Moodswings and Roundabouts.

This week has been characterised by rain, rain, a feeling of listlessness, and more rain. I've been staying home a lot, in an attempt to get uni work ready in time for assessment, and also because the dreary weather isn't particularly calling my name. Or maybe it is?


"Caaaaathryn.... CAAAAATHRYN, you know you looove walking around in wet socks and having your umbrella being blown inside out.... come outsiiiiiiide...."


No, no I don't love that. Which is frustrating because I really am wanting to go outside and enjoy the last few weeks I have here in London, but the weather kind of puts me in a bad mood and then I get all discouraged and instead find myself sitting in my pyjama's all day and debating how acceptable it would be to crack open of bottle of wine at 11am (conclusion: it's not, so I didn't, don't worry).

I'm definitely starting to notice how my mood has dropped in relation to my 'leaving date' approaching. It's a similar feeling I had in December, before I left to come here. It's a slight sinking feeling in my chest, and sense of disease that soon I'll have to pack up and be on the road again. I love travelling, and I feel torn in that I want to see new things/eventually see friends and family, but I don't like leaving this place behind. I've become accustomed to it.

I think my alcohol consumption is generally a pretty good gauge for how I'm feeling: if I'm feeling the need to have a few glasses of wine with dinner, then it's because I'm also feeling a tad despondent. On the flip side, the more I indulge these urges (and drink), the worse I feel. I wake up the next morning and have myself a total pity party because I got drunk instead of do something productive the night before. However, I like to think I'm self-aware enough to not let it become a regular thing - If I have some wine two nights in a row, I generally give myself the next few days off. I don't like the feeling of drinking too much over an extended period of time.

I tried to break this bad-mood streak earlier in the week when, on realising the weather forecast for that day was 'partly cloudy' (as opposed to 'if you're outfit is not entirely waterproof, then don't go outside'), I showered, put some pants on that were not of the pyjama variety and headed out. I did some simple things, like grab some nice vegan food from Camden Town, and then ventured down to White Cube to check out the current exhibition. It was nice, and reaffirming, to just walk along the streets, and be outside and looking around and taking things in. It's important for me to feel as if I am experiencing as much as I can. On the way home I spontaneously jumped off the tube at Hampstead and went for a stroll in Hampstead Heath, which was beautiful. It was all lush, green, and a little muddy thanks to the rain.

My focus for the next week will be to finish my collage, help out with preparing the studio spaces for assessment, and then get assessed myself. I also need to start cleaning my room, and decide what's coming with me to Europe, and what's being sent home. I've also got a list of things I want to see and revisit in London while I'm still here and it's pretty much exclusively a list of places to eat, and places to see art.

I also need to start seriously finishing off all the food I've got in my pantry. I've been trying to only purchase fresh produce for the past week or two, and using more of the staples that I still have. Nevertheless, I still have loads of quinoa, brown rice, and pasta. I love a good grain, but somehow I just don't think I'm going to be able to finish off what I have in time. I might just have to take what I have left with me, and hope that the Germans aren't too strict about smuggling copious amounts of food in your checked baggage. Maybe I'll get a chance at my 15 minutes of fame on 'Border Patrol - Deutschland'.

This next week will be reasonably busy, and it'll be important to remind myself to value the time I have here, and enjoy the things I get to do. It won't last long.

Also, because I can't stand the thought of a blog post without pictures (and because family member won't have seen this photo yet - sorry for the spam, facebook friends), here's one of me at the Harry Potter Studio Tour I did last week:

: )

Work In Progress Wednesday! (again)

Hi everyone! Welcome to my second, and last, WIPW :)

It's my last post about my uni-related work because assessment is next week and after that I'm heading home (via Scotland and continental Europe), so I won't be working on this project until July, when I start my second semester of uni back in Australia. I think I'll try and keep this blog updated during my travels, but once I'm back in Australia for the foreseeable future, I will 'book-end' the blog with a round-up post of sorts and then it'll fade into obscurity in the frothy backwaters of the Internet. And that's good for me because it means I get hipster points by being able to claim ownership over something that not a lot of people know about. Ha!

