I haven’t written on this blog for a while so would like to catch up! Since the Journal project, we have began the “Author” part of the course and so far I haven’t been happy with the projects set, I thought we’d be able to start on some traditional narrative illustration but I guess they still think we’re not ready and to quote the brief, they are still looking for us to “develop mechanisms for the generation of ideas/concepts” The first was part of this brief was not too bad, we had to make/gather imagery that described “our world” thinking about the relationships we have and how we make sense of the society around us and its hierachies etc etc and then from this define and isolate our “primary needs for survival” which went beyond food, drink and shelter. I felt we’d already done this before with the Object and Universe briefs and also when we first started on the course and had to bring ephemera that had some sort of significance to us, all these briefs were concerned either with collecting or with quite a personal analysis of the world. I hadn’t expected this from an Illustration course as I had done a Fine Art Foundation the year before and it felt too alike, with this preoccupation with self and “inner meaning”. But I appreciated they really wanted us to maybe analyse or extend our ideas and working methods. I began the project by collecting a photo of myself for each year of my life (I had seen something similar done in one of the exhibitions that had come into Camberwell College) and then writing something significant that had happened in history in that year. I liked the strange juxtaposition between the baby photos and the official looking writing to the side of political goings on but at the same time, this was my way of analysing and describing the society around me and how actual bigger wider politics affected my life, for example how the perestroika era in Russia caused my parents to emigrate.
Unfortunately the image quality is not very good because I had trouble with my computer and have had to use another one that doesn’t have Adobe Illustrator installed onto it and so the images don’t show up on it. These are scanned in versions of pages I’d already done on the computer. Anyway this timeline actually took me longer to put together then I’d expected, finding suitable photos and trying to figure out their exact year date wasn’t too hard, what was more difficult was researching for relevant historical information for each year that made a direct impact on my life and I ended up adding to this bigger global events and events that I took an interest in knowing about which may have not yet shown a direct impact on my day to day life. Overall I am quite pleased with it and only wish that it could have been more succint and more interalated with the events. Also in analysing society and hierachies and the “environments [I] inhabit” I drew a large diagram of how the cliques in my class were arranged and for personal relationships I made a family tree. The brief also stated that I “think about the personal objects” I “use that are critical to your physical/psychological wellbeing” With this I collected objects that were nearly always with me, keys, money, debit card etc that I clearly needed everyday, then objects that were mostly at home but because of what they provided in terms of hygiene and looking nice were still important ei hairbrush, toothbrush, tooth paste and then obviously objects that I use for my craft such as a pen, pencil, scissors and a paintbrush. I made use of the access dates to use the etching facillities, I made a photocopy of these objects and then used the photocopy to make a sketch of them onto the metal. At first I was just getting back into etching which I had done a lot of last year and getting used to the Camberwell facilities and making lots of prints just to experiment. But then I started using others colours and after making a straight print with red ink and blue ink, I made one with both, the red was at the top because at the top I realised were the objects I needed the most for my day to day existance and survival such as the debit card (money to get food/drink) and keys (shelter), and objects essential to my “emotional well being” such as the pen (to draw, write, work) and mobile (contact with others). The blue ink was at the bottom as there were the objects I needed much less such as my toothbrush and hairbrush. So the red was meant to be a symbol for higher importance as it is usually a colour used to show heat, important announcements and stronger feelings whereas blue is used to show coldness and appathy. It is good that most of the objects fell quite well into place into this diagram as I had sketched them out beforehand without considering how I placed them unless unconsciously. There are a few objects out of place though, the paintbrush is too low down and so is a coin but the I suppose I do need the money itself just the things it can provide me with.
Through the imagery I’d made and collated throughout for the brief I was able to identify my “needs” as stated in the brief which apart from my primary needs was recording and learning. And I am glad I did the back up work for it because when we came to discuss what we had collected in our tutor groups I found that many people started from their needs straight away and brought in objects that they thought demonstrated them when it clearly says in the brief to define your needs AFTER you’ve got an “encyclopaedic range of material”.
