"Hi, can I take a photo through your letterbox...?" ..."Errr, yeah?"

A few of the decent unedited shots from my wierd letterbox pursuits in the rain, that is of the unsafety conscious letterboxes without that stupid stuff to stop people looking in. So annoying. Really liking some of them though, worth the long walks!

Letterboxes

So, I wanted to take photos through letterboxes, heres ours. Although I looked well dodgy poking around in the letterbox earlier taking photos, so the photos are awful. I'd be a bad criminal.

I am gonna go round everyone I know though and take some more, Reading friends be prepared.

Envelopes and more envelopes

Taking over the space with strange plastic wallets and envelopes. Development from previous piece.

Became more interested in the material of the plastic wallets by the end of the day, but maybe it was just tedium kicking in as I taped them together.

FYI. Ryman wallets are better than Smiths.

Life drawing- second time eveeeer!

Some better than others, just a selection here, need to stop concentrating on line...

Collaborative boxes, well, masks

So, us crazy kids decided to make boxes to put on our heads in an afternoon.

It was partly an exercise to learn how to make them too, and use a hammer, drill, frame clips, miter...etc....

We all love mitering.

We drilled lil holes into the sides that you could see through, originally the idea was to have them mounted on the wall and us be sort of part of the piece, but through practicalitys and the interest of just walking around in them that didn't happen....

At least we cheered up all the people doing boring office jobs in the new shiney enterprise centre opposite!

Studio Crit

Today talked about our work again, few things came up, the use of the plastic wallets as important- they're something we use to protect things. Suddenly, you give the unopened envelopes in side new value.

The "rug" came under scrutiny as it perhaps isn't rug like enough a

nd, when discussed further, it became clear that the thing that was important

was creating worth and value out of nothing, and the materiality of what you can do with paper. Walking on something doesn't fit this.- another plus of the plastic wallets is that people are happier to tread on them, it's somehow protected.

Also perhaps the 2 pieces together, (plastic wallets + rug) don't work. Enjoying the plastic wallets, could I continue this further, and perhaps add the junk mail directly in....

or have them continuing upwards again....

Origami, is interesting, but perhaps in different forms, and needs to be more convincing. Make some other shapes, what else can I do with paper?

Idea of using the plinth, as in Cork Street galleries, and other commercial places discussed.

The American Surreal, Susan Hiller in person

I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to see Susan Hiller being interviewed by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the Serpentine gallery director. And I took some (well actually quite a few)notes, here they are...

Susan hiller came across as a formidable woman with big ambitions, as much now as ever!

Originally trained in Anthropology, she had always wanted to be an artist.

Hiller became critical of anthropology having interviewed men all across the world, she noticed that they were always men! Talking about the women, the gender issue became more apparent....

Entering into the art world with no specialised training Hiller took with her from Anthropology:

- particularly interesting books

- linguistics

- "primitive" arts

BUT, she seemed to stress heavily that so many people want to label her art as anthropology based, and IT ISN'T!

Yes, she notices things about the world in which we live and culture, but so do other artists, no?

"Human beings are more like flames than stones. In a state of constant flux."

Hans asked Susan if she felt there had been a "necessity of time before crystallisation" ?

Her response was not so much that there was a need but she had travelled extensively, and enjoyed a fantastic period(early 70s) in England in which anything seemed possible and everyone was optimistic. There were no boundaries in art as the "market had been rejected"....

So, she began to feel more confident with work.

Exhibition "3 Friends" really the starting point, although as a comment on art the 3 women marketed it in a very "airy fairy way" - this backfired, and apparently all of about 30 people turned up....

"those 3 silly women!"

Following on from this Hiller became interested in the way cultures map themselves ever so slightly differently, for example English is derived from classical languages and American from slang english....

She also talked about her Recycled works, which were part of her 2011 exhibition at the Tate Britain, commenting that the works were like insects, constantly going through different phases.

Hiller took old canvases and reworked them over a two week period, unravelling the thread and then plaiting and braiding into 3d works.

"When is something finished?"

"Weston-super-mare.....what a fabulous name to a foreigner!"

Susan Hiller saw the "Rough Sea" photograph, and was interested by the necessity of the words as well as the picture of the big wave! The words just seemed to be floating there.

then she went to Brighton and saw the same thing, began collecting.

Hiller admittedly that she is a bit of a collector...

With Dream Mapping (1974) the idea was to find unverbal ways of talking about your dreams, as this begins to create a narrative, and often dreams aren't like this...so lets MAP.

The group slept in fairy circles, like "hippies going out to the field!" but she assured us his was all very normal at the time.

After Dream Mapping Susan said she realised that this work only had really meaning and resonance if you were involved, so she stopped this type of work. Presumably seeking a larger audience...

Finally we watched The Last Silent Movie

Hiller was quite particular in the way that this should be viewed in a VERY dark room (there were lighting issues) and that you should just see the subtitles.

The piece was to bring disappearing images out into the open, far more than and archive will ever do.

It was great to hear Hiller talking about her work, especially relating to works that I've seen, I only wish I'd plucked up the courage to ask my question!