Anyway, onwards: since I gave a brief introduction to my art project in my last WIPW post (which you can read here), I feel it pointless to rehash it in full again in this one. Instead, here's a bunch of photos of different things I have made/am currently working on, with a few details

The above project is a a bit of a deviation from my main body of work (as it's not strictly printmaking and I'm using the words differently), but nevertheless very important to my own personal preconceptions about how to use and consider text. I picked up a Russian newspaper by accident a few weeks ago on a night out, and it was one of those 'happy mistakes' that happen so often during the creative process. I can recognise that these are words, but because they're in another language that I've never even attempted to learn, I can't understand them. This detachment of understanding then allows me to consider them from a more aesthetic point of view. As I arrange them in this collage, it becomes more about the slant or boldness of the text, not about it's readability. This lens is something I would like to continue to use within the rest of my project.

Screen print + handwriting + cut and rearranged.

I've started trying to be a bit more controlled in my screen printing. With the first prints I made, I didn't really care about where the print ended up on the page. But, as this project is becoming more and more about the aesthetic, I'm now being a bit more decisive about composition. I think I'm starting to see words as more of a 'means to an end', rather than subject matter.

Above is an experiment in layering and transparency. Printed and handwritten words on fabric. I used 3 different fabrics, each with a different density and type of thread, and this is the one I liked the most. This is also an attempt at injecting humour into my work: see how the printed words are 'hand written' and the hand written word is 'printed'? 

At least we know that if this art business falls through, I'll always have a career in comedy to fall back on. ;)

comparing then & now

I've spent a great deal of time in my bedroom over the past 4 months, so just for fun I've decided to compare what it looked like when I first moved in (16th Janurary) to how it looks now.

Early January:

Mid April (most recent):

Since moving here I've felt the need to reconcile what (or perhaps, where) home is for myself, as I have sort of created two. Perth is my true home because that is where (most of) the people that I love also live. However, this hasn't stopped me creating a new sense of home here in London. I feel a fond familiarity with this place, one that I doubt will leave once I do. When I first moved into my London house, I had these dreams where I was walking around outside, and the streets kept flickering back and forth between English looking streets and Australian looking streets, and I was stumbling around trying to figure out what was wrong with my vision. I woke up from one of these dreams once in the dark, completely disoriented, with no idea where I was - all I knew was that I was in a bed, and I mentally had to retrace my steps over the last few weeks to remember that I was now living in London. It's funny how the mind tries to make things familiar and understandable, even if it's nowhere near the truth. My house sits on a corner and one night, as I was falling asleep in bed I heard a car turn the corner, which reminded me of the sound of my mum pulling into the driveway. I thought to myself: 'oh, mum's home', and for a second I truly believed that she was. I think that home is really closer that I think. The memory of Perth, and the places there are still so fresh to me, I don't feel the distance mentally. Sometimes I feel it physically, like when I look at a map of the world, or I really, really want a hug. But time keeps moving on, and I know I'll be home soon - perhaps staring at the little dot marked 'London' on my globe of the world.

In a month I'll be taking down the postcards and letters from my wall and leaving. I'll be sad to go.

Paris!

This is me trying to keep my 'post once or twice a week' goal.

I just spent a week in Paris with Ella. It was an interesting experience: probably the first time I've been to a country and felt the need to speak their language (and therefore not feel like such a dirty tourist) and also the first time I've travelled somewhere without consulting a Lonely Planet guide first. I normally treat Lonely Planet guides like some treat the Bible. I read it over and over before a trip, making notes of what I want to do/visit, following up on recommendations, etc. This time, with Paris, I didn't have a LP guide. I'd decided to go to Paris, not because I really, really wanted to go, but more so because I figured I'd regret it if I don't, not knowing when I'll be back in this part of the world again.

I am really glad I went. I had a kind of... reserved sense of anticipation about going. Paris is such a hyped-up city: City of Light! City of Love! Go there and fall in love with a Frenchman in a beret while eating a croissant in line for the Eiffel Tower... Paris! Baguette!

