Phaedrus 2006-2012
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6 weeks from rebeccamarystrain on Vimeo. |
"A few days ago I watched a video clip about the work of Motoi Yamamoto who works with salt. He has developed work were at the end of the exhibition members of the public come and scrape away the salt and take it home with them. Some keep it and others scatter it into the sea. He says his greatest hope is that some of this salt returns back to him to continue to make his sculptures and installations. This cycle of making involving the intervention of nature for its production is appealing to me as an artist. I have felt that my performative occupations have value in the fact they become something else for someone else, like the paper made for Sex Lives of the Poor and Unknown.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde makes a list of statements in the preface which define art and the role of the artist. The last lines read “We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.”
Well made paper which is open to possibilities is a useful thing. Blank space made using papermaking actions and methods may not be as useful as it may not function as paper does. It can be admired for its intention and for its own sake as a form and image. Blank space which could be useful should be used, preferably to make it useless so that we may admire it as art. Gifting a blank space to another, places the responsibility for its transformation into something to be admired, onto the receiver of that blank space. But there is a relationship between the giver and receiver. If it is a gift then the receiver decides whether to accept and the gift becomes a temporary property because the process of gift giving belongs to its own economy and is also cyclical as Lewis Hyde explains in his 1979 book The Gift.
To have made something that has the possibility of entering the gift economy, is to make something that is connected to what has gone before it and acts as a provocation for others to act, participate and make decisions as if we’ll never know what might have happened."
Introduction:
Initially after a chance encounter in the college library I happened upon the writings of Edward deBono ‘The Father of Lateral Thinking’. I began reading his 27th book written in 1991, with its yellowed Penguin leaves, in spring of 2012. It was a neat pocket-sized paperback so I read it cover to cover, twice. The forewords were all by Nobel Prizing winning Physicists; Ivar Giaever, Sheldon Lee Glashow and Brian Josephson. Later in the year I found a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I read the preface and I had to keep it. These two, as well as conversations about Situationist International and books on space and curating informed most of my theoretical research. The majority of my research during this phase has been spent creating space.
Daily Diary
When I am making, I have found it beneficial and it has now become my habit, to keep a daily hand written journal in exercise books. Initially I had been using a public blog to document my daily reflections but I found that as I began making I was less comfortable with this practice, but I still felt it was important to keep a journal. I recently came across Bobby Bakers Diary Drawings, where she made paintings; illustrating her day on a daily, then on a weekly basis. Selected paintings were shown at the Welcome Collection in 2009. In the introduction Marina Warner discusses the use of the diary format.
Monday 30th July, diary, Rebecca Strain 2012 ‘But there’s another intrinsic quality of the diary form that comes into play here: for a storyteller, and BB has grounded her art in the narratives of ‘Daily Life’ as she has lived it, diaries do not know what is going to happen.’ [1]
This not knowing what will happen is apparent in my work also. Early in the phase I asked an old tutor to write a reference for me. She also picked up on my attitude to making.
“I continue to see the reflective, quiet natured, very contemplative artist who doesn’t try to control or harness creativity but in fact, unleashes and allows it to follow its own route. She watches as it develops and is influenced by its directions.”[2] Carole Kane
In my journal and through documentation or blogs I observe and reflect on the journey as it is unfolding.
My most successful projects have had time limitations. Indeed throughout the MA I have been guided by deadlines. I start with materials, place and me as a maker. I begin to perform making paper and when something unusual on unpredicted happens in the making process I consider this and decide whether to allow it to come to continue to evolve.
Situation
In a recent tutorial Lisa Richards pointed out that I am “Constructing a situation, participation, questions about decisions we make every day.”[3] In the Oxford dictionary Situation is defined as:
“Noun
1 a set of circumstances in which one finds oneself; a state of affairs:
2 the location and surroundings of a place:
3 formal a position of employment; a job.
Origin:
late Middle English (in situation (sense 2)): from French, or from medieval Latin situatio(n-), from situare ‘to place’ (see situate). Sense 1 dates from the early 18th century”[4]
It is interesting to note the mention of circumstances and place. I am most productive when I have located a space to make because the type of work I make depends on the materials I am using within the restrictions of the space I am working in.
For the final project I have occupied most of Northlight Studio 4 since 9th July. When I began working Tom Hall was making a huge rocket from cardboard. For a week and a half I sat quietly in the corner tearing up piles of paper, thinking and observing.
I sometimes read what I had put away to be used for new paper; looking at these insignificant moments of my past which have been brought into the present again. I wondered about all the decisions I’ve made from day-to-day. At the time I may have agonised over the choice or barely been aware of the decision, maybe I decided not to decide. I would never know if they were they right decisions because I will never know what could have happened; in which case I began to wonder if I should worry about decisions in the present. I wondered about what control I have over my life or what parts of it I assert control over.
