Research - A Proposed Final Exhibition

I have had a meeting with the head of research and I have had an agreement that the college will help me fund a final exhibition that focuses on my long time involvement in drawing, both as a practice and as a pedagogy.

There will be several elements of this final exhibition.

The central focus will be of course a show of work and one fundamental issue in relation to this will be framing. Framing large drawings is problematic, and in order to build a lasting legacy I have decided to work with a framer who has had over 20 years experience and who understands the nature of the work.  We have already had a meeting and he has measured the drawings, the largest of which are 8 feet high. The first stage will be to make a model of the corner jointing system and backing supports, so that this can be used as a demonstration model for anyone wishing to pursue a similar undertaking in the future.   Each stage will be recorded and evidence of the process also posted to this blog. Andrew, the framer, was also a student on the first ever part-time access programme and he obtained his first job as a framer on finishing the access course, so it seems fitting that he is now part of the research and will help towards putting together the final legacy.  He is costing the materials this coming week and will also be bringing in equipment so that the framing can be done in the studio.

The whole process of putting the exhibition together, including making a gallery model, will also be used as a learning tool. 

The second element will be a publication that will be launched on the exhibition opening. This will be both an exhibition catalogue and pedagogic tool. Different approaches to drawing will be singled out and on the one hand directly linked to ways into understanding what lies behind my own drawings and on the other hand, the issues will be framed up as potential drawing starting points for students. This will be in a very old pedagogic tradition that includes Crispijn de Passe’s manual for artists, which has the wonderful motto on the title page, ‘Nulla dies sine linea’ (Never a day without a line). The catalogue will on the one hand be providing a commentary on the long history of drawing pedagogy and on the other providing drawing exercises for today’s generation of students as well as of course acting as an exhibition catalogue. 

I will also give a valedictory lecture, that will explore the narratives of drawing, both as an educational tool and as a philosophical statement. This will be an interweaving of clichés, experiential learning and artist statement.

Underlying all of these issues is a long standing commitment to the exploration of visual narrative and whilst the exhibition is on, I would hope to host a seminar on issues in contemporary visual narratives.

I have been given a date of January 2016 for the exhibition, so have a long lead in and hopefully plenty of time to get this together. Writing about drawing is something that I strongly believe is more akin to creative writing than something that is accessible to academic theory, and therefore I would hope to also be able to explore much more poetic approaches to the development of pedagogic languages associated with drawing within the art school curriculum.

Using a Blog as a learning aid

One thing I have been doing this summer is to put up some regular blog posts for Fine Art drawing students. This is another activity that might come to an end when I retire, but I may find that it is a useful outlet for my thoughts on my own drawing.

I’m still not convinced as to how useful or effective blogs are as learning tools but for certain students I know they can be very useful. My experience is that initially building up blog posts is time consuming and not very rewarding. Very few students will look at posts regularly and those few that do then expect a new one almost everyday. However once the blog has been in place for a while there will be built up a solid repository of information and this is when it starts to become useful.

Because students will have a wide variety of interests and approaches to their subject it is understandable that the resource wont be of much interest initially, but once it is there, and if you add posts on a reasonably regular basis, you will find students start to mention interests to you when you are on the studio floor. Because you have put the posts up you will remember which subjects you have covered and will be able to direct students to particular posts that may support their ideas or interests. What I did find with an earlier blog I built up when I spent two years working with Digital Media students, was that in particular it was used quite extensively when students were planning for or writing essays or preparing for their dissertations. The blog became an area that allowed them to dip their toes into theory without having to read dense texts. The other thing about blogs is the serendipity of the posts. By their very nature blog posts tend to be idiosyncratic and come out of random experiences, therefore they feel as if life itself is driving the interest, rather than a pre-determined curriculum and this is perhaps the most important pedagogic lesson.

Students have fed back to me that what they like is the totally unexpected range of posts, the only thing holding them together being that every post has something to do with drawing. However the feedback is nearly always verbal, students, (except for the very confident) don’t like making comments that everybody else can see, even though this is an age of Facebook, ‘Friends’ on that platform are not the same as ‘Followers’ of Blog posts. However, what I have found is that when reading student essays, my posts have been cited quite often.  Perhaps the most useful post I have ever put up was one on Semiotics that I produced when I was still teaching on the DFGA Programme, find it here, DGFA BLOG because it was my last post I had tried to leave the students with a comprehensive resource and not only did that year’s students use it, I found students from not just DFGA but Fine Art, referring to it for several years afterwards.  I put the post up after an introductory class based session and as it was my last class, thought I’d better not take it for granted that the students had understood the set task.

