Unit Two Assessment
Since my Study Statement in Unit One I feel my practice and research have continued exploring similar themes of place, belonging and loss but have expanded and simultaneously become more focussed. Some of my explorations are going well, some failed and have been abandoned and some are in progress with further exploration necessary. Whilst the latter comprises the larger part of my process currently, I feel my central aim of Unit One (indeed motivation for doing this MA) to be more discerning is going very well, as connections are forming. Integrating my learning into a cohesive practice is still very much in progress but I have started to make some headway.
Learning Outcome 1:
Develop and realise a self-directed programme of learning which draws from wide-ranging subject knowledge. (AC Knowledge, AC Process)
I continue to draw and research drawing avidly. My Drawing Journal is a continuous visual journal of mark making and drawings since I began the MA. I feel that my goal of understanding comes through honest practice of drawing where I practice who and where I am daily. I continue to take drawing classes online with CSM, with Victoria Jinivizian, the Royal Drawing School and NEAC locally.
More recently, my drawings are working mostly as Sketchbooks and works on paper, Compost Drawings (and here and here as well as ideas brain storming here) and Ground Drawings, which are pushing the boundaries of drawing in my practice. I am hoping to develop the latter into books and/or installation pieces as discussed in Unit One blog posts here and here, but this is still ongoing, as I haven’t really fully explored the materials and drawings to the full yet. I am continuing to research Indexical Drawings with a playful approach here and I am exploring embossed drawings and how to use light behind the holes such as the drawing I made for GROTTO here.
Feedback from Unit One included a question around materiality and I feel I have taken a deep dive into creating materials such as ink and charcoal directly sourced from my compost heap. Most successfully I have been making compost humus ink as a drawing medium here, here and here. I have also challenged the idea of paper as both material and medium through liquid paper casting experiments here, here, here and here. I feel these pieces are on a knife-edge of having potential for Unit Three or risk being abandoned completely as simply a step towards understanding.
Further feedback from Unit One challenged ideas of drawing lines in the landscape, which I have internalised here and here and I am making progress in terms of seeing the Earth beyond the human perspective of ‘landscape’, regarding my surroundings more as complex networks, such as compost heaps or fungal colonies here, here, here, here and here. I am more recently experimenting with above and below ground concepts of the Earth here and regarding them as Boneyards here, here, here here and here.
I was excited about the prospect of drawing and Books early in the MA but I have not progressed as much as I would like since blogging about Booking Making here, here and here. I have recently made a small book here from my bleach and indigo drawings as a first attempt but I would like to expand my understanding of what a book is and make further attempts in Unit Three. Inspired by the clay making session here I booked into this course here but haven’t had time to finish it and I hope to complete it over the Christmas break. I imagine some work in paper clay that bring together ideas of the compost heap into 3D fungal networks.
Painting continues, as I have to paint to feel well and I have had previous obligations to galleries to fulfil. I showed 8 paintings at a show Ode to Light with a gallery in London and I am creating a new series of larger paintings for a show in Salisbury in March. I work constantly on paper at home and in the studio exploring visual thinking in sketchbooks as seen here. I feel drawing, painting and other avenues are uniting gradually and I have updated my Artist Statement and reflected on painting here, here, here and here as I slowly move towards a united art making practice discussed in my last tutorial with Jonathan in May and here where I feel ideas are coming together. I can see broader learning creeping in but the horizon dominant, tighter landscapes are no longer of interest in the same way and this post here shows some paintings on paper that explore colour in new ways for me as well as my ongoing Drawing Journal, which I use to inform how I approach paintings as I work towards a less delineated perspective of the ground I walk on.
Learning Outcome 2:
Articulate a thorough understanding of your research and establish an informed critical position. (AC Communication)
My Research Paper, titled ‘Drawing Kin: can drawing be seen as a gesture of empathy and kin-making in the face of ecological grief with specific reference to the Breathe drawings by Dryden Goodwin’? and may be found here. I interviewed Professor Goodwin here and visited the ‘Our Earth’ exhibition here, which formed the primary source basis for the RP as well as much general research on the artist here. Feedback from Alexis here and here was invaluable and provided opportunities for expanding my research question.
Having reflected on some of the learning in the RP here I see the paper as developing both a critical academic position but also informing the direction of my work as I use the RP to inspire drawings into animation for example. The context of ecological grief has helped unite the gap between personal and collective grief in my work and I feel through the extensive background reading for the RP I have a much more critical awareness of both ecological grief and the role of art as political witness. I am also more aware of artists working with ecological grief as a subject for their work such as here.
I have endeavoured to nurture an informed, critical position on a wider range of themes such as in this post that discusses Fungi and the interconnectivity of fungal networks, underpinned particularly by The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna Tsing among others. This research into fungi is essential to my understanding of the Compost Heap as a metaphor for ecological chaos here, here and here. Much reading of Donna Haraway here and here has helped me to understanding composting as a metaphor for wider, ecological issues and researching light pollution, moths and glow worms as bioindicator species is giving me new avenues for understanding mechanisms of decay and renewal in the compost heap.
Learning Outcome 3:
Analyse and critically reflect on your practice and its context. (AC Enquiry)
I have tried to stick closely to my Work Plan for creative work and reading as much as possible and keep a weekly blog, which I find more helpful than saving up ideas and writing a lot in one go. I also create regular updates on where I am such as an approximate Year 2 outline here and regular updates on progress here, here, here and here, as well as trying to piece together earlier thinking with current thinking here. The 3 minute video has required a lot of introspection and returning to older blog posts to create a narrative of my learning. I have also updated my Artist Statement to more closely reflect newer thinking, although I feel it will need much more work by the end of the MA. Alexis’s lecture on inductive leaps was enormously helpful for both the RP and my creative processes here.
Along with three other course mates we have formed the Dead Critics Society, which is a supportive space on Zoom every Thursday morning for crits, collaborative ideas and critical discussion of art such as here and here. I have learnt a huge amount about the context of my work from these artists who offer interesting and varied ideas, references and attitudes to art entirely different to my own as well as feedback on crits such as here.
I listened and made connections at the Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Symposium titled I Draw a Line from Me to You and I followed up with several of the speakers after the talks. I have also been pushing my knowledge and understanding of what drawing is looking at Seurat as well as lots of research Totes Phenom and What is Drawing, which are little more than information storage pages but have helped to piece together an understanding of what drawing is for me. Interviewing Professor Dryden Goodwin here for my Research Paper facilitated extensive discussions and research around not just my own question but the context of drawing and empathy in the face of generationally urgent climate issues.
I continue to run a free drawing club with just over 900 members where we draw together, critically discuss drawing and share our work on Zoom and instagram and I write a monthly newsletter on the subject of drawing. I also run a monthly Zoom drawing session with lessons, demonstrations and drawing exercises and I am looking to expand drawing in the community after the MA, which I blogged about here. I have also gathered resources for contacts after graduation here.
I have also researched other artists here and here involved in paper making and casting for inspiration and context.
I investigate artists that interest me here here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here to keep in mind context and methodologies for how my painting practice might be reborn.
Overall I feel I have moved on and greatly benefited from the any- and everything perspective of Unit One in my quest to become more discerning. I feel I have been open minded in my approach and I am starting to make inroads into work that interests me. I still feel my practice is splintered in too many different directions, but I don’t feel overly worried as evolving my practice into a more mature and critical position will be the job of Unit Three and beyond the MA. For now I feel I am sort of where I should be: learning, open minded and with lots of newly acquired knowledge, which I am now sifting through and making clearer decisions for the final stages of this course.