I spoke to my mentor about control in relation to ritual and compulsion. We wondered if rituals became compulsive because of mental illness or whether the compulsive rituals actually suppressed mental illness. Maybe they are a way of coping. I spent two years in psychotherapy, a year on anti depressant and six months in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and underwent Neuro-Linguistic Programming; I learned how to cope, but I have to keep reminding myself that I have these tools, weapons rather, against mental illness. I am suppressing, controlling or in control of my mental health? How much control can we have over our thoughts and emotions? What is going on in there and what can we do about it? My mentor has an interest in brain patterning and had watched moving images of brain activity in people with autism who often show compulsive behaviour. The pattern is considerably different to subjects not on the autistic spectrum.
PO
I’ve also seen these and this is possibly why I was attracted to de Bonos theories about how the brain works. In his chapter ‘Sequence Patterns’ he talks about the brain as a patterning system. ‘Traditional computers have to struggle quite hard to make and recognise patterns. The brain makes patterns very easily and recognises them instantly. This is the very nature of the brain and arises directly from the way self-organising systems work.”[5] He goes on to talk about how we can develop these patterns, create side tracks. His tool for this is a term ‘po’ which is ‘to signal that something is to be held outside of pattern and pattern flows and judgement.’[6]
Possibly meaning provocation ‘po’ ‘is designed to perturb the system and it is the benefits of that perturbation that justify the provocation.’[7]
I have created my own words for ‘po’ to stand for: Performative Occupation. For me it refers to the situation and space and the action within; occupying space and time. The term occupation also refers to a job, which in my current practice refers to my performance as a paper maker. It is not my job to make paper but I perform the actions of a paper maker. Sometimes this Performative Occupation results in paper being made but it is the process and the decisions made by me as a performer of this activity and what this signifies, rather than a mechanical doing of this activity that makes it different to the activity of making paper.
Slowly I began to move my torn piles out into the middle of the floor; testing the space. When Tom Hall moved out my working space began to expand to take in the whole room. I used the space to move the paper I had been peacefully tearing into the centre of the room where it cause an obstruction to the thoroughfare. I observed as passers-by hopped and skipped over the piled paper, and ensured doors were closed carefully so that no draught disturbed the paper. I continued to make access more difficult for those walking through the space. It was a little game I was playing to encourage them to participate in what was going on.
Discourse
Because of this physical engagement there was considerable verbal interaction with the process. People asked all sorts of questions about the material, my plans, how long it will take to make, what I will do with it etc. They offered suggestions as to how I could go forward and commented on what it looked like to them. Many offered to help but I was reluctant to begin with. Then Miki Wanibuchi came by as I was in the process of applying the final layer to my paper.
I was worried there would not be enough pulp to cover the whole space so Paul Hearn who was washing his paint pot at the sink suggested that I ladle out portions at regular intervals. I had created a pattern of blobs and was patting and spreading them out when Hiroko Matsushita and Miki came into my space. Hiroko commented that it looked like I was farming or maybe it was like a big tray of cookies. Tomasz Radjek was also there and began to take photographs of the blobs and the patting and spreading. Miki then asked if she could help and it seemed that now was a good time to say yes.
When something interesting could happen like the evidence of collaborative activity I decided to embrace the chance. We both crouched over the paper patting delicately, pretending to be the oven for the cookies that were too buttery and were spreading out to make one giant cookie. As we gently patted the wet pulp it felt quite playful like making mud pies as a child. Miki tried to explain the feeling; uncomplicated, basic, primal. We imagined a group of children would enjoy this activity.
Trans[from/mute/action]
Whilst working in the space I have occupied myself with two main activities. One is working with the hoarded paper and the second is a daily ritual. Every day, usually after lunch I walk to the shop in Talbot village and buy a Daily Mail newspaper and get a receipt. When I get back I put it in a canvas bag from the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield and back-stitch the top, fold it and hem-stitch the folded fabric. This is to ensure I do not break this washing machine by allowing the pulp to escape its canvas container.
When I first washed a newspaper I broke my washing machine and flooded my kitchen floor three times attempting to fix it, but a few days later a small green shoot grew out of the wet paper. I exhibited the work at Gallery Soup but allowed the plant to die as the paper dried. I feel guilty about this; so every day I wash a newspaper in the hope that it will grow also. As yet it has borne no fruit, but on Friday the newspaper had the same advertisement as the original newspaper I washed: ‘£150 worth of plants free’. Maybe this will be the one or maybe I need to break the washing machine before it will grow.
Engaging in simultaneous activities is something I learned from my father. When I was young I would work for my uncle in his store. I complained that the work was boring so my dad suggested I give myself two tasks so that when I get bored with one I can take up the other task. I have continued to use this method in my art practice. When one activity comes to a pause or I get frustrated with it I can occupy my time with a secondary activity until the issue is resolved on the other activity. In Tallinn I made paper and I also made tea for visitors. When I got tired of the physical activity of paper making I would stop and make more tea, sit and sip tea, talk, listen or take a walk to the shop to get more tea.
