Rain and Entertainment

For over a week now I've been slightly neglecting work, I'm going to blame my lack of motivation on the terrible weather, but it's probably because I grew accustomed to not working whilst I was on holiday and haven't been able to shake away the feelings that begin to grow inside you if you haven't put any effort into anything for a while.

However I have made a little progress within my artwork. I took part in a short workshop last week which helped to generate some new ideas within my project. This was helpful, but would have been better utilised if it had occurred about a month or so ago, rather than two weeks before I'm going to finish it. The idea that enticed me the most was centred upon creating the pyramid shape out of thin metal paper, and crushing the sides slightly, making indentations within the shape. Wax or plaster would then be poured into the mould. This would effectively destroy the ideas surrounding the straight and smooth body of the sculpture, as it would become jagged and random, but it would be interesting to experiment with. Before this project finishes I do want to try this out at least once, the work would have some interesting conceptual ideas behind it as well as being aesthetically intriguing.

Yesterday I went to Butley to check on my work as I hadn't been back there since I went to France. The wax that I poured before I went on holiday wasn't successful, as predicted. A few of my bronze pieces had been poured and were ready to be metal finished, which I will probably do at some point in the next few days. I'm really happy about how one of them looks, and it will probably become the main bronze piece of the project.

I also went to Snape Maltings to dismantle an installation that contained 42 bronze sculptures that were scattered around the area. These were the sculptures that were made by the school children who came to the studios a month or so ago. I was taking them down as a favour to Alice who's project it was. It was a relatively easy process and I only had to use a chisel once or twice for the pieces that were thoroughly glued down. The only problem was that I didn't know where they all were, as I hadn't helped to install them all, so I had to do a few laps of the area until I was satisfied that I had found them all, as they were hidden as part of the work.

This is a Snapchat that I took whilst disassembling the work:

In the past week I've also been working a little in Google Sketchup, creating some of the sculptures that I've been making using pure colours. This just helps to visualise what I want the actual pieces to look like.

As well as this I've been thinking a lot about the name of the piece and eventually decided on the title "Ageing Onwards". It attempts to capture the ideas within the project, surrounding moving forwards but being sucked back at the same time, but I'm not totally sure that it does that effectively enough, so I may change it in the next few days. I need to think about it further.

I also started to design the book that will wrap up this project. It will contain images alongside some text talking about the individual works, highlighting the main points of the project. I'm going to begin to document the best pieces of work over the next week.

Whilst it's been grey and cloudy outside I have been indulging in a lot of T.V and film. I watched the whole of The Newsroom, which was a very enjoyable series that gives you an interesting insight into a world that I haven't really seen before, apart from in the film Network. I also started watching 30 Rock, which is a hilarious show about a female writer and producer of a hit television show. On top of this I've been watching the new show, Fear The Walking Dead, which is actually not too bad for a spinoff, as they are usually not that good compared to the original.

I also watched a few films including The Falling, which I liked a lot, but it was much more ambiguous than I thought it would be. Slow West was another film that I saw which was pretty great, telling a tight and intriguing story in a compact 84 minutes.

It is quite unfortunate that I haven't used my time as well as I could have done, but that's something that can't be helped. I do however want to spend the next week and a bit fully concentrated on work and finalise all the parts of this project, writing my book and creating a few more sculptures. That is my goal.

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