This is a ‘what could have gone better’ sort of analysis… but it is not. It is more of a future plan of action.
Tantalus, seen below in what appears to be an Italian painting of the C16th, was punished by Zeus for various evil doings with eternal temptation without satisfaction. Fortunately, I have not been cursed by a similar fate during the MA. The course has offered more opportunities than I could have possibly availed myself. As in life, art is as much about what you leave out as what you put in, arguably more so, and so it has been with the MA. Below is a, by no means exhaustive, list of some of the things that I have had to let pass perhaps for another day.
- Bronze casting at the foundry
- Digital printing
- Working at the resistant material workshop both for fabrication and computer CAD laser and router cutting.
- Done more 3D rendering
- 3D scanning – photogrammetry
The first three would have required me to stay in London for a prolonged period of time. I have had the experience of working in external facilities and know it can be slow. I would have fabricated cases, stands and who knows what else with ease. But this would have taken my time from developing work.
I decided to leave the digital printing to one side because I make the objects much more quickly by hand. It would be interesting to use other materials, say transparent or soft one ones, however, at the moment this presents itself more as a commercial option: repeatability, and novel materials moving away from the core idea.
The bronze casting, or with some other metal such as cast iron, would have been my dream. But again, this is not directly relevant to the work itself. Metal casting is often a commercial option because it is about durability and replicability with an aura of rarity and status. Once again, this could be done in the future and is not directly pertinent to the work.
I tried 3D rendering on Blender, and a few other programmes. I found it somewhat frustrating because there is so much to learn, and no matter how much time I would have spent on this, the results, in the end, would have been, as far as my work is concerned, more about presentation online and less about the material essence of the idea. I will have more time, later on, to work with this.
3D scanning is something I will definitely work with in the future, whether with a scanner or using photogrammetry. I think this offers a lot in the area of imaging my work and building on it in both two and three dimensions. It also feeds into casting. There are a lot of companies out there that will cast from a scan or a 3D rendering for that matter. The advantages of this over working with clay, stone, and other traditional materials is again that of replicability and the ability to build forms that are impossible to make otherwise. But then I would be entering a domain that lies outside my current work – I keep an open mind.
I would also have liked to have made a book. This can come later. It is not something that can be rushed while formulating ideas. I see it more as documenting a period or body of work. I am not quite at that point yet.
These are just a few of the things that I would have liked to have done but did not. I will soon have the time to do some of them and others as I have outlined in the post Formulation of future plans to continue my personal and professional development. I am sure there are more things I could mention but it is better for me to give time to those with which I am currently engaged.