In The Picture of Dorian Gray Wilde makes a list of statements in the preface which define art and the role of the artist. The last lines read “We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.”
Well made paper which is open to possibilities is a useful thing. Blank space made using papermaking actions and methods may not be as useful as it may not function as paper does. It can be admired for its intention and for its own sake as a form and image. Blank space which could be useful should be used, preferably to make it useless so that we may admire it as art. Gifting a blank space to another, places the responsibility for its transformation into something to be admired, onto the receiver of that blank space. But there is a relationship between the giver and receiver. If it is a gift then the receiver decides whether to accept and the gift becomes a temporary property because the process of gift giving belongs to its own economy and is also cyclical as Lewis Hyde explains in his 1979 book The Gift.
To have made something that has the possibility of entering the gift economy, is to make something that is connected to what has gone before it and acts as a provocation for others to act, participate and make decisions as if we’ll never know what might have happened."
Introduction:
Initially after a chance encounter in the college library I happened upon the writings of Edward deBono ‘The Father of Lateral Thinking’. I began reading his 27th book written in 1991, with its yellowed Penguin leaves, in spring of 2012. It was a neat pocket-sized paperback so I read it cover to cover, twice. The forewords were all by Nobel Prizing winning Physicists; Ivar Giaever, Sheldon Lee Glashow and Brian Josephson. Later in the year I found a copy of The Picture of Dorian Gray. I read the preface and I had to keep it. These two, as well as conversations about Situationist International and books on space and curating informed most of my theoretical research. The majority of my research during this phase has been spent creating space.
Daily Diary
When I am making, I have found it beneficial and it has now become my habit, to keep a daily hand written journal in exercise books. Initially I had been using a public blog to document my daily reflections but I found that as I began making I was less comfortable with this practice, but I still felt it was important to keep a journal. I recently came across Bobby Bakers Diary Drawings, where she made paintings; illustrating her day on a daily, then on a weekly basis. Selected paintings were shown at the Welcome Collection in 2009. In the introduction Marina Warner discusses the use of the diary format.
Monday 30th July, diary, Rebecca Strain 2012 ‘But there’s another intrinsic quality of the diary form that comes into play here: for a storyteller, and BB has grounded her art in the narratives of ‘Daily Life’ as she has lived it, diaries do not know what is going to happen.’ [1]
This not knowing what will happen is apparent in my work also. Early in the phase I asked an old tutor to write a reference for me. She also picked up on my attitude to making.
“I continue to see the reflective, quiet natured, very contemplative artist who doesn’t try to control or harness creativity but in fact, unleashes and allows it to follow its own route. She watches as it develops and is influenced by its directions.”[2] Carole Kane
In my journal and through documentation or blogs I observe and reflect on the journey as it is unfolding.
My most successful projects have had time limitations. Indeed throughout the MA I have been guided by deadlines. I start with materials, place and me as a maker. I begin to perform making paper and when something unusual on unpredicted happens in the making process I consider this and decide whether to allow it to come to continue to evolve.
Situation
In a recent tutorial Lisa Richards pointed out that I am “Constructing a situation, participation, questions about decisions we make every day.”[3] In the Oxford dictionary Situation is defined as:
“Noun
1 a set of circumstances in which one finds oneself; a state of affairs:
2 the location and surroundings of a place:
3 formal a position of employment; a job.
Origin:
late Middle English (in situation (sense 2)): from French, or from medieval Latin situatio(n-), from situare ‘to place’ (see situate). Sense 1 dates from the early 18th century”[4]
It is interesting to note the mention of circumstances and place. I am most productive when I have located a space to make because the type of work I make depends on the materials I am using within the restrictions of the space I am working in.
For the final project I have occupied most of Northlight Studio 4 since 9th July. When I began working Tom Hall was making a huge rocket from cardboard. For a week and a half I sat quietly in the corner tearing up piles of paper, thinking and observing.
I sometimes read what I had put away to be used for new paper; looking at these insignificant moments of my past which have been brought into the present again. I wondered about all the decisions I’ve made from day-to-day. At the time I may have agonised over the choice or barely been aware of the decision, maybe I decided not to decide. I would never know if they were they right decisions because I will never know what could have happened; in which case I began to wonder if I should worry about decisions in the present. I wondered about what control I have over my life or what parts of it I assert control over.
