BA4 Reflective Journal

Monday 1st October

Fine art to me is a communicator. A tool to create change or discussion through the sublimity of an aesthetic form. This is something I have always been hugely aware of, theoretically and practically. So through most of last year I felt a need to create work about something important, something in our contemporary world that needed to change. This lead to my summer project which was largely focused on the idea of the nautral world, the environment and the effects human development has on it. A topic I feel strongly about, how we have this gift of a beautiful planet, yet we still shove the idea of global warming under the carpet in an attempt to forget about it. I had all these big ideas over this summer, but you could say that my life got in the way. I began to hold myself back, I was going through a big change in myself and found myself frequently introverting and growing interested in the idea of identity again. I reminded myself of my favourite A-Level project, titled “me myself and I” and I re-reviewed my work from this point in my teenage life. I wondered to myself; is it possible to disassociate yourself from your work? Has an artist ever created something that has no real element of themselves in it at all, no personal stamp, a unique fingerprint? Essentially; can you create art that holds no sense of identity in it? I looked at my favourite artists and minds who deal with identity, Sylvia Plath, Egon Schiele, Sigmund Freud. I also watched a lot of films, I becamse allured by the coming of age genre, something in a way, I was experiencing myself. This idea of youth also lead me to the 1960s era, particularly in America where the voices of the young people were finally beginning to be heard and entered a more relevant and even revolutionary place in society. I particularly listened to 1960s artists of the time who were poets of their own thoughts, The Velvet Underground, Joni Mitchell, Patti Smith. I was spending lots of time just hanging out with my friends, listening to music, star gazing and laughing. All these thing seemed to cohere together, identity, youth. How we are still finding our way in the world, wobbily taking the first steps of resbonsiblity and moulding who we want to be. So from now on I plan to explore the idea of youth and identity.

“Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?” –Patti Smith

Friday 4th October

I have been collecting up lots of old vinyls. I like the way they feel, the individual designs of the sleeves, the way the records feel, the way they work with the vibrations tangibly, and of course, the music on them. Music reminds me of this summer, how I felt with my friends, how we were free, and how music helped me. 

Now to figure out what to do with said vinyls. They also remind me of the Perks of Being a Wallflower- which got me back into this idea of collecting up vinyls. I love the scene portrayed in the book where they all sit together, as friends and soulmates, in their parents house basement, drinking brandy and playing records. I even illustrated this scene.

I have also been reading "Just Kids" by Patti Smith- I feel conflicted about it. There is a certain deliberate setting of a scene in this book, a reverence for nostalgia and the changing times of the 1960s. And I dont know how this bodes with me, on one hand the romantic portrayal of this time and place in history sparkles and radiates with glamour and celebrity, drawing the fascinated reader in at such an intimate and up close narrative of the Chelsea Hotel in 1967. Yet I think it encourages a certain Golden Age Anxiety- it encourages us to enter another world and not live in the present. Which is an experience I find I feel weirdly guilty about- yet still carry on reading like a naughty child.

Tuesday 9th October

Still experimenting with vinyls and the idea of decay- trying to make this a somewhat organic process. So currently growing crystals on the outer sleeves of the small vinyls. 

Monday 15th October

I have something to say through this "coming of age" concept I am currently working with, but I dont know what that is yet. I plan to work through this through material manipulation (i.e. my vinyls), and I have been advised that I will reach my message I am trying to communicate to the audience. It might be political- it might even be personal. I just want it to be relevant.

Wednesday 17th October

“It Is What It Is” by Jeremy Deller, was a dark reimagining of the typical, shiny American road trip- except Jeremy Deller had a different kind of vehicle in mind. Not your shiny Cadillac was driven up and down the hot bleached American landscape; but a burned out husk of a former car. It is in fact the burnt, reddish brown shell of a bombed Iraqi car, obliterated in the Iraq war. The car was in fact destroyed in 2007, in a major bombing on a book market in the cultural centre of Baghdad in Iraq, leaving an entire street was destroyed, hundreds injured and 35 people killed. So Deller hauled this piece of rusted metal up and down the USA, and would stop to ask people what they thought of it; “it’s your conversation piece from hell.” Deller was quoted saying at the time. As the car is somewhat sacred in American culture, looks of perplexion came pouring in from all angles, the results being published to Youtube. A controversial parading of this symbol of destruction holds up a mirror to the people of America, it forces them to reflect on what their government has done to the culture and society in Iraq. To me, is a true commentary on the destruction of war. How fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity.

The sculptural car shell in Tennessee, USA, on it's journey.

