Today has been the darkest day of the season; rain and cloud but it is not cold. Does the weather influence work? It may do but what it most certainly does is influence mood and interpretation. If interpretation is part of the work, particularly in-action reflection, then the weather must in some way influence the work.
These sketches unlike the previous ones are more of a sequence than a series. It appears to me that one sketch led to another and that by the time I had reached the final vignettes a narrative had started to emerge. I really was not trying to create a narrative but it seems to have come about spontaneously. Is this because subconsciously I look for a narrative or is it that having completed the previous series of drawings, I am becoming more fluent and synthetic? Is it that I am linking the images despite myself?
I was not aware of any particular theme at the outset but during the course of the sketches, a familiar notion has started to show its face.
These rough sketches are a change of stance from the previous drawings, approaching the idea called for now ‘Oracle’. Exploring the inside and out of an imaginary prototype, I inhabit the space. This is not an aesthetic exercise in drawing, neither is it a testing ground for the work. It is more of an immersion into the idea, to understand where its physical form comes from. It lives in a landscape but is trapped in the context in which it is found: should be in a desert but it must sit in a room, an exhibit collected and appropriated from the imagination and displayed… for now. It is small yet pyramid-like in conception, is it to be simple or ornate? Is it a temple or a receptacle for sound; the Holy of Holies or a profane Pandora’s box; a landscape contained in the sounds that enters it, sounds processed and altered as a message must be arranged and packaged for its destination
It is now evening and having thought about the work’s geographical limitation, the idea has come to me that, although contained and relatively small, the sculpture can contain the world. Instead of the microphones collecting the sound being located within the same space, they could transmit from anywhere that they might be placed. The sculpture is then no longer limited to its location but it can encompass the world… or at least a greater part of it than before.
Today I drew another set of studies. It really is an exploratory activity and a reacquaintance with drawing. The images do not conform to the ideas I have for project work but I am glad for that. Breaking away from the constraint of a predetermined outcome fills me with a sense of freedom and renewal; what I talked about in my first post, Elastic Thinking, Synthesis and Renewal. It is in the true spirit of the MA. From these studies something may come but come what may, the thing itself seems to be what matters. The action, the thought, what it might lead to, give me the same feeling I had when I first started years ago. This happens from time to time but for it to happen now is wonderful.
As I draw I think. I think about what I am doing and how it can be done better. I am learning rapidly as it comes back to me compounded by what I have learnt and experienced along the way. These small sketches represent much more than what they are in themselves.
As part of my brain focuses on the technical activity, another part nudges me into feeling my way, sensing the concept and translating it into a language expressed in pressure, sense of space, distance and closeness, weight, light, volume. These are all empirical technical aspects. There is also another part of my brain that is released and wanders and thinks of other things. Reflection on the doing and reflection on the reflection.
I like the way that all this is achievable with the simplest of tools. A block of toothy paper and two graphite pencils. Is this not the simplicity with which artist worked before? From Lascaux to Phidias, Michelangelo to Ingres, Picasso to Moore. The most exquisite work was done with simple tools and materials. How does this compare with digital media? Is the digital another freedom or is it a self imposed exile into consumerism? I have drawn with digital media and found it a rewarding exercise but more for the outcome than process. The smooth layers, the faultless line, edges that leave no ambiguity. It is indeed very seductive and aesthetic. I have rationalised it and it appears valid. But I ask myself, have we become so accustomed to perfection that we are in danger of losing sight of what human creativity is and where it comes from? Is the machine to be the paradigm by which we measure and are measured and origins lost in time and made irrelevant? So many questions come to mind offering contradictory views it is overwhelming. For now I shall continue building this small, simple, limitless world and see what happens.