I spoke to my mentor about control in relation to ritual and compulsion. We wondered if rituals became compulsive because of mental illness or whether the compulsive rituals actually suppressed mental illness. Maybe they are a way of coping. I spent two years in psychotherapy, a year on anti depressant and six months in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and underwent Neuro-Linguistic Programming; I learned how to cope, but I have to keep reminding myself that I have these tools, weapons rather, against mental illness. I am suppressing, controlling or in control of my mental health? How much control can we have over our thoughts and emotions? What is going on in there and what can we do about it? My mentor has an interest in brain patterning and had watched moving images of brain activity in people with autism who often show compulsive behaviour. The pattern is considerably different to subjects not on the autistic spectrum.
PO
I’ve also seen these and this is possibly why I was attracted to de Bonos theories about how the brain works. In his chapter ‘Sequence Patterns’ he talks about the brain as a patterning system. ‘Traditional computers have to struggle quite hard to make and recognise patterns. The brain makes patterns very easily and recognises them instantly. This is the very nature of the brain and arises directly from the way self-organising systems work.”[5] He goes on to talk about how we can develop these patterns, create side tracks. His tool for this is a term ‘po’ which is ‘to signal that something is to be held outside of pattern and pattern flows and judgement.’[6]
Possibly meaning provocation ‘po’ ‘is designed to perturb the system and it is the benefits of that perturbation that justify the provocation.’[7]
I have created my own words for ‘po’ to stand for: Performative Occupation. For me it refers to the situation and space and the action within; occupying space and time. The term occupation also refers to a job, which in my current practice refers to my performance as a paper maker. It is not my job to make paper but I perform the actions of a paper maker. Sometimes this Performative Occupation results in paper being made but it is the process and the decisions made by me as a performer of this activity and what this signifies, rather than a mechanical doing of this activity that makes it different to the activity of making paper.
Slowly I began to move my torn piles out into the middle of the floor; testing the space. When Tom Hall moved out my working space began to expand to take in the whole room. I used the space to move the paper I had been peacefully tearing into the centre of the room where it cause an obstruction to the thoroughfare. I observed as passers-by hopped and skipped over the piled paper, and ensured doors were closed carefully so that no draught disturbed the paper. I continued to make access more difficult for those walking through the space. It was a little game I was playing to encourage them to participate in what was going on.
Discourse
Because of this physical engagement there was considerable verbal interaction with the process. People asked all sorts of questions about the material, my plans, how long it will take to make, what I will do with it etc. They offered suggestions as to how I could go forward and commented on what it looked like to them. Many offered to help but I was reluctant to begin with. Then Miki Wanibuchi came by as I was in the process of applying the final layer to my paper.
I was worried there would not be enough pulp to cover the whole space so Paul Hearn who was washing his paint pot at the sink suggested that I ladle out portions at regular intervals. I had created a pattern of blobs and was patting and spreading them out when Hiroko Matsushita and Miki came into my space. Hiroko commented that it looked like I was farming or maybe it was like a big tray of cookies. Tomasz Radjek was also there and began to take photographs of the blobs and the patting and spreading. Miki then asked if she could help and it seemed that now was a good time to say yes.
When something interesting could happen like the evidence of collaborative activity I decided to embrace the chance. We both crouched over the paper patting delicately, pretending to be the oven for the cookies that were too buttery and were spreading out to make one giant cookie. As we gently patted the wet pulp it felt quite playful like making mud pies as a child. Miki tried to explain the feeling; uncomplicated, basic, primal. We imagined a group of children would enjoy this activity.
Trans[from/mute/action]
Whilst working in the space I have occupied myself with two main activities. One is working with the hoarded paper and the second is a daily ritual. Every day, usually after lunch I walk to the shop in Talbot village and buy a Daily Mail newspaper and get a receipt. When I get back I put it in a canvas bag from the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield and back-stitch the top, fold it and hem-stitch the folded fabric. This is to ensure I do not break this washing machine by allowing the pulp to escape its canvas container.
When I first washed a newspaper I broke my washing machine and flooded my kitchen floor three times attempting to fix it, but a few days later a small green shoot grew out of the wet paper. I exhibited the work at Gallery Soup but allowed the plant to die as the paper dried. I feel guilty about this; so every day I wash a newspaper in the hope that it will grow also. As yet it has borne no fruit, but on Friday the newspaper had the same advertisement as the original newspaper I washed: ‘£150 worth of plants free’. Maybe this will be the one or maybe I need to break the washing machine before it will grow.
Engaging in simultaneous activities is something I learned from my father. When I was young I would work for my uncle in his store. I complained that the work was boring so my dad suggested I give myself two tasks so that when I get bored with one I can take up the other task. I have continued to use this method in my art practice. When one activity comes to a pause or I get frustrated with it I can occupy my time with a secondary activity until the issue is resolved on the other activity. In Tallinn I made paper and I also made tea for visitors. When I got tired of the physical activity of paper making I would stop and make more tea, sit and sip tea, talk, listen or take a walk to the shop to get more tea.
