than a little embarrassing, even if I wasn’t well, given that I was trying my hardest to pretend that I wasn’t, and they were surviving quite well with lamb induced lack of sleep.)

Since last September, every four weeks I’ve been helping with a prostitute outreach thing. It’s a bus run by a rehab centre and is essentially just a place for them to go and talk to someone, get help if they need it, or just a cup of tea and biscuit. It’s been going on for years and has been pretty awesome. As much as I look forward to my shift, I was pretty whacked and didn’t want to drive the hour there and again on the way back (finishing early Sunday morning) but I’d left it too late to swap with anyone so had to go.

Quite recently some laws were changed (that make me angry so I’m not going to go into them) but I means that where there was a relatively safe tolerance zone, now there isn’t and the girls are being arrested. In theory it sounds fair enough, but it means they’re being pushed into unsafe areas, or underground which is even worse. It’s been a total out of sight out of mind move by the government in my opinion and actually a pile of rubbish [insert rant here].

So yeah, the only reason I’m mentioning it is because it was decided on Saturday night that the bus should come to an end in order to re-evaluate the situation. It was a pretty sad moment, but a necessary one, the only girls left at the old tollerence zone are the occasional really young one who hasn’t been arrested yet, or the occasional older one that has been away for a bit and come back. Sometimes I find it hard to believe how much good can be ruined by the actions of just a few.

That said, it’s had it’s season and has done so much good that it could never be seen as a waste of time. Makes me really happy to know that there are people out there who care enough about people to set up and stick with projects like that.

It also meant I got to go home to bed an hour earlier than expected which was no bad thing.

the sun is out

Today is a gorgeous day! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and I’m stuck in a basement AV lab editing audio and film from last weekend, and I’m feeling pretty disillusioned with uni at the moment, struggling to find motivation for the final hurdle.

Despite the circumstances I’m in an inexplicably optimistic mood. I’ve been a bit sick for the past week and today is the first day my lungs haven’t hurt and I got a whole lot more sleep than usual last night so I guess the good mood’s not that inexplicable.

And it is actually a really gorgeous day.

couple of days

I've been off the circuit these last couple of days but have now returned.
The last few days have been a mad flurry of scooting between various places, collecting work, materials etc and trying to organise a trip to a farm this weekend to go film lambs being born. It's amazing how much time it takes to fit in all that stuff. Im developing an appreciation for the bus service here, it might not be the best but without it I'd be completely skuppered.
This morning I was shattered so decided to take my breakfast and eat it on the way to uni (the theory being that the quicker I got some fresh air, the quicker I'd wake up.) It turned out to be a gorgeously sunny morning, one of those when the sun streaks across the ground emphasising the shadows cast by city buildings and saturating the grass so that everything is shiny, green and blue.
There's a park on the way to the bus I catch so I decided to go there to have breakfast. Best plan ever!
It was so relaxing, as soon as you got in there the city around became stiffled background noise and the park in all it's peacefulness was all there was.
What a great way to start the day.

What to do?

"I'm like an honourary spectator in my own life.

Photographs bring people closer to life and reveal things we would never normally see. They force us to pay more attention to the subtleties and awesomeness of the world around us; to appreciate it a little more for its beauty. They can show us suffering, passion, harmony, or something as simple as a pebble on a beach."

It's coming to the end of my time at art school and I am so desperate to leave.

It's not that I don't love it here, it's just that I'm ready for a change. Some new water to float ideas around in.

Alas, before that happens there's a lot of work to be done, one particularly looming thing being the degree show. Thursday is the day that department year have to go get photos taken for the catalogue and I've been toying over what to put in. I mean, how can you choose one piece from a group of pieces that work as a whole (and perhaps I've over thought this a little) that is going to sum up the whole intention of your work, while simultaneously becoming an image that when people look back at the catalogue after the show they say 'hey, that was part of the work by that girl...[hopefully insert something positive]... who studied PEM'

My work has been a lot to do with perception and reality over the last few years. (hence the above quote from a couple of years ago) The connectivity of life on the whole. In particularly I've been exploring the role that photography (and art) plays in that. Photography can never be more than a representation of reality; a tool to record a moment that passes quicker than we have to acknowledge it's existence. For me it is often a means of looking and collecting in order to later reflect and dissect or ponder over that moment or thing that was, in a different context.

So I came to a conclusion that I'm not going to put a whole piece into the catalogue. Apart from anything else, some of the work as a whole wouldn't really translate to a 2D space in a book. I'm going to put in a part of an image that for me, connects back to the above quote, and to a certain extent, relates to my relationship to my work. The voyeur and the subject (although obviously I'm a little more hands on than a voyeur.)

This weekend

This weekend I’ve been considering daffodils.

I hadn’t intended on starting this short documentation of life leading up to the degree show on such a theological note, but given that this is essentially a space where I can freely articulate my thoughts, and my understanding (or lack thereof) of God is generally the basis for how I perceive the world, I decided to go ahead with it anyway.

I recently moved in with a good friend of mine. I met her on the Sunday, moved in Monday morning. After unpacking my stuff I noticed a vase of daffodils on my desk that she had put there for me.

It’s coming to the end of the time of year when daffodils are a common sight along verges and in parks in the city. There to be admired by passers by. I have been one of those admirers, frequently walking past a flurry of them on the days I choose to walk to uni, but none of them have meant as much to me as the few that sit on my desk.

A week or so went past and my daffodils that gave a cheery yellow greeting to the morning sun began to wilt. I began to ignore them a little so as to avoid the fact that I would have to throw them out soon.

I eventually resigned to the idea and headed to my room to carry out the sad act only to discover that my flatmate had replaced the old dead ones with new fresh ones.

The world we live in is laking in hope. The economy, the poverty, the insanity of it all. But somehow, don't ask me how, God is bigger than that. I guess this year has been pretty hard in the lack of time and inevitability that soon uni will be over, but not yet, and I just realised how easy it is to miss the daffodils if you don't just stop and evaluate. Daffodils are like a little sign of hope that spring is here and summer is just around the corner but they don't last forever. I've been stopping to take note of some daffodils lately but then they always seem to fade after a bit, but it always seems to be, that just when I'm about to give up hope, some fresh ones appear, just when you need them. They may not be earth shattering in they're affect, but that's not to say they're not appreciated.