I’ve also used a blog as an idea generator, putting up posts on a regular basis when I belonged to a college reading group, CLICK the posts were eventually rewritten as a series of poetic statements and collected together as a book that I then went on to illustrate. THE PHANTOM OF CAPITAL

The present Drawing Blog is here: http://fineartdrawinglca.blogspot.co.uk and I’m expecting to finally begin to get some use from it during this coming academic term. (I only started it during the latter half of last year), which is why I have tried to feed it during the holidays. Hopefully it will also act as a gentle reminder of what students could be thinking about during the summer or as a basic reminder of what they are coming back to.

One final thought, blogs are sort of like a diary and they record interests as they grow and fade away. As they build up over time they do become very useful as a repository of all those stray ideas and thoughts that you might have had during the course of working with a body of students. It is amazing how quickly you can forget, (or at least I’m amazed at how quickly I forget) what happened and what was useful and what was not. Revisiting a blog after a while can be very rewarding. 

Research

It seems a long time ago now but the research started last year has come to some sort of conclusion. This summer I have been able to finalise the idea of an Exhibition in a Box. I put together all the work I did in relation to revisiting silkscreen printing and made a complete set of 54 cards that responded to the research into Tarot. 100 sets were printed and I trailed them with an audience during a studio open weekend that was put on as part of the Chapeltown Arts festival. People seemed to quickly get the idea of how to use them and could see how they could be used to develop their own narratives.

Each set of 54 cards comes with its own box. The cards can either be used to play a Tarot type game with, or the cards can be exhibited as you would a series of small prints. I had the cards printed by a company based in Colchester and they are printed using a standard poker deck format. The majority of the cards were designed using 4 colour separations as you would design for a silkscreen print, but they were then 'flattened' so that digital prints could be made. The company were very user friendly and they print samples so that exact colour matches can be made. The final cards having a rich intensity of colour  that I believe was required to carry the weight of the possible narratives. 

Getting these cards done has allowed the final stage of my research project to now come back into focus, which is to work towards a final exhibition when I leave. This summer has been a time whereby I have been trying to write more about drawing and looking at the possibilities of combining narratives about drawing itself with narratives of life. 

End of Year Exit Tutorials

I have been working five days a week as well as teaching two evenings, so blog posts are still a rarity in particular this time of the year the work load is extremely heavy. All modules come to an end and we have been assessing first and second years before the third year cohort. The final level 6 assessments take a full week, and once completed we re-hang the work for the end of year show. It is also therefore quite a stressful time for students, those last few days often being when people have extreme reactions to the pressure of deadlines.

Once assessments are completed for levels 4 and 5 (first and second year) we hold exit tutorials to ensure that the students have plenty to think about during the long summer break. These are designed partly to feed back on how they have achieved but more importantly to start them thinking about what they need to be doing next. These are short but intensive and at the core of each tutorial is an attempt to get a focus on what type of practitioner the student is becoming and to flesh out what the issues are that underpin their evolving practice.

Typically first years are asked to create an image bank or body of source materials, bringing together drawings, photographs, images from magazines, objects, video footage, materials etc. from which to draw upon next year. I also ask them to become specialists in their respective fields of interest. For example a student interested in ecology is asked to read deeply around the subject, to explore what is happening in terms of actual ‘real’ practice in her local area as well as world-wide issues; this research to be balanced by research into artists that have responded to similar issues. The important thing being to research without prejudice, to simply explore what is out there and to become more aware of possibilities. Other subjects brought to the tutorials included ‘how technology affects behaviour’, ‘the art gallery and how it changes perceptions’, ‘the construction of the human body and how it has evolved over time’. Supplementary questions are often also asked, such as can similar evolutionary principles be applied to other things in the world and / or the way materials are engaged with, can evolution be used in the development of construction methods? Can evolution be a sculptural principle?

Students are also reminded that writers write in order to discover what it is they are writing about and that as artists they need to do the same. The muscles of making need constant exercise if students are to attain the levels of control needed, as well as them responding to the fact that they need to ‘find’ the implication of their making. A break from doing can often mean that it takes a long time for them to get back into the ‘zone’ of creation. How many will actually continue making during the summer is probably quite small in number but at some point in their lives they will realise the importance of continually keeping the making /thinking process going. The break between years can for some students be problematic. It is hard to restart a practice after a gap, it is much healthier to work on different aspects of practice rather than simply stop. Working in new environments or adding alternative things into the mix can be important but doing this somewhere away from the critical engagement of others allows this to happen without the pressure of having to make work that succeeds all the time. Sometimes you just need to do things without any critical engagement, you simply need time to do things, once done of course you will need to re-engage critically but it is in these periods that you can sometimes surprise yourself. 

