A different day five from another time
Colour and space
As we moved into the 90s colour and space
become more important. We were looking for ways to move smoothly into 3D and it
seemed logical to therefore get more involved in this area. New staff were
coming in and older ones going, a different sort of hands on was needed. By now
I had new responsibilities and was working across several courses, sometimes
with the foundation course but not always. However I would nearly always return
to teach the drawing, colour and 3D introduction during the autumn term.
At one point, I forget the year, we had
students make small boxes and in these boxes they were making colour
constructions from their collections of colour. We were getting them to develop
3D geometric forms and part of the task was to locate colour in space in order
to clarify the forms made. Alongside these we were also getting them to make
small freeform constructions that allowed students to test colours’ locations
by moving them backwards and forwards in space.
I cant remember who it was, Steve Carrick
or Sean, who was now working full-time, decided that much
more ambitious colour space constructions could be made, not only that, but
they could be made in such a way that they created optical and spatial illusions.
Georges Rousse and a few other artists had developed ways of working across and
through environments with colour shapes placed in such a way that when seen
from one unique viewpoint a simple geometric form would reveal itself. In order
to do this well a precise control of colour and form in space was required as
well as an understanding of perspective, therefore for foundation students a
mix of two disciplines could be learnt at the same time. As working at this
scale could only be done in teams, collaboration could be introduced and of
course environmental, installation and site-specific practices engaged with.
This of course reflected changes in fine art practices nationally. By now
nearly all the painting schools had gone, fine art now being mainly
conceptually driven and there being little room for specialist craft focused
work.
The first year this was done it was very
exciting, colour objects would spread over the studio, what could appear to be
a mess of bits from one angle, would from a specific point (usually a camera
tripod would be set up for this) suddenly appear to be a flat blue square or a
perfect yellow equilateral triangle.
At the same time as these new ideas were
being developed, student numbers were increasing. This meant that the focus was
becoming more and more on organization; how to manage groups of large sizes,
how to get them through workshops and the new need to ensure they all
understood how to use appropriate computer software. Some things were going to have to give and
colour as it was taught was redesigned to fit new needs. Photoshop allowed you
to select colours with ease and identify them as Pantone or any
other colour system. You could mix on screen and view as many colour swatches
as you wanted before making final choices. Few seemed interested in the mystery
and history of oil paint. Phil Nicol was now the painting tutor and for a while
he seemed to be holding out a possible space for painters to operate in but the
reality was things had moved on.
Colour would at times become a vehicle for
processing or mixing would be done with a chosen set of acrylic colours, to set
rules; grids for mixes drawn up and 20 or 30 even mixes asked for, students now
replacing discovery with precision. We were now (late 90s) really controllers
who made sure students were in the right room doing the right thing at the
right time and pointing out very straightforward things such as a mix that was
out of step with the asked for gradation of tonal change or even worse that the
squares were too messy.
I could easily get bored but there were
now so many students, by the time you had been round everyone to check they
knew what was going on, it was time for something else to happen. I wasn’t sure
how this could be diagnostic either. Except for diagnosing colour blindness, it
didn’t seem to be a problem solving session or an image building exercise,
simply a lesson in control. However as I was now being packed off to the East
Leeds Family Learning Centre to set up an art college in the middle of a housing
estate, I was going to have to reinvent myself.
I don't think they do any colour theory at all now. Times change, I gather Elspeth has now resigned, so another foundation head will be being sought.
I'm really bad at keeping track on who has been in control but I think Gavin was at one time head, then there was some sort of consortium or board of studies, whereby all the staff contributed, then in came Peter Smailes, followed by Terry, then John Fairclough and when he went on some computer course for a year Derek took over as temporary head and then permanently as John decided to emigrate to New Zealand.
I’ll probably park this for a while and
come back to the issues surrounding staff, outreach work and access another time.
Some of these stories are better told by others.
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