I was also a nervous about the language barrier. At first I felt very self-conscious about my lingual-ignorance, but in the end I was able to say a few things in French (such as: 'I do not speak French' and 'Do you speak English?', both handy things to know how to say, haha). I learnt French for a few years in high school, and a lot of it came back to me in the few days I was there, so I'm quite motivated now to re-start learning it as a second language. It's funny how, on a journey where what I want to do is experience new and different places, I also want to fit in.

 

One thing that really struck me about Paris (and it's not that this hasn't struck me before, it just came up again) was how what I knew of/imagined Paris to be like measured up with how it actually is. It's like: you have this idea of a place, and that idea is made up of pictures of landmarks, movies you've seen and stories you've heard... and when you finally get there you realise that all these things are actually very small, specific places/things within this big net of a city. When you travel from one 'thing' to another you see the real bits in between, like the way the roads look, the way the people dress, the homeless people on the street, the different types of trees. So it's like connecting the dots. It's a very subjective thing. I've noticed the same thing with this whole exchange experience as well: I had this vague idea of how it would turn out, and it hasn't turned out like that at all.

I'll finish this brief blog with an obligatory picture of the Eiffel Tower :)

expectations and fulfillment, loss and gain.

I can't even remember what my last blog was about, it's been a while. I've been putting off making a new post til now because in my head they're big tasks and should all be well-written with a clear focus and lots of photos and introspective stuff. I think from now on I'm going to TRY and be a little easier on myself as I would prefer to make posts more frequently. Big posts made sporadically kind of miss out the small, specific experiences I have on this trip because I tend to gloss over them and summarise everything. I want this blog to paint a fuller picture of my experience over here, so I'm going to start trying to make smaller posts more often. Goal: 1-2 posts per calender week (thought: are there other kinds of weeks?).

Right now, it's 6 weeks til I leave London for good. I can't believe it's already April. I'm starting to freak out a little bit, but also get excited about the onward journey that will eventually lead me home. I'm starting to feel a bit more enthused by this city I'm living in, because now the end is near. I was feeling a tad homesick last week, but that's subsided. And it's not place-sickness, it's people-sickness. I wanna be with friends and family. Thankcow for Skype (points if you get the reference ;)).

A few weeks ago Ella arrived in London and we headed down to Brighton for Vegfest. We couchsurfed with a lady we found through couchsurfing.com. I really wanna get more into that site, it's a great way to meet people who have a similiar 'FUCK YEAH, LETS EXPERIENCE THE WORLD' mentality. Vegfest was great, I ate lots of food. Brighton is beautiful, I loved it. The kind of place I instantly feel an affinity with.

Still struggling with motivation in regards to uni, but my project is still chugging along - I just don't go into uni unless I need to use the print studio, or perhaps see a lecture. My uni is on Easter break right now and won't go back til 16th April, and then from that point it's about two weeks till my assessment. I'm gonna be honest, I've been down-right lazy on this trip so I definitely need to get my butt into gear in time for assessment. I can do it though, just print, print, print. Create, create, create.

Ella's back in London now too after a few weeks away in Scotland and the last few days have been awesome. Spring is here, I'm LOVING the sunshine. England does springtime well, even if it does get super chilly in the evenings and then you're stuck in a dress with nothing but a light jacket to protect you from the cold. Going out, meeting new people and enjoying the company of strangers has been an enriching experience. I was thinking to myself last night that social interactions don't need longevity to be enriching - I can have open, honest, friendly and interesting conversations with people I've just met, and just because I don't know them well doesn't mean the interaction means any less, or lacks any sincerity. I haven't really made any long-term friends on this trip, which I was kind of dissapointed by but now I'm thinking that I've gotten lots of little awesome moments instead. It's like... a lot of my time here has not turned out like I expected... and I've gotten lots of fulfilling moments, just not in the way I thought.

