Enlightening Tutorial!

One on one tutorial was so helpful! I really missed critique and discussions, finally they have arrived! By the end of the 1 hour 40 minute tutorial i was so full of ideas i loved it! I left with the feeling of completeness, everything seemed to fall in perfectly in place! I was itching to make some work, i didn't feel so happy  for a while now! This feeling didn't leave me for the rest of the day. 

Me and Rory (my tutor) explored my practice, analyzing the work i have made and the work i am drawn to as well as the interests i have. For a couple of weeks now i was trying to figure something out about my practice. Any work that i have produced had a hidden theme that i couldn't figure out, but by the end of the tutorial and me talking about my interests and ideas, Rory repeated my own words to me made me realize what was the common theme of my work. Something the way he said things and what he chose to say back to me just clicked with my work! An eye opener! 

We have realized that in my work i try to escape time in some way, whether it be the process of making the work or the repetition of something that allows me to lose the sense of time. I don't like ends and beginnings which is very interesting as i can explore this further to find out how i can make work with that. Not everyday i experience such happiness and completeness and not everyday i find something new about myself. However now i ask myself why i try to escape time. Do i want it to slow down? Or do i have memories that i want to escape through art and the process of making work? This i still need to figure out!

Overall, i loved it! My first tutorial went better than expected and i really lost the sense of time while in it ahha! Haven't talked in such detail of my practice for a while and it was like a breath of fresh air, receiving another persons point of view about your work and you as a person. 

All i can say is that i have an amazing tutor! Thanks Rory!

~Ev

When i'm trusting and being myself as fully as possible, everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily, often miraculously ~Shakti Gawain

Listen

Listen project i absolutely loved! I can see it developing into many directions! Play around with it and make it fun! Listen project is so open as you can do anything in it, there's a lot you can explore, the subject the medium the process!

At the start of the project i was interested what is Listen about, not knowing made me very interested and i couldn't stop thinking about what i can make. It sounded different from any other project planned. I had many ideas by the time the project started!

I wanted to go big scale and working with movement and sound. Moving to the sound of something meditative, to get lost in that sound and express it through drawing/ hand movements on paper. I made three such pieces of work where i listened to yoga music for 3 minutes. I loved the state of mind i was in while reacting to music, it was so calm and relaxing, i could feel myself disappearing in music chosen. I filmed myself while making one of such pieces and edited later to include sound on top. I blindfolded myself in order to enhance my hearing and not get distracted by any visual information which can affect my hand movements. This was fun and i loved that i could not see what i was doing and how the piece looked until the very end. Its like a mini surprise!

When it was my time to present my project i wrongly shown a wrong video of me producing work but without the sound of the music i listened to while making it. Instead i showed the raw futtage, where i had a friend telling me when to change the colour of the oil pastel which was amusing because he said "change" in Russian and it sounded quite demanding as well! It was fun! Everybody loved that part! so i had to act like i wasn't embarrassed! I think it was one of them times where a mistake actually helped me to understand my work in a different way. Look at it from a different angle. After discussions i realized that the idea of my work didn't come through, i was controlled when making work by the voice, when i wanted to show how a person can get lost in music and the movements he produces through it. However this made me think about how i can improve my work, how i can minimize control or use it to my benefit and move my project in a different direction. 

Originally i wanted to show how a person can get lost in time though yoga music which is relaxing and meditative in nature as well as the movements. Now i realize that 3 minutes isn't enough to go into the state that i wanted to get to. Maybe next time i will do this for an hour or more to allow myself drown in music and forget anything else that might be on my mind. Also i see this work developing into a performance! Which sounds very exciting! A0 paper size or bigger which would not restrict me in bigger movements, where i can place the paper on the floor and allow my full body to respond to music. Allowing my work to expand and grow with layers. 

Another way i see this project moving is where i respond to music but i am controlled in some way. Either by another person in the way that he controls my actions or he does something that brings me to the present moment and distracts me from the state that i am in while listening and responding to music. Maybe i can also see how i can restrict myself in what i am drawing and see how music affects my movement depending on the type of music. Draw a grid while listening to music. Depending on music my lines will change. 

Listen Project was fun with some surprises! :D

Video of one of the pieces being made and the music chosen

~Ev

Print

So after two weeks of crazy and chaotic and at the same time fun and exciting Show project, we have moved to Print. 

At the start of the first week I was looking forward to Print as we were doing screen printing which i haven't done before. It was something new to try out!  I was interested in the process of screen printing as well as its possibilities and limitations. I was ready to learn something new! Get messy with the paints!

