Now I’m in August 2021. We had another workshop with the wonderful Estela Saez, and the brief was to make 20 sec video of a 3d model of our ‘solo exhibition’ in a specific colour. I got blue. No pieces of jewellery to be used.
I have never built anything before like this, and I struggled with even how to begin. We initially had quite a short timeframe to produce it and because I only ever use what is in front of me, the only blue things I could find in my studio, were a plastic dishwasher powder bottle, a box and masking tape. I cut up the bottle, and turned it into an exhibition. It did not translate particularly well but it did make me think about having a solo show – something I hadn’t considered before. I really didn’t know how to ‘walk through’ the exhibition with my phone without it making a noise. Estela called it futuristic. I liked the blue bottle in situ. I thought it would work well with the orange plastic I’m currently using. I put footsteps into the video so it felt like you were actually moving through it.
11 August 2021
I went to see, at Objectspace (as part of the Ockham Lecture Series): Finn McCahon-Jones: Slow Making. We were in Level one restrictions then and it was a moving and thought-provoking talk. I had seen Finn at a Pecha Kucha event several years earlier, and was enamoured with his meditative dedication to objects.
https://www.objectspace.org.nz/events/ockham-lecture-series-finn-mccahon-jones/
I’m not sure how this relates to my practice, although he is an advocate for slow making, and using what’s there. He becomes this maker by using another name, different from his real name. I can understand the need and like it when the academic becomes the human. Now he’s more accessible to me and speaking the language of the heart and soul. Making ‘Wharfware’ vessels out of rope – his work develops as a result of time spent…the labour and meditative dedication without planning.
The night before we went into Level 4 lockdown again, I went to ‘A Value Chain for Contemporary Jewellery’ online conference, using airmeet, I was able to be in a conference in Melbourne, and sit at a table with others (like Zoom). Very cool platform. It was a bit clunky because it was the first time, and the speakers were a little unsure about what they were doing. I’m looking over the notes I wrote, they’re messy and random so I have little I can comment on. I like that Roseanne Bartley called herself a ‘facilimaker’ and talked about the body as a ‘site’.
So many threads. I just discovered she was walking and collecting plastic in a project called SEEDING THE CLOUD: A WALKING WORK IN PROCESS 2010-
The thread of the thread of the thread…not a lot has changed…just a lot of noise.
https://www.roseannebartley.com/#/seedingthecloud/
18 August 2021
We had another Estela session with all of us to summarise our efforts. We’d just gone back into Level 4 lockdown. We discussed our ‘pass-it-on’ idea for a collaborative work. Our task was to make a video of ourselves, passing on a piece of our jewellery to our HS’s using a plain background, and upload it to Aphra for her to assemble. Challenging given that we are at home again, ALL THE TIME.
Thinking about the heat shrink I’d been using, I started wondering if bottles would work in the same way, capturing found, ugly, or full of memory, pieces. Hmmm…