Mudrock wall!!!

Mudrock Wall!

Stills from performance, merging with the wallish! Just a wee bit of fun!

It's been a whhile since I updated my blog. Not much has changed, still struggling and trudging along.

Here is a few pics of things I've been up to over the past few months.....

These are stills from experiments with Sam Wolf, a dear friend of mine. Any excuse to get naked and play with charcoal dust.

Round two..

Today I did some more experiments using the ceramic slip, I added some more water so it dried quicker, and I wasn't quite so cold. Here are the results...

Drying....

Flaking...

The whole thing felt so strange, like I was weighed down, the feeling of having a second skin, tight and constricting, like I was going t break in half.

Also did some body prints, just as a little side thing, this is what the space looked like after....

Have to be off will post some more details about the process in the next few days.

Finally did it wooop!

Since my last update (which was a bit of a non-blog moment) I have been rather busy with this performance lark. It was a really great experience, and I can't wait to see what is going to happen next time. So here are just a few photo's taken by Jodie who helped me a lot on the performance day.

So I was caked in this stuff called white stoneware slip, usually used for casting in ceramics into moulds, it's great stuff, but unfortunately I didn't anticipate it to dry so slowly, I was lying completely still for the best part of an hour or so. 

I rather like the kind of oily appearance of the liquid in the pooling around my body. 

When I got up I wasn't completely dry, so the cracking happened in places, but not everywhere, so for next time I am going to add more water to the mixture making it less gloopy and stodgy.

There was something really animalistic and almost reptile like about the texture on my skin.

On Friday I am going to repeat the process again tweaking certain elements (hopefully can get hold of a heater, was bloody freezing), I would also like to get a hold of different types of slip (porceline, terracotta) to layer with the white stoneware, and do some more experiments. Also thinking of body positioning and figuring out if it would work in a gallery/seminar setting.

Will keep posting..

Back over weekend of excess.

Ok so was a little unproductive in terms of work progression this weekend, but have formulated quite a lot of ideas for work that I want to do, so all is well.

Will be posting images of the performance that will be happening on Wed soon....

Have been thinking about encorporating something I am doing, day to day with my work....tight lacing, I am currently in the process of waist-training, constraining myself with a corset, hopefully making my waist naturally about 4 inches smaller...

I am considering keeping a diary of sorts about this process, not certain yet but going to work the details out this week....

Short one today have to be off, have a study support session for my essay panic, it's in 35mins and I have no idea where I'm going.

Herbal tea for inner calm....chain smoking for intense anxiety.

Feeling rather pensive, I had an excellent elective this morning by the ever dashing Dr. Dan Smith, on Material Culture, which plagues and delights and defines us as a society, within the realm of material culture the whole of expression falls (or so I've heard). Mind boggling stuff....but anyhow I feel like I need to take a big old step back and work on understanding my relationship with the world around me, rather than biting off more than I can chew, which I am in great danger of doing if I continue with this train of thought.


Ok so instead of dealing with the objects (places/music/conversations/people..) that make up my life, I am going to look at the body, more specifically my body, as a form of expression...I should at this point say that I have been reading Christopher Bollas's "Being A Character-Psychoanalysis and Self-Experience" which is dominant in my theoretical thinking right now.....which hopefully explains why I sound a little on the airy side.


So anyhow I have indeed been working with ceramics, the fragility being a trait of the medium that I adore, and tried to do some body casting a couple of weeks ago, which didn't really pan out (which is a big old source of anxiety in my world right now....no physical work to speak of!), so here is my plan for the following week:


I am in the planning process of a performance piece that will hopefully be happening on 03/11/10 and the following 3 days in room A119 at Chelsea, I am still a bit uncertain about how I want to go about this....


The idea that I had was to use stoneware ceramic slip which is an incredible liquidy gloopy texture to begin with and hard and brittle when dry, as a forms of covering my body, layering it and allowing it to dry, while remaining as still as possible, the idea being that when I do begin to move the ceramic will crack, creating all sorts of interesting results, I do stress that this project is in the initial stages, and therefore I haven't really had time to deal with the implications of this on any kind of level, but hopefully I will get something from these experiments that will lead on to other ideas and other pieces.


The form of documentation for the performance is something that I have debated with myself about. I have decided that for the experiment I will have the help of a lovely art student called Jodie Gooch, who will be strapped with a digital camera and a normal SLR with film to document the results, but I do think that I may be more comfortable, having seen the results after the first performance to actually perform to an audience....this remains to be seen.






I shall post the results on my lovely blog.....


ps. if you want to know more about the collaboration with Emine I will write about that tomorrow.

So this is blogging eh....

Okay so as this is my first blog I feel I ought to introduce myself, not in a David Copperfield way.. starting from the moment of conception but where I am as I currently stand. I am a Fine Art Student (I do use that term loosely) studying at Chelsea College of Art and Design, trudging through my second year. My flatmate/friend/lover/sister/mother Emine Jones-Burke, suggested that I take this up, you know as a forms of spreading whatever it is that I wish to share, that has not already been shared in my over articulated life.

Currently high on my list of woes is a 2000 word essay with a looming deadline of 16th November, I have some ideas for topics, but am currently struggling to focus. "The Female Nude"....something quite broad perhaps? This would be something to get my teeth into, quite an obvious choice for me since my work seems to be leaning towards the body, self-representation and self-experience, a good fit for essay maybe, but slightly daunting since the woman marking my essay, Maria Walsh, is particularly interested in the feminist outlook, and representations of the body. But anyhow I'm sure that it will all pan out....If anyone knows of any useful texts, artists, articles,exhibitions that could be helpful it would be really appreciated!!!!!

Collaborative Work
As previously mentioned, my wonderful flatmate and I as well as being entwined by the loins are going to be working bosom to bosom on a piece of collaborative work, looking (from her end) at Narcissus, symbolism linked to the flower, the ego etc.

Currently I am working on some body casting using ceramic mediums, looking at the "shell of self" (pretentious I know....you start reading some psychoanalysis and you think you know shit, but you really don't), representations of the nude, objectivity and attitudes to the body in the art world. So we figured that it would be interesting if we together could explore the similar themes of self-representation. But I shall let her elaborate more about her ideas in her blog (Emines Enema).The link is..... http://www.eminesenema.blogspot.com/
Previous Work
Here is a few images of pieces I worked on last year:

These are casts made from wax, a long and arduous process, a labour of love.

The last 2 images are from an impromptu show called NO SHOW, I was looking at appropriation of the body, and also the way that we deal with art as something precious. The work got trampled and crushed, this also relates to my love of fragile mediums, unfired clay, porcelain, wax etc.

Well I think I am done for today! Would love to get feedback from anyone who is interested! Shall keep posting....