One student tells me she has access to an old barn during the summer and she has decided that it could be set up as a studio to work in. She might invite others to join her. By being open to the wider world outside college students can refresh stale thoughts and explore how much environmental factors influence their making.   I’m very aware my own ability degrades after periods of inactivity away from making.

By listing some of the issues dealt with I can give a flavour of the tutorials, the following notes below are simply transcribed directly from notes taken during level 4 tutorials.

Ideas related to traces, incomplete images that allow for deduction to be used in order to complete them in the mind. How much information should the artist give? The trace as a form of language. (Deer hoof prints etc.) Can you work as if you are making a visual detective novel?

The grid and how it is used as an organising principle and making a resource that documents this. Archeological digs, city layout, the graphic design grid, scientific measurement etc.

Moments of epiphany, looking for the magical in the everyday. (To read De Certeau) How can we shine a light on something ordinary and give it honorific value? (Change scale, replace with something else, spotlight, etc.) Can you provide a conundrum for others to solve, so that what appears to be everyday is now seen a part of something much bigger, (the tip of the iceburg issue)? What is it to see something from a different/unusual/strange angle or just a shadow of it?

How to make an image bank when what someone wants to paint are images of particular dreamlike states of mind? These are of buildings or landscapes that appear as if they are from particular film stills. Making models of imaginary film sets is a possibility and then lighting these and making drawings and taking photographs as starting points.

Psychological responses to colour. A student that wears black all the time is asked to explain the various rituals of wearing black (gothic, funereal etc.) To also explore the various hair dyes, clothing dyes, etc. as well as art materials, in order to assess how the cultural and material properties of black change ideas. An interest in textiles to be linked to a wider interest in human behaviour, for instance how introverts act in relation to extroverts and how could these observations be used to help forge a materials/colour language?

A student interested in portraiture is asked to explore the relationship between the photograph and perception. Drawing a situation with one eye closed and then the other. Combining the two, then comparing to a photograph of the same situation.

Often returned to is the purpose of practice, how the skills of making, filming, performing can be developed and allied to what needs to be ‘said’ and of course furthered as the techniques of analysis develop and a particular language of practice opens out.

For second year students another issue is COP3 (Context of Practice 3) which has now replaced the dissertation. They need to write a position statement, undertake a case study and develop a rationale for practice that articulates the processes that lay behind their decision making. They will need to put into words how and why they undertake materials investigation, how and why they have developed a context for practice…i.e. ‘why is their work like it is?’

Trying to get students to drill down into what it is they are actually doing can be very hard, as they are emotionally engaged at a deep level and it can feel alien to step outside of this situation. For instance if the student is engaged in a Feminist practice what is the focus within that? Is it the way we are gendered in childhood? The glass ceiling, how body language is gendered or cultural differences etc.? An image bank can be used to get a feel for how these things manifest themselves out in the world. This can then be a resource that can be re-visited and played with in order to open out new possibilities.

Theory is also import here but before getting too bogged down in this, I think students need to have a practical awareness of the issues. Part of the tutorial is therefore always a reminder to do some serious reading over the summer and to make notes that will be useful when writing up the COP3. The final reminder for level 5 students is that COP3 is a combination module of theory/practice and that they need to ensure that time is focused on making not reading and writing. Too many students fall into the trap of putting all their energies into the writing project only to find that their practice has foundered on the rocks of theory.

Ongoing Research

I've had further meetings with Mat and Annabeth and the concept of developing the character has been taken much further by Mat.

Several issues about the relationship between movement and character have been highlighted, in particular the friction created between movement type and image. For instance the figure is designed from drawings done by myself based on a character designed to reflect my age. The character is gradually aging, not as symetrical as younger people are, showing the signs of wear and tear. However Mat was able to link the skeleton to a dancing young female figure.
See Mat's test 1 and Mat's test 2. The bend in the mind is similar to that you get when Gillian Wearing puts children's voices into the mouths of adults. I must return to this at some point.

The next stage is to develop the scenarios in more detail, therefore basic storyboarding will be needed.

Climbing and digging are both important, but I think we can start with climbing.

The other image I wanted to develop was that of a crowd simply looking at something and then turning towards the viewer. 

I am also becoming facinated by the fact that these are empty shells. The eye sockets in particular being a possible entry into a disembodied mind.

Next stage is for Mat to look at some existing footage of climbing and see if its possible to link the figure to these and then develop this as a looped piece of footage. I will also be working with Annabeth to develop some motion capture footage to see how simple things like turning a head can be done, so that eventually a crowd can turn towards the viewer. However first of all I might get back into more dancing and see what happens when gravity acts on the figure's genitals.

I eventually decided that the technology was far too impersonal and that I would have to return to hand drawing techniques.

