Week 7 to 20/12/2011

This is the final week of this brief so I have been working on my final pieces of work. I have made framed pieces to hang on the wall. The site I have chosen is the long corridor which houses the art rooms and the beauty therapy departments as shown in earlier photos from my site visit. The corridor is long and bare and at the moment very clinical.
My reasons for choosing this position are that the work links both departments as does the corridor. The pieces are made by the creative industries departments and are inspired by the beauty therapy department.

The pieces as I have said were inspired by the beauty department and there are five pieces in the set. I have been working with embossing and these two pieces are made from embossing onto somerset paper. The pieces mimic two movements made in a facial massage. The embossing process was also relevant to the work because as the massage procedure emulates movement and pressure so the pieces were made by pressure of the plate onto the paper. I have also included a lino print, again made by pressure and in the style of a massage movement, but in black to add contrast to the embossed pieces. 

Movement made when massage the ear.

Facial massage spiral on the cheek

Spiral on cheek finishing pressure points

The next two pieces are inspired by the hots stones therapy. The first made from and embossing plate again using pressure and the second from hot glass.

This final piece was made by fusing and slumping 1mm glass stringers over a spiral of ceramic fibre string. This fusing of fine stringers is a process I have used before and have enjoyed experimenting with it again. I like the fragility of the glass in the final piece. I enjoy working with glass but I am sometimes disappointed with the finish. It can be too thick and unrefined when working in a small scale. This technique give me the delicacy I am looking for.

I have also been working with another piece which is inspired by the traditional Alloa industries of glass making and weaving.  

I have been investigating craft and tradition in some depth and the dictionary definitions of the word tradition are: 

A long established action of pattern of behaviour in a community or group of people that has been handed down from generation to generation.

A body of long-established customs and beliefs viewed as a set of precedents. 

The handing down of patterns of behaviour, practises and beliefs that are valued by culture.

Tradition relates to social custom it is cultural and passed down often by word of mouth. Glass and weaving are traditional craft materials and the skills of making are passed down in the same way and it is also inherently cultural.

I have also been reading the work of T S Elliot's Tradition and the Individual Talent. This essay has been extremely beneficial to me in my creative thinking for this brief. I wanted to make something which touched on the tradition of the town but not merely to imitate the past. As Elliot says "if the only form of tradition consisted in following the ways of the immediate generation before us in a blind or timid adherence to its success, Tradition should be positively discouraged."  This is how I feel about contemporary craft   practice, valuing and acknowledging the past but being current and aware of our palace in time. Again to quote Elliot, "knowledge of history, the temporal and the timeless makes the artist most acutely conscious of his place in time, of his contemporaneity.   

With this in mind I have developed a piece which is inspired by Alloa's traditional industries, using traditional craft materials but in a new process of weaving with glass. The glass and the weaving touching on the past or the temporal  and the work, both this piece and my beauty therapy pieces, reflect the new industries i.e.  the creative industries and the beauty industries which the college offers to meet the needs of both the community and modern employers. 

This piece I would site on the creative industries side of the corridor opposite the other pieces which I would site on the salon side of the corridor. 

week 5 & week 6 26/11/2011-08/12/2011

For the last two weeks i have been working on final pieces I still have two directions.
The first is the massage movements. I have made embossing plates and lino cuts of these movements and printed lino and embossed onto somerset paper.

embossing plates

I used this technique because a massage is about continuous movement, pressure points and pressure applied. the process of making these pieces is the continuous line and pressure applied to produce the line mirroring the massage procedure. the pieces would be framed and hung on the corridor in the Alloa campus between the art and the beauty department.

I have also been continuing to work with glass and weaving. this woven piece was fired in the kiln again to fuse it together. I am disappointed with the results as it looses some aesthetic appeal and delicate detail.

I have more pieces in the kiln and I intend to glue it together and miss out the second firing. 

I have also slumped some 1mm stringers and will also be working with these. They are very fragile and delicate and I think I may be able to produce a piece which is thread like. I will also glue these pieces.

Craft techniques and the hand made are an integral part of my practice and although I do not always use the materials of glass and weaving in the traditional sense I feel that the materials themselves and give meaning to the work and add value to the concept behind the piece.  

1mm glass stringers