Our topic was about mythological creatures which i found to be the most interesting part of the project itself if i think back on it. After researching on the mythological creature chosen, i got more and more interested in the topic rather than the screen printing process. I chose the dragon creature as my focus. The description of the mythological creature was as follows: The peridexion tree grows in India. Doves gather in the tree because they like the sweet fruit, and because there they are safe from the dragon. The dragon hates the doves and would harm them if it could, but it fears the shadow of the peridexion tree and stays on the unshaded side of it. The doves that stay in the shadow are safe, but any who leave it are caught and eaten by the dragon. 

The moral/allegory of the story is that the doves are the faithful Christians, who are safe from the devil as long as they remain in the church. Christ is the right side of the tree, the holy spirit the left side. The devil is afraid of the church and will not come near, but the Christian who leaves the church should beware. Something about the moral behind it that made me choose this creature. Maybe because i am struggling to believe in God? hmm...

Anyway, the first lesson of screen printing i found to be interesting as we were shown the process and how we can manipulate the print to make it more interesting, adding more visual effects, working with color and composition.  I was interested in the process of making a print as it seemed to be very long and mechanical with certain rules to follow. It was interesting as you could build on a print and each one would be different depending on the layers on the other prints and its color. After such demonstrations of the possibilities of screen printing i was itching to start. I started to think of different surfaces the prints could be made on, such as glass, mirrors and uneven surfaces. I wanted to experiment!

A week later and with my stencil already made of my own interpretation of the dragon creature, we were back in print workshop to finally start making some prints of our own! We were split into groups and were given random prints from different people to work with, but after some time of taking turn of making prints it started to get very boring and repetitive. I started to lose interest. Maybe it wasn't challenging me enough like the previous two weeks or maybe the atmosphere wasn't right, too calm? Maybe that says a lot about my interests and the way i work. Maybe i like particular atmosphere when at work which challenges me. Whether it be through scale of work or working to deadline, there's something appealing in that and makes me feel alive. 

I love repetition but in screen printing the kind of repetition it has is not the one that excites me. Screen printing process for me is very mechanical, a bit robotic, it involves equipment and and a stencil. I like the sort of repetition were you make it with your hands.The repetition that you make with your hands such as drawing a pattern on paper allows human error to occur and so the pattern will have some differences every time. I consider this to be the best part.

Although after a while i started to lose interest in screen printing as a process i am still glad that we had an opportunity to try it, and at least now i know how i feel about it. I am not going to rule out screen printing completely but at the moment i don't see myself using it, however that may change over time. We made our prints on paper so next time i will experiment on different surfaces e.g. wood panels and see if i am still interested in this process of art making.

Some of the prints that were made.

Layers of different prints.

~Ev

Show

Making a show in the first weeks of university was a great experience and opportunity! We jumped right into it! 

Working as a group with people you just met wasn't easy and we had a hard task at hand, which required us to show other groups work. Everybody was a bit unsure of what to do at the start, as having to show work first as a group was quite frightening and we didn't know our limits - what we were allowed to do and what we didn't. But for me that was exciting! Not knowing anybody who is making work for us to show allowed our imagination to flow and expand, as we didn't have any personal connection with the artists. This allowed our show to be fun and a bit disconnected with the work produced and people who made it.

We didn't know each other in our group so it made it harder to communicate as everybody seemed a bit shy and maybe uncomfortable. However we managed really well to overcome this in short space of time - 2 weeks -  to make a show. In two weeks we had to work together as a team but at the same time bonding in the process, finding more about each other and what is everybody interested in. We were all ambitious in our ideas and everybody seemed to enjoy the project. 

The worry and chaos on the last day 4 hours before the show was unbelievable. Everybody was alive and the energy in the room was amazing. We as a group desperately tried to make it work, putting the show together, however the last minute decision that we have made changed everything for the better.  It was very sudden. This makes me think that pressure of time running out as well as the atmosphere in the room with all the groups worry allowed us to make a decision fast which felt right - we were trusting our gut feeling, not like the previous ideas that we had. We ended up putting everybody's work on a CD and attaching balloons to it, which isn't much but that decision was the best we have made. It felt right and that's very important. We planned to set of the balloons from a balcony about 15 minutes into the show. Of course something went wrong (technical problems as usual) and we ended up doing that 20 minutes later than planned. It was intense and our group was panicking! But we managed to pull it through. After the show i was talking to people who came to see it and they loved it! Some of them. One person told me that they loved the anticipation of it all. The waiting of what is going to happen next. All they saw when entering into the studio were blank walls and floor with work nowhere to be seen. It was interesting to observe peoples reactions when they came - some looked disappointed, some intrigued and some confused. When the balloons were set off we all shared a moment of watching it go which was special.

As a group we wanted to make an unusual show and we in my opinion have succeeded as people after the setting off of the balloons were cheering and congratulating us on good work. It wasn't a typical show to make and it was very fun to make too! Although it sounds like we haven't done much work, the decisions and try outs that we have made before hand led to this big decision at the end. Without the time and effort put in and the group work we did we would not have come up with this sudden decision which made our show work.

~Ev