24 August 2020
I had a positive and inspirational virtual meeting with my tutor to discuss her assessment of my work done in my learning blog for the first part of this course. I also wanted to discuss my temporary situation due to lockdown which is concerned with my access to the online course material and rest of my academic year on level 2 of my studies.
On the exercises done and general comments of my log
My tutor is satisfied with my research of the exercises as well as my critical awareness of theories pertaining to these topics. She sees my own voice in my interpreting of evidence and suggests it will help to integrate the learning into my own practice. She encourages me to work hard at investigating and interrogating my own use of materials which I will develop through the course. It is to merge and synthesize the context of the learning in the course into my practice. I need to think about why I make. I find it exciting as well as daunting as I have by now been working well into part two.
I need to look at referencing, articles and website are different than books….see Havard System on the OCA website. I will implement this immediately as I understand the importance of correct writing for the rest of the course impact and assessment value. I decide to add a learning log page where I saved this document for use when referencing and creating a bibliography. ( http:webdocs.ucreative.ac.uk/Handbook-Harvard%20Referencing-1571674800035.pdf)
I should also think about the outlay of my blog…my tutor suggests I make use of sub categories as the content becomes more. Being practical about how an assessor would read and work through the blog with ease should be the aim of an improved layout. I plan to look at Topics, Research, Reading as separate categories.
With regards to my comments on the artist P Barlow, my tutor advised I revise my word choice of her being “discovered late”, as the artist is and was a respected artist and tutor for many years before so called fame caught up with her art. Here is how I changed my blog in this regard, I believe the value of this learning will reflect in the next part, which is about meaning. “The above image was made by an artist who, for most of her life, seemed to work under the radar of the artworld (I changed the wording from was “not discovered till her mid 60s,” as my tutor in her feedback discussed the assumption I made with my lack of knowledge about the artist). Tate Modern’s recently appointed director, Frances Morris, compares Barlow to Louise Bourgeois, an artist who also found fame late in life. “Many great women artists have suffered from the shadow effect, they have been out of public view until their 60s and 70s,” she said. “How great that we have discovered [Barlow] now.” (Mail&Guardian)” see my learning blog on Part 1. As an artist she stayed committed to her practice as well as being in art teaching since the 1960s with a successful artistic practice/sculputurer and long academic career.(in part two I re visit her practice again and found good material on the websites of Courtauld with regards to meaning and artistic intent) Here is a extract from that interview, which concerning how the artists is viewed (context??) was very insightful:
“I’m having a real problem with how my work is sometimes written about. I know it’s absurdly diva-ish the way artists talk about their reviews, but with me the focus on the “the little old lady living in Finsbury Park who has had five children,” no mention of Fabian [Peake, Phyllida’s husband] as if I’d had a virgin birth. And then “Suddenly has fame!”, and it’s just sickening. Because it doesn’t look like that to me; I don’t think I’m famous or particularly successful. The relationship with the work hasn’t changed, although the work has – it would be very dull if it hadn’t – but something has definitely happened, and it is very exciting and rewarding to be given so much freedom to make, and respond to the adventure of so many different venues for seeing the work. But things don’t transform life just like that – life just goes on. The problems and the challenges within the work and its ambitions have been given this tremendous encouragement to be fulfilled and there has been huge, magnanimous support, and that is extraordinary. But the idea of fame firstly doesn’t interest me and secondly I don’t think it is a reality. Nor is success. They are fictional things that get stuck to various people. So I think there is a fantasy attached to these words.
And when some reviewers/writers begin discussing the work there are always references to things being crudely made and slung together with a hit or miss style and that materials are salvaged from ‘rummaging around in her skip’. I’ve never rummaged around in a skip in my entire life! And it’s like, ‘[she] goes to her magic box of used materials’. Most of the materials are brand new, and yes some of them are recycled elements from previous works, but the original components of those works were probably either recycled from older works or new materials. So these fictional things get embedded in how [the work] gets written about, and trying to change that is incredibly difficult. Dismissing the work as rough shod and thoughtless is problematic; the precision and attention to detail inherent to the production processes are not obvious characteristics, but they are there. I think there is a genuine problem with writing about work that cannot be explained or justified; and I make that kind of work. It’s difficult to write about work which is more about form and content than it is about subject, which is more about the action than about an idea, and is more about how the work leads, and how it takes control rather than be controlled…
The important happening here is the learning for my personal artistic practice, which prompted me to consider many WHY’s. Why I practice art and what I see as success, being more personal by how I position or view myself. Do I need validation from the outside art world to continue my practice? Do I judge and or compare my lack of practice with other artist and is that part of the why I chose to study Fine Art? What value do I put on practice and the labour or work, and why? I have by now listened to William Kentridge on his why…..and the idea of work at your practice, putting in hours of labour, gives him physical comfort…..makes sense in that the time creating puts your mind in a better space….the opportunity to be alone at work.
Have I judged the “ art world” for not acknowledging women artists enough when I read about P Barlow?, why? I now need to investigate my ideas about recognition, being and seeing myself as a successful artist. I need to reflect on my projections about the “shadow effect”.
My tutor nudged me towards my personal reaction on the work of Yoko Ono, by asking if I considered at all what it was like to experience or perform as Yoko Ono or how I may have received it as a member of the audience? She writes:’We are familiar with performance in its various guises so what makes performance a perfor- mance’ In my research I was intrigued my the performances of other artist as I saw them as “walking a mile” in the shoes of Ono. Echo Morgan wrote extensively on her experience and how the viewer reacted. Her video footage was also useful as insight into the experience of the performance. I understand my tutor’s idea to ask me to consider the performance as an experience: in terms of it being an artwork which creates meaning between the performance and the audience, the artist and the audience and the artist and the performance. Will be useful for my intergating my learning and work done for assignment 2.
Feedback on Assignment 1
A question about why I chose painting as medium form in my repeated daily process, as well as why I chose circles, showed the level of integration I should be open to and explore during this course. I really want to understand where I am in the work, my intentions in my practice!
Issues with online access to study material was discussed and sorted – I work on an iPad. I would like the study material as a downloadable PDF….internet connection is not always available and it limits my access. My tutor e-mailed me a PDF document of the course material after our discussion.
Next assignment:
I want to move the date forward. My current situation has afforded me more time on my studies. It seems we will not be allowed to travel back to Dubai before November 2020. I would like to present the next assignment on 14 September 2020.