FMP Day21 18/8

How do I feel about how it is going?

My theme is about homelessness, Ukraine War, and the refugees who have come to the UK to escape war, and have now became homeless. I am making a blanket and a tent, to put my blanket in the tent. The materials I am using are different pieces of fabric, like a collage, to make the blanket – I am also making the tent out of wood.

I am progressing well on my project, on this journey – I feel happy and confident at the moment. There are positives in my current project – I am doing some screen printing and investigating the process, which is making my project stronger – the screen prints are on the fabric for the blanket. The screen prints are words, some quotes from people who are anti-Putin “stop war”, “stop Putin” etc. My work is a political statement and these screen prints help communicate this. There are things I want to improve for this project – I want to improve my sewing skills to make the blanket. I have only just learnt how to sew, it is a new skills for me, and so I can definitely improve this. If I improve my sewing, it could make my blanket more aesthetically interesting, better made, stronger.

What have I learnt from todays activity?

This project has helped me to develop my ideas – this works for me as an artist, I want to make work that is more conceptual, underpinned by concepts and ideas, not just random practical work. I am excited that this will help me on my Fine Art BA – to use ideas to help me make practical work, and vice-versa. I have learnt that sewing, working with fabrics, screenprinting, sculpture is helping me understand myself as an artist anf the way I like to work with materials and processes. I want to continue to develop these skills on my BA also.

How that inspires/interests you?

As mentioned, these materials and processes are inspiring me in lots of ways, especially for developing my sewing, screenprinting and sculpture skills on a BA. I have been directly inspired by the artist Vivian Sundaram because she is making works about way – figurative sculpture of forms lying on the floor, perhaps dying. She uses photography, maybe archival images, and sculpture to make her work. She combines lots of materials and processes to make political statements in her work. This is something I am trying to do also – combine ways of working, different materials, different processes. Sundaram has helped me make work such as clay figurative models. However, I have decided to expand on this, and work in a way that feels more natural and exciting to me – such as sewing, screenprinting.

How can I develop my work from here?

I think I need to improve my reflective practice. I need to start doing this daily. This is because my writing is perhaps too descriptive, and not analytical. I need to write more about how I actually feel, I need to write about what has been going well, and what I am struggling with – to be more critical and honest with myself.

In terms of my fabric collage / blanket and tent – on the blanket, after my peer feedback, my peer said I could include a map of Ukraine and Russia into the imagery. These maps could help me to make more statement stronger – the audience can then clearly see what my work is about. For the tent, it is a new direction in my work, so I am only at the design stage. I am doing a series of drawings in my sketchbook to help me make this element. I think the tent may be challenging because, to build it, it will be a real tent size, life size, which may be difficult to achieve out of heavy wood.

Action plan based on the above.

Over the next few days my plan is to consider more the map imagery on the fabric. I also need to, as a priority, test materials for the tent – experiments with sheets of wood, lengths of wood, how I could join the wood together (screws, glue?) – I am not sure yet. I also need to do more research and reflection and add all of this to Workflow. For the research, I want to study more of the ‘homeless artists launch exhibition at city centre hotel’ reference that Sarah gave me. I also will look at Lucy Orta’s tent sculptures for further inspiration.

Reflection This page is part of the collection 'Part 3 2023'.

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