London Shows and Reflecting

On Wednesday I went to Butley again to work for Laurence, which was enjoyable as I was taught a new skill, how to invest. I began the day by shovelling grog, which is always hard work and strenuous.

After this I opened up the wax sculpture that I had poured the previous day into a wooden mould. This had worked really well, which confirmed for me once again that using wood is much better than using cardboard. I do hope to make more of these, and begin to explore new avenues to go down with this project.

I was then taught how to invest wax sculptures. This is a process that involves covering a (usually) wax sculpture with two layers of materials, the first layer being sand and plaster mixed into a paste, and the second layer being grog and plaster mixed into a paste. This is something that is easy to learn, but hard to master, so hopefully in the next few months I will have many more opportunities to improve my technique.

An exciting aspect of this was the fact that I was investing a couple of my own wax sculptures, to be cast in bronze in about a weeks' time. This will be the first time I've ever had anything cast in bronze, apart from having a tiny chalice made when I was around eight or nine. The interesting thing about bronze is that, like wax, it shrinks a little when it cools after it's been poured. So the dip in the work will be a natural occurrence, rather than a manufactured one that is being created when I make the work using a two part mould. This will probably be something that I want to do more of.

After investing the sculptures I was left to my own devices, so I created another small scale wax piece. As well as this I thought a little bit more about the concept of the work, considering whether or not I should start to experiment with different shapes other than a square. This made me think about what the different shapes could mean, building on the idea of having a solid wall around your inner self. I will have to think about this further, before embarking on making the new sculptures, or even during the making process,

At the end of the day I helped to load all sixteen of the concrete heads that I helped to create into a van, which will be displayed in Cley as part of an open exhibition that's being held there.

On Thursday I didn't do much, which is a shame, as I still have to upload some old work to my main website. I did go on a lovely walk though, which was incredibly refreshing after two days of working.

Today though, I went to London to see some of the end of year shows. I began by going to Chelsea, looking at their Fine Art and Textiles work. Over the years of going I feel that I've slowly begun to neglect the other pathways, culminating in not even stepping into any of the other rooms this year, which was a shame. I enjoyed a few pieces of work, one that was especially interesting involved the artist betting on himself winning the Turner prize and other accolades by particular dates in the future. It was also invigorating to see simple bronze work being displayed, and thinking to myself that I have the skills to create this, even though I might not necessarily want to.

I then briefly went into the Tate Britain to see the Christina Mackie commission. I felt that it was okay, if a little boring.

After that I went to the Royal College of Art to see the Sculpture and Painting. I also went into a few others like Architecture and Jewellery, but these are less interesting to me. The majority of the sculptural work was awesome, as it almost always is. A few pieces that were particularly enticing involved a huge copper cube and a makeshift wave machine. I did like some of the painting, but as it's not my favourite medium I tend to not engage with the work as much as I should. However I did enjoy a piece that was made up of basic colours and shapes, as well as being handed a card by a uniformed woman stamped with today's date and the word psychotic after leaving one of the rooms.

After reflecting on the day I feel that, in comparison to last year, a lot of the work seems be focused on assemblages of sculptures, putting random objects together to create something that looks aesthetically pleasing but doesn't really have any noteworthy content. Or maybe I'm just not seeing the ideas that the artist was trying to communicate to his/her audience.

It will be interesting to see whether today will have any impact on the work that I'm currently creating. I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens in the next few days and weeks.

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