Private Views and Weeding

Over the weekend I didn't do a lot in terms of artwork, it mostly consisted of laying in the sun, reading and listening to podcasts, which was easy and calm. I'm particularly enjoying Freakonomics at the moment, which is a podcast centred around answering very obscure questions that the average person never really asks, for example, why do all drug dealers live with their mum? I have also started reading The First Fifteen Lives Of Harry August, which I'm a little unsure about, as I've only read a few chapters. So I'm still at that point where I'm working out what the book is all about.

On Monday I thought a little about the concept of the new shapes that I want to start creating. I also made a few maquette's of the triangular pieces, and discovered that any shape that has more than four sides doesn't really work. So I decided that I'm only going to make and experiment with creating three and four sided sculptures. I began to work out what this would mean in terms of the concept, but I'm not fully there yet.

Yesterday I went to Butley to work for Laurence. In the morning I shovelled and crushed lots of grog. I then proceeded to clean up some of the studio spaces, which involves taking all the rubbish to the skip and sweeping up the floors. This was okay, but not as interesting as actual work where I'm contributing to the making of art.

In the afternoon I helped mix plaster and grog to invest a complicated wax sculpture that's going to be cast in bronze. I also helped Matthew work out some things with his email and website, as well as registering some new tools for their manufacturer warranties. Towards the end of the day I painted some moulds with wax to make future bronze pieces. Unfortunately I had to leave early, so that reduced the amount of work that I was able to take part in during the day.

In the evening I went to NUA in Norwich for the private view of all the students work. I only went to Fine Art and Textiles, as all the other elements don't really interest me, as I've already mentioned in my previous post about going to some shows in London.

The Fine Art was okay, but wasn't that great compared to Chelsea and all the work that I saw on Friday. Some of the sculptural work was interesting though, there were some aesthetically intriguing pieces, one that involved a sink inside a mattress, and another that contained suits being bathed in glass boxes full of water. I don't feel that I really connected with any of the work in particular though, which was a shame, as I feel that that's quite important.

The majority of the textiles work was simply clothing patterns, which is always boring to me. However one student (Abigail Lane) had used complex origami techniques to create a range of obscure sculptures, where you could literally take apart the work by pulling out the individual A4 pieces of paper that made up the work. The concept was fun, but the execution was a little uninteresting.

Today I had a job in Glemham that entailed weeding the underside of hundreds of solar panels. I started at eight in the morning and finished at around three. The whole process was incredibly painful, but it was fun to be outside for so long on such a hot day. 

Tomorrow I'm going to be working at Butley again, and maybe pouring some bronze, which will be exciting. Hopefully I'll also have time for my own work, as that has slowed down in the last few weeks, something which I should definitely rectify.

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