Thursday 18th October

Today was our first fabric and form workshop. It really opened my eyes more to the world of fashion and textiles within Fine Art, or more commonly known as; soft sculpture. A common misconception made with sculpture is that it must always be made of a solid material, associations made with sculpture as a medium are welding. metals and saws. Hard, almost "manly" materials. But we contextually examined contemporary artists who include textiles into their work. We saw the juxtaposition of material and concept that usually related to gender and the associations of femininity included in fashion and textiles. 

Lara Schnitger's "I Want Kids", 2005.

We saw this within Lara Schnitger, whose work resonates and echoes feminine tones, aesthetically and conceptually seen previously in Sarah Lucas' past works. The three lollopy legs encased in bright blue plaid material of "I Want Kids" are reminiscent of a children's toy, or television program. It reminds me of the Tweenies or the Teletubbies. When I first read the text seen on the front of the soft sculpture i assumed this was the artist's personal desire for a family and children of her own, but when I read into the sculpture more, and saw more of the symbolism in the sculpture's structure- the defiant, unashamed stance of the figure with the large sack dangling between it's "legs" and the unabashed statement stitched into its face, I noticed a morbid statement aimed at pedophilia. Schnitger here questions the almost too obvious look of predators. In Brass Eye style, Schnitger addresses our darkest fears and taboos, using wry humour to expose a lurking reality.

Yinka Shonibare uses bright and feminine looking fabrics to convey dark and violent past memories, i.e. slavery and colonialism. Here is a still from his film "un ballo masechera", 2004.

The bunny series by Sarah Lucas references the female form in a juvenile manner, by symbolizing such typical feminine body parts such as breasts and genitals in the most basic, child like forms. for example; fried eggs for breasts.

Alexandra Bircken. 

This piece is somewhat irrelevant as there is no real "deep" subject matter that i am aware of. But her unmonumental stretcher frame sculptures are informed by her background in fashion design and interest in the radical aspects of handmade culture. A fragmentary array of irregular objects and organic shapes, often coloured by the artist, is hung and displayed on strings and aluminium rods. So her drive, you could argue, is her personal tastes in fashion, as opposed to the above artists I have looked at, who are inspired by global and historical social situations. But I love the contradiction of the organic and man made- and the spindly, wooly forms they make. The material looks delicate and beautiful and this work reminds me of my work in my first year of my degree. 

 After some contextual analysis we then went onto make basic small sculptures out of some sturdy fabric that would stand on its own. I used a sewing machine for the very first time, and thoroughly loved the tactile experience of drawing into material with a needle and string. I plan to do so again.

Saturday 20th October

So i spent this saturday morning burning and melting down plastic red solo cups. I feel as though these cups are an iconic element of youth. Everyone recognizes these cups and know where they are from, they are usually used for drinking alcohol so I chose to smelt the cups down to display alcoholism as a part of young life. How alcohol can be self-destructive and used as a form of escapism for young people. As fire is generally an uncontrollable and destructive medium, i thought it would portray these sentiments aptly. in a way this is personal to my life right now and my personal relationship with alcohol now and in the past. 

Thursday 25th October

Part 2 of fabric and form workshop. I started off working with hard materials, I began with plaster as a medium, almost self consciously, then moved onto to create an entire small sculpture with the sewing machine. I love the tactility of working with a sewing machine and drawing into objects and fabric with a stringed line, there is something almost visceral about it I love. The process feels right to me. So I began to cut up and montage old record images onto fabric, to make kitschy collage-sculptures. 

Wednesday 31st October

As read earlier it has taken me a while to figure out what i am trying to say through my current practice.  

I know that I am interested in nostalgia, youth, kitsch, memories and music. But this evening it hit me what my work is about at the moment. My artistic practice is based mainly on the subject of memories. Reminiscing, music, friends and past times. Particularly memories of youth. The main piece of art that influenced this was the film "Flashbacks of a Fool". These nostalgic pieces i have been producing of late are not based on personal memories as such- they are on memory in general, and how they can fade, or become stronger, through the senses sometimes. I am especially interested in this neurological aspect of memory, how external sensory aspects can trigger memories and quite literally "take you back." These sensory aspects are mainly sound and taste, so basically- music and food. This explains my fascination with creating playlists and categorizing music into lists that have a certain feel or subject, road trip, or back to school, for example. I have worked with food through drinking receptacles such as red solo cups. And more recently i have been experimenting with collage as a medium, creating montages and "mood boards" from old fast food takeaway leaflets that get sent through my student house door everyday. So in a way, this relevance to fast food and alcohol is somewhat autobiographical, as they are reflections of my current life. So maybe my work does have an element of my own mind to it. I now plan to experiment more with text, and use text in a humorous way, almost like Tracey Emin or Lara Schnitger do. I am also interested in the idea of installation- particularly in a domestic style- I keep recording all my collected items on my studio space wall in a shrine-like, bedroom wall style. A pinboard of of my current interests. So I am considering making a teenage bedroom style installation as a piece or even holding an exhibition in my bedroom.