I lost my phone at a Couchsurfing event last Saturday, which I was really upset about at the time but now I'm ok with it. I left a message on the site asking if anyone picked it up and I'll admit I'm hopeful someone will contact me about it, but that also could just be me being nieve. If it doesn't show up, oh well. I was joking with Ella that since I lost my phone, but had a really awesome weekend anyway, it's like I just traded with the universe, haha!

 Last week I went to Hyde Park by myself and this monument/statue was in the park opposite. If I remember correctly it's the NZ War Mamorial. Very beautiful.

The, uh... *cough* Award Winning Brighton Beach.

I'm heading to Paris on Tuesday night, so I'm think my new blogging goal might not get off to a great start, but we'll see. I'll definitely make a re-cap post when I get back.

Much love to my friends and family back in Perth-town, I'm starting to look forward to getting back.

-Cathryn.

Work In Progress Wednesday!

I'm going to admit straight away that I'm a little nervous about posting my work for you all to see. I know not everyone will like it or 'get it', but that's okay - that't not what I'm worried about. I am nervous because this post is important in that it directly pertains to what has brought me here: art. I'm here in London to study art and make art. A lot of money, time and loneliness (not just my loneliness, also the loneliness of those I left back home) has gone into this endeavour, so the end product should be able to justify that. If it seems I'm just flopping around with a spatula of ink in one hand and some masking tape in the other, then what's the point of all this? I feel like the work I produce needs to say 'hey, I'm worth all this!'. That said, I personally feel that the project I'm working on now is a strong body of work that resonates with me on an aesthetic and intellectual level. I'm excited by it now, and where it will go over the rest of the year. I think it's worth it.

Late last year I was writing an essay for my Modernism class when I found a quote in a journal article by Emily Hage. The article was titled: "The Magazine as Strategy". This is the quote:

"The words in Picabia's mechanmorphic sketch further blur conventional divisions between text and images and the perpendicular printing adds to the disjunctive nature of the page."

The text in bold is what struck me there: 'blur conventional divisions between text and image'. I thought '...how does one do that? I WANT TO DO THAT'. I started thinking about how I could print text in a way that would ask to the viewer to see it as an image, as well as (or maybe instead of) text to be read.  From my visual diary: "I want to explore how recognisable letters/text can incorporated [not the right word] into an image in a seamless fashion - the text becomes the image. < This last sentence is the starting point for a larger, more specific and articulate artist statement that I plan to have developed by the time I get back to Perth and start second semester in June (aka: my final semester for this degree, oh my!). 

One of the first issues I thought about was readability. Did I want viewers to look at my word images and read the letters and understand them as words and sentences... or should it just be gibberish - a random collection of letters? 

skftjfxcnhmlikbmhaaaa

vs.

I just got maple syrup in my hair. [fun fact: I actually just did]

On one hand, if it was gibberish it would challenge the notion that letters are to be 'read', and on the other if  the viewer wasn't able to understand what was written, then they would be quicker to disengage with the work - so maybe readable sentences would be best? I did a quick 'sketch' in my visual diary:

On the left is a random assortment of letters, written over the top of each other, and on the right is a sentence that I intended to be a little whimsical/nonsensical, done in the same layered fashion. I personally found when writing these out that the sentence came more easily. It allowed for a more repetitious flow, my hand got looser as it moved down the page and the writing began to take on a very pleasing fluidity.

I think it was after doing this exercise that I decided my project would have two 'slightly different by related' projects within it: one involving handwriting, the other printed type (which is where screen printing comes in, which is good because I like to think print media is my discipline of choice, with other practices revolving around it). Both bodies of work are related by common themes such as repetition, layering and monochromaticity (hey, I like black, what can I say?).

Now I'm moving on and experimenting simultaneously with sentences that don't really make sense (I'm doing this by piecing together sentence fragments from exhibition catalogues I collect when going around town) and sentences that I've made up myself that have a more personal meaning. Here's what I did today in the print workshop:

 

This one isn't actually supposed to BE sideways - for some reason my picture folder and Blogger won't communicate and realise I've rotated and saved it multiple times - but perhaps I should consider it a useful glitch and start considering which way my word/images will be read.