Uncooperative men digging endlessly

Man climbing and thinking he is getting somewhere. The treadmill to nowhere

An offshoot

Although I haven't been posting to Art and Pedagogy very often I have developed an offshoot blog about drawing.

 http://fineartdrawinglca.blogspot.co.uk

After Easter I have been asked to continue working 5 days a week until June. So when I go back it will be first year assessments, then second year and then straight into third year assessments and then the final show. I have spent the last few weeks mainly planning for next year and worst of all timetabling and booking workshops. The workshops are booked, but the full timetable is yet to be finalised. A course trip is also being considered, but it has to fit exactly between different events as they occur across three different year timetables. The Drawing blog has been a brief outlet from detailed timetabling, something I still regard as a non essential and a straightjacket, even though I've been struggling with how to fit all the module delivery patterns together, the experience doesn't make me think there is some value there, simply that it takes people away from teaching time. The fact that this timetable will go up onto 'EStudio' in some ways makes it worse; students check on it to see whether it's worth going in and woe betide us if we change anything. Again the idea of an ever evolving set of questions and responses is banjaxed, I believe in not knowing where we are going, but simply having the courage to take aim and head off. Perhaps the college will allow these types of things to happen once it has its own awarding status, confidence might come from ownership, I hope so.

Ongoing research

The lack of blog posts reflects the fact that I have had to continue working full-time. This has had a serious impact on my ability to pursue my own work but during this time I have made a very useful contact with staff working in the media department of the college.
During the staff development week at the end of the last academic year I went to a 3D CAD introduction and then took some time to learn how to use 1,2, 3D Catch. See old posts tagged research. At the time I made some models of elements of my drawings and looked at how I could use this programme to help visualise what I was drawing. However although useful as a visualisation tool it didn't help me take the work on into any new directions. I had though at one time spoken to Annabeth about the possibility of using the new motion capture software, something I thought could be useful if I was to begin animating one of the figures from my drawing. Because I was so busy I had left this hanging, but then Matt one of Annabeth's colleagues contacted me to say he was interested in helping me realise my drawings as virtual 3D visualisations.
The first thing he asked me to do was to provide him with drawings that he could work on. He had had a look at the drawings on my website and told me that there wasn't enough information for him to be able to develop an image, so could I create a figure that could be visualised in the round. This was itself a challenge because I had never tried to create the 'average' Garry Barker figure. The people I draw are sort of stand-ins for human beings, I don't try to personalise them because they are meant to carry the narrative and are not to be read as actual people doing things. Each drawing is made up, so if you try and rotate them there is no 'real' information to latch on to. After several attempts I finally came up with this drawing.

The figure had to reflect the fact that the bodies I use are non heroic, 'normal', slightly asymmetric and a little used. Matt then took this and produced a 3D image using Maya software. 

This rendering took me back somewhat as I didn't know what I would be getting back but I realised it wasn't quite right. It needed, as Matt put it, a 'bum-crack' and genitals. 

This was the adjusted version. 

Matt then sent me the 'map' of the image, which I thought was really interesting and it triggered off all sorts of thoughts about the relationship between computer generated drawing and older drawing systems, in particular those Egyptian images where you get the sense that they understood the body as something often wrapped (I'm thinking mummification bandages here) or Cubist drawings that try to visualise all parts of the body at once. There was also a hint of those cosmological drawings of the night sky, that many cultures have produced as they attempted to personify the experience of gazing at raw nature. 

The 2D map of the 3D figure above

Visualisation of the night sky

Popova: Cubist drawing

Popova's Cubist study of a man is also about the problems static drawings encounter when trying to portray movement. What I eventually want to make are a series of short animations of my figures taking on Sisyphean tasks such as endlessly digging a hole or climbing a ladder. 

My invented figures are of course 'frozen' in their tasks, this human is forever about to move but never will. This is one of the wonderful things about static drawings, they achieve movement by implication and by the dynamics of their drawing language. However there are other ways to visualise these things

and the idea of an endless loop has started to fasinate me. 

Matt is now working on how to provide the figures with an internal skeleton. Once this is done, it should be possible for Annabeth to work with me using motion capture equipment, including a special body suit, to enable my movements to be translated into how the figure can move. This will mean me digging holes and climbing ladders in the suit and Annabeth recording the actions. 

This type of collaboration is wonderful. It opens out my own work into previously impossible territories  and by working with people that have high end technical skills, enables a 'group mind' to begin thinking about creative possibilities. For Matt my slightly worn drawings of people give him a challenge because he has to deal with their slight asymmetry and older skin appearance and for all of us there is the excitement of working towards something that uses the equipment in ways that start to test boundaries. 

  

The grey world of my drawings might in future involve movement but the concepts that underpin them don't have to be compromised, only enriched by the minds of others.