Rookie magazine is the teenage based magazine run by teenager Tavi Gevinson, in summer 2012 they had their own "Road Trip" in which they travelled across several states meeting readers and fans of the magazine. At the end of the tour they created an installation of a teenage bedroom in gallery space, space 15 twenty. 

"Transforming Space 15 Twenty into a teenage bedroom seemed obvious to Petra and me, so I’m not quite sure how that thought process went. We share a fascination with the idea that this is sort of one’s sanctuary as a teenager; a place to make your own world even though you’re kind of stuck there. We didn’t do this all with a specific girl in mind; we just wanted to create a mutant dollhouse that a cult of teen girls might live in. And for a week, WE DID"

-Tavi Gevinson on the Exhibited Installation Event

Another relevant piece that came to mind was Jeremy Deller's installation that also was meant to reenact his teenage bedroom, in which he once staged an exhibition when his parents were away. 

Deller has a remarkable talent for homing in on events that have particular resonance in the collective memory – staging mass street parades, getting Manic Street Preacher fans to pour out their feelings of identification with their idols. 

Monday 5th November

Today I began linking music with memories and wrote a chronological spider diagram of my history and music and how my tastes have shaped, beginning with the artist who I feel first got me into music (Amy Winehouse) and ending with my tastes now. It reads left to right. 

Wednesday 7th November

Made bunting, wanted to experiment with juxtaposing concepts and crafts, so in this sense the concept was very honest and open, describing sexual frustration, something that is still quite taboo for women to express in today's society, yet at the same time these words I have used are lyrics, so I am still holding my theme of reverence for music and a person's identification with lyricism and tune. This theme also links to youth- teens are known to be the biggest buyers of music in the world. 

However the craft of this bunting piece is particularly relevant, it has text obviously, showing I am still very much into the use of syntax and words in art. There is also something very quaint and English about the form of bunting, it reminds me of tea parties, street parties and is particularly reminiscent of the Queen's silver jubilee. So in a way it reflects my Middle England British upbringing. 

All in all, i observe and appreciate the juxtaposition and contrast between the bunting form of this piece and the honest, somewhat brash text used. 

I have deliberately placed the bunting in my bedroom as well, specifically above my bed. Which I think holds a certain significance and correlation, between the text and the fact the piece is hung above the bed, suggests sex. And reminds me of Tracey Emin, specifically "My Bed" and "All The Men I Have Ever Slept With".

Sunday 11th November

-          This idea of sex in women is seen in “Everyone I’ve ever slept with” Tracey Emin

-          This piece I identify with a lot, as it contains few major elements and concepts seen in my current practice, such as confession, use of text, and use of nostalgia.

-          And the creation of an intimate domestic space, linking back again to my ideas of the bedroom and the teenage bedroom, which is most definitely a concept taken literally by emin here, as we can see the names of all the people she has ever slept with.

-          You open up the awning to the tent and you are trapped in an almost metaphysical and metaphorical space of intimacy, because not only has she created this sense of intimacy physically my creating a small tent space, but she has made it even more exclusive, by disclosing all the people she has ever slept with’s names on the walls of the tent. Almost like secrets shared at a sleepover.

-          Theres something very juvenile about this piece that i love as well, especially as my starting for this project was “youth and identity”

-          Recently I have been almost obsessively decorating my bedroom in my student house so this is when the idea came very naturally to me

-          Hold house exhibition

-          People can look in my room and see all my work hung up on the walls

-          This is what I plan to do this week

-          Its going to be one manifestation of all my ba4 work

-          (I am interested in lyrics and quotes at present and you can see that)

Wednesday 14th November

I found loads of my parents old records in our shed whilst at home this week! I really love this as these topics are incredibly related to "memories" indeed, and looking at all these vinyls, they do help me recall memories of my childhood, as my parents listened to these records when I was growing up. Below is a piece i wrote when these memories came back to me. I wanted a direct, verbal recording of this feeling;

"We had loads of old records like this in our house. We had a record player too, it was a lovely soft mahogany-like wood and had the blacked glass lid. I remember thinking it somewhat ornate, it looked classy.I used to flick through the records when I played with my toys on the shelves, making them run up and down various shelves like they were running through different floors in a wooden multi storey building. I liked the records but I didnt get the point of them, we rarely ever played them. I just knew they were once used by my parents and that they cherished them a bit."