 

This is an underneath shot of the stencil while it was on the screen, midway through printing. As I printed, moved the paper and reprinted, the surface around the stencil gets covered in ink, which results in repeated 'ghost prints' as I continue the process. It's a deliberately messy technigue that I really like and will continue to do within this project. Also, it was really, really nice to be back in a print room, getting my hands messy and feeling productive.

 Stencil making. This was definitely the most time consuming part. I spent 2 hours cutting out the stencils, then less than an hour actually printing them.

Eventually I would like to combine the handwritten and printed images, by writing over prints. I also intend to play around with formatting a bit more. At the moment font isn't of a huge concern to me, but that maye change.

Artists I've noted and find inspirational for this project so far: Aida Tomescu (whose work I love and admire, regardless of it's relevance to any project I work on), Cy Twombly (in particular, his blackboard drawings), and David Shrigley (I went to his exhibition at the Hayward Gallery, which really got me thinking about my use of words). There are many, many other notable artists who work with this sort of subject matter but for now this is my top three.

Thanks for reading this everyone :)

Misc.

I love London. Having been back in town since my brief trip home I've realised how much I'm going to miss this city once I leave for good. I've been rejuvenated by my trip back to Perth, so these past two weeks have been busy, in comparison to how I was spending my time here before. I'm going out almost everyday, either to uni to work in my studio or out to the city to see galleries or seek out delicious food.

It's taking me foreeeeeever to write this post because it's not really about one thing in particular, just an update of what's been going since I got back. Apologies in advance for disjointedness and topic jumping.

A while ago I made a post about trying to make some friends with fellow art students. You know what? It worked! (Kinda). Last Tuesday I joined two people from uni in visiting Yayoi Kusamas' small exhibition at a place near Old Street station. I loveloveloved the sculptures, but was not too keen on the paintings. We then went next door to a gallery called Parasol Unit which had an exhibition based on the notion of 'line', which I really liked. Meaning: I walked around most of the lower floor with an open mouthed-smile on my face, I liked it so much. I'm heading back there... at the end of the month, I think, for an artist talk about the use of scientific methods within an arts practice (or something like that). Exciting! So, socialising: check! Art: check! Good!

I'm starting to get into my art project for uni a bit more. I've changed my personal tutor to someone within print media, and he's a guy who's around a lot more and knows how to respond to an email, so I'm looking forward to having a more active mentor. I'm getting used to just going ahead and doing things on my own, but I feel it's really important, as an artist, to have others that you can discuss ideas and methods with. Art is expression, and art is a process, so I think you need like-minded people around you to give you feedback. Like yelling into a canyon just to see how your own voice sounds. I'm planning on making a 'Work in Progress Wednesday' post for this coming Wednesday detailing my project so far, which will (hopefully) contain an artist statement of sorts, as well as pictures.

Different topic now: I've also started seriously planning (as in, I'm starting to book things, finally!) my Eurotrip for after I'm done studying in London. As much as I'm not ready to leave London yet, I'm also excited to be getting out onto mainland Europe and seeing places I've always wanted to see. Behold my beautifully crafted itinerary map, thanks to google maps and Paint: 

My plan is to have a quick jaunt up to Scotland (Edinburgh and Glasgow, specifically) once I'm done with uni, then come back to London briefly to say goodbye and move out of my place, and then ONWARD TO GERMANY. I've visiting Hamburg, Bremen (just for a night, to see a concert) and then Berlin. I'm super excited for Berlin, everyone who's been there loves it. I then head south to Prague and Vienna before heading back into Germany for some time in Munich. After that I'm going to Verona in northern Italy, across to Milan and then down to my final European stop: Rome. I stay there for a week before flying to Singapore to meet up with my mum and my sister for some good old fashioned family reunion time (aka: mum hugging me for 72 hours straight, while Jane barters with shop owners).

I'm looking forward to the next few months, for many reasons, but I'll leave you with this one: it's springtime!