"I was lucky enough to see your show at the Tate earlier this year and was particularly taken with the piece Witness which I found trully absorbing and beautiful, you mentioned earlier that this piece was the offshoot of another work you never made Big Stars, how do they relate and what was the process behind them...?"

ooops, but I was too scared as she'd just been offended by another woman who phrased her question in a particularly bad way, suggesting that Hiller's work wasn't visual....

Which, by the way, it is.

A lil' bit of an exhibiton?

So I wanted to incorporate my unopened post (addressed to others) into my 'junkmail' piece, but had a bit of a moral struggle with myself in using them, I mean they weren't addressed to me right? And, the recurring reaction I got was:

"But hey, isn't it like hugely illegal to tamper with someone elses post...?!"

So taking this in mind, but still with this massive urge to display the envelopes, still unopened I decided to use plastic wallets to protect them! Funny because many of them already had muddy footprints on them from being on our doormat for several days (lazy students...)

I had a formation worked out by the addresse(male/female/anonymous) and used this as the basis. The piece spilled from the top of the wall to the floor, and continued onto my "junkmail rug"

As for the origami tower....

I had been making some of the leaflets in origami lillies- god knows why, and realised that when together there was something fairly Brancusi's The

Endless Column

about the formation, ideally i wanted the tower created to reach the ceiling, but have yet to create enough origami.

Again, viewers were confused by the floor piece, in that they

would rather ju

mp across the art than tread on it, despite being told they were welcome to use it as a real rug.

If this has taught me one thing:

Art can make the most

worthless object suddenly important, and sacred.

These items were all worthless previously.

As for the unopened letters, surprisingly I actually feel more responsibility for them now that they've been in my possession and

am far more likely to return them when I remove the work!

What you can do with a bit of junkmail....

So, our latest individual project was to experiment with
text...and noticing the horrendous amounts of junkmail coming through 48 watlington streets front door I had an immediate starting point, and it was pretty cheap.

Combine this with the intriguing letters addressed to the houses previous residents I was reaching dodgy grounds....

I made a rug out of purely junkmail piling th

rough the door, and installed it in the hall, as shown.

The best bit for me was that all my housemates then proceded to hop round it! Around leaflets that they'd been all too happy to trample on just hours before.

Funnier still, by chance an E-ON power rep later knocked on the door and I had to leave him in the hall for a few minutes whilst I found a friend. Surprisingly he didn't comment on o

ur odd choice of furnishings. Perhaps he came to the conclusion that students really are getting poorer!

I'd like to leave the rug for an extended period of time and perhaps video peoples reactions, and use the aftermath as a piece in itself.

Playing with Salt dough! November '11

Having been told by the lovely Kate Allen that my homework this particular week was to experiment with salt dough, I went home and started pressing the children's favourite into interesting indents and textures inside and outside the house, much to the amusement of my hou
semates!

I then tried baking the strange balls, but unfortunately t

hey rose leaving large air bubbles, so like a child I popped these....

....The shapes lay around my room for a few days looking like the above....

UNTIL....

I doodled inside the shapes with ink!

I liked the tension cr

eated between the unever, jagged, and unpredictable edges contrasted with the very deliberate, regimented patterns inside, particularly the chequerboard design. The patterns were all taken from doodles within my

notebooks.

I took

some inspiration for this piece from Gabriel Orozco's practice and way of working.

And particularly his chequerboard skull piece.

CONTINUED:

I did create some salt dough shapes that actually worked- sort of...

These were locks in doors that I pressed the dough into and then painted with gold(which turned green-yuck.) and black ink...

However the best part about these was the way in which I decided to mount them on the wall. Using parcel tape that was to han

d in such a crazy yet controlled fashion ....I really liked.

Perhaps i should use such a style to create a frieze around the space with my buildings photographs....

Experiments with building photographs

Readings architecture to me, amongst others!, seems somewhat hit and miss. The stark contrast of 1960s towerblocks, and their cardboard box like form plonked next to quaint old georgian and victorian properties is apparent from just one stroll home from Cemetery junction. Taking this as a starting point I decided to try and show, if not emphasise or disguise this point through my work. I experimented first putting small boxes over the new 1960's towerblocks and modern flat buildings...(photos to follow) and then as you can see here with gold ink over the images, I enjoyed this idea, as it almost tried to make the square like patterns you can see less formal, perhaps softening the contrast with their neighbours.

Originally however I intended for the patterns to be more William Morris esque, but due to the medium of slightly old dodgy, gloopy ink! i struggled, and they perhaps just became more like doodles....leading to my next project....

It might be interesting to try this idea with vintage fabrics, perhaps semi transparent. Or ribbons?!

Collaborative cardboard monstrosity!

Collaborative piece, first studio session of second year. Seeing what was possible in an afternoon, with a fairly free brief to use as much, or little cardboard and whatever else we could find as possible. Really successful, and almost comfortable inside!

Moving on to my foundation- Reading University!

Final exhibition piece exploring the theme of [DIS]Placement. Artist book. June '11.

Work with Chance- sculptural painting. March '11

Experiments exploring

gender in language, in this case French, obscurely "stilletto

" in french is masculine.

Displayed in a museumesque form I guess! December '10

Final piece for my first term- "lets take over the space with tiny people"

LE ET LA!

December '10

Working with drawing, considering time through

generations.

Ink on canvas roll.

March '11