I noticed my dad's signature and notes on a few of these record sleeves- like a child writing their name on a toy theyre going to take into school for show and tell. i loved this as a little touch, a little detail and a thought of a past time. How my dad liked this one song so much.

Friday 16th November

Day in London. I went to Haunch of Venison where I first saw Joana Vasconcelos' work. I had been examining her work lately anyway as she uses the themes of identity and gender in her practice, and the use of gaudy bright materials that are relevant to her upbringing in Portugal.

The tentacles of Vasconcelos' "Valkyrie crown" situated up the stairs pictured, the sculptures "arms" trail over the bannister.

"Valkyrie Crown"

Amongst this I also saw Giuseppe Penone at the Gagosian and the Royal College of Art's retrospective show on the history of the college. This was highly interesting, so many iconic British products, such as the standard road sign and the olympic torch, were designed by RCA graduates, and I had no idea.

But the most poignant part of the day for me was when I was sat on the tube, everyone sat opposite eachother yet noone talking, everyone straining to not look the person opposite them in the eye, like opposing magnets. It then hit me one of the concepts I want my current work and my future projects to be about. I wrote this in my sketchbook;

"I want my art to communicate that its okay to be sad. It's okay to feel alone. Okay to feel lost. I want my art to reach out to all those people  who get sad, often for no real reason, and feel like they're standing on the edge of a cliff between life and what is not real. I want my art to snatch them off that edge and bring them back to a safe place."

I also saw Isa Genzken, who's work seemed somewhat pointless to me, but I liked the way she presented her 2D works, lain on the floor like tiles.

Monday 19th November

Acdemic poster presentation. I discussed the two branches of my work, The Artist's Identity (contextual studies) and Memory and Identity (artistic practice). I discovered today that my work aesthetically has a rather "amateur" look to it, in the sense that it looks shoddy, and I realized that this is a deliberate notion, in the sense that I dont personally like "pretty" or aesthetically pleasing imagery, especially paintings. I also found out that my work is incredibly multi-faceted, I have so much theory to my practice, but I havent really documented all these thought processes to my work, so that it was I need to accomplish before hand in. As I need evidence.

Wednesday 21st November

As the deadline approaches I feel myself getting a move on, which always suits me as quick and shoddy is generally the way I work. So in a way this "amateur" aesthetic to my work is achieved naturally, as i work quickly and my work has very much always had this "organised mess" quality to it, I don't generally like work that is too pretty and aesthetically perfect. 

So today I worked on my last piece to place in my bedroom installation exhibition (which is still going ahead!) which was my second bunting. I reflected on my day in London and the realization I had, so I came up with a suitable slogan for the bunting's content.

I wanted the words I chose to be deliberately cheesy, and almost like a slogan you would get in an advertisement. On reflecting on this piece though afterward, I am not so keen on the overall cheesiness, I don't know if it has achieved the irony I wanted it to. But I love the use of material and the way the material coheres with the piece, it's got a somewhat hard, industrial edge to it. It's almost like a banner you would see at a single parents or divorcee support group. And that makes it look like I'm taking the piss out of my own concept, which is interesting in itself.

This piece looks quite amateur in a deliberate and non-deliberate way. It's deliberate in the way I focus more on concept and the message my work tries to bring across, which in this case is the solitude of loneliness, and how in fact, others are lonely and sad too, yet noone speaks of it. (And this was the vibe I got on the tube on Friday) This piece seems to verbally yell the unspeakable.How my other "I wanna be where the boys are" bunting did too.

A shot of the full installation, which will be revealed to the public on Friday (for one night only) evening as a mini-exhibition.

I want this exhibition to display other ideas and contradictions too, such as exteriors and interiors, an idea I became interested with when looking at Emin's tent, how we view ourselves, and how others, from an exterior perspective, view us. Our bedrooms reveal a lot about us, through old items and little details. I also plan to photograph the little details of my room (like seen in the above Rookie Magazine installation photographs), so it's almost like three events in one, a photoshoot, an installation, and an exhibition  Here is the exhibition statement;

"SANCTUARY" BY CAITLIN MULLALLY. An installation and exhibition depicting the contradiction between interior and exterior, particularly on how others see us and how we see ourselves. Introversion and extroversion.  Inside and out.

In today’s society I think there is too much judging a book by its cover. And sometimes a bedroom space can be a window to secrets and things you’d never know about a person; photography, jewellery, icons, decorations and things that can be a window to someone’s soul. I take the idea of the interior literally, and comment on the bedroom as a space of physical and metaphorical reflection. A sanctuary."