Call

Accompanying text for September call to Kat. Kat, if you have not completed your piece read no further!

Call and Response is a project myself and Katherine Johnson are doing together as collaborative partners. I live in the West Midlands. Katherine lives in Lancashire. Call and response is our solution to bridge the physical gap between two collaborative working partners: One of us sets a brief, the other one answers it. The piece not being complete without the stimulus or the product. The interesting thing is that we will each have very different ideas on how the piece will turn out as we both have different thought patterns.

The most recent call I have sent Kat is a picture of myself, no instructions alongside apart from to visit this blog when she has completed the piece. I wanted to document my thoughts on it so there would be something to compare after the piece was created.

Kat,
This is a picture of myself that is really rather horrible. Everything about it from the double chin to the glasses, it is really unflattering. However, it struck me when I came across it that I had never thrown it away. Every time I see it I cringe. But I haven't destroyed it, neither have I shown it to anyone. I got to thinking and felt immensely glad that there were no social networking sites around when I was a teenager! Especially as I was a bit of an oddball! I can't imagine having that sort of pressure when I was younger when and being judged by how many friends you have, what you look like and how witty your status updates are. Via these sites we can edit how we are perceived, I have been known to de-tag the odd horrific picture so why had I not thrown the photo away? Is it that there is something special about the printed photograph and that by destroying it it would destroy a memory? Or are we so flooded with photos today because of the ease of digital equipment and media that the loss of one or two is not important?

In any case this photo I have not shown to anyone I have shown to you and anyone else that will come across it as part of this project. I look forward to your response.

It might be okay...

Hmm maybe there is something salvageable from the bees. I think it looks okay lit up, not as pristine as I wanted but certainly not as bad as I thought it was going to be! Particularly by layer 4 where it was smoking and smelling like hell! The crack is still noticeable but still sort of alludes to the trapped in amber/honey thing I wanted. Just to let you know, I didn't kill these bees, they were collected from an abandoned nest at work. Sad, but I think by preserving them in the resin it hints at the problem of colony collapse disorder, consumerism and cause and effect. Just wanted to show you the process involved, so each layer of bees had to be trapped in a separate layer of resin. Also, look how different the unhardened resin is (in the coke bottle almost green) to the one in the jar!!! How hard to guess the finished colour! I am now wondering whether to make a light box/plinth for it to be displayed on. From afar it looks good! All is not lost, I think the fumes had managed to kill my enthusiasm for this project. We will leave the resin work for now. Back to work this week, no more weeks free of responsibility to do lots of art!

Epic Bee Fail

Oh dear oh dear. I have spent the day trying to do my bees. And I have a headache from all the fumes, it looked like it was going so well and then it went all wrong. I'm wondering whether I can salvage it and make it look ok using lighting and stuff but I have a feeling it wont work. You can see the layers where I have poured the resin and also there is a massive crack in the top. Obviously where it got too hot, ah well. Have enough bees to have a second go if I wanted but I think I'll leave it for now. Sad day in the art world today.

Writer's block

For Kat. writing paper and ink-less biro


And a shout out for Hayley!

Nyyyyaaaaahhh! X

Call and Response

For Kat.

The four eng-
ineers
Wore orange
brassieres.

Willard Espy.

bees

Here are some bees. Bee-fore I potentially destroy them in resin.

Poly printing

A little bit of poly printing of iconic British stuffs. I really like the effect it gives, and the process is quite nice and repetitive. What next? Hmm...