Oct ’17

Making day

| jonwhitbread

Worked at home in basement.

Strong coffee.

Had to go out into the cold wet morning to buy pegs.

Then up and down stairs with various sculptures.

Tracing and rubbing each side with black oil pastel, sometimes carved into for texture and as a gesture to carved stone, onto 50gsm paper that has a lovely texture and sound.

Child-like sense of excitement.

Pleased with results. X-rays.

I’ve been making plinths For Found Objects.

They’re about how the unconscious and conscious communicate. I carve and sandblast the stone to create a stage for the story.

These drawings are a parody of scientific methodology searching for large and small objects as tho they might contain meaning.

They’re a parody of my own search for meaning.

They’re a comment on the impenetrability of contemporary art and its language and on the ‘scientificisation’ (necessarily ugly word) of art, how we are required to support our work with data, methodology and evidence.

They’re a rejection of making drawing for sculpture, instead making sculpture for drawing.

A probing of cause and effect, with plinth, drawing, sculpture and object all sharing equal and holistic status.

 

 

Research

| jonwhitbread

Im struggling with trying to come up with an area for my research essay/project.

I think its to do with the fact that my interests, what I make art about, are internal, rarely external.

Therefore I think i need to find an external subject to challenge myself.

Im aware that my practice is self-indulgent. Im aware that art is being kept alive, relevant and valid by artists that work in the political realm (small ‘p’ political)

eg yesterday I streamed a symposium #workingacrossdivides

with Alisdair Hudson (Middlesboro Institute of Modern art) and Barby Asante (artist) at the Goethe Institute

where a whole other world (real world) of art practice was described that takes place within communities, enabling marginalised people through art.

It makes me feel old fashioned and stuckist. However I am 52 and on my own journey and I am constantly challenging myself.

However here is an opportunity to research unfamiliar territory.

The plinth and the hierarchy of art presentation? (reflecting my current explorations)

Hamada pottery? (gesture, the unconscious, alchemy, art object)

Is all art (including political) illustration? When is art not illustration? (eg when it describes, explains or reflects it is illustration so all pre-religious art, religious art and much of modern art is illustration. Discuss)

How have artists sought to address antagonistic political movements? (thinking of the failure of humour and head-on resistance art to the rise of Neo-Populism in US and here) (quite like this one).

Id love to come up with an idiosyncratic Cabinet style area that is ‘alive, relevant and valid’.

Looking at Barbaras proposals im quite awed and intimidated!

 

 

Plinths For Found Objects

| jonwhitbread

I found these objects in stone that I tore apart, destroyed, replaced. These are salvage. I have polished their feet and found them a new home. On one level. A sort of anthropomorphic explanation. What really explains the history of this journey? Only the interplay of unconscious and conscious states. Despite being entirely unconnected in the material world, the male torso-like object fits inside the female objects.

 

 

Value And Portal 2

| jonwhitbread

Taking donated, salvaged portland stone from a V and A Museum restoration contract.

Slicing it up on the saw, using an angle grinder to cut a slot – I plan to fill this with concrete, allow to set, then cut off face, hopefully slicing through the stone, cement and shingle then honing the rest to a smooth surface.

A partner piece to Portal.

Taking things that might be considered valueless and attempting to render valuable – perhaps ask the OCAMA16 cohort if it helps them to define value?

Curiosity, Uncertainty and Exploration

| jonwhitbread

Ive been taking oil pastels and carving them with a toothed stone tool called a drag then, in the pics below, attempting a response to the fires in SF, USA. Why did I carve the pastel? it was an instinctive gesture – a connection to my usual way of working – removing material to leave behind a mark. Also it enables me to suggest sediment – depth –  layers – representing Psyche but also perspective.  Used same drag to tear paper for horizon – destruction and creation.

Now im working on the next phase of the experiment combining my project of making Plinths for found objects (in this case half a copper tie i cut from old masonry on some forgotten job and some brass ties I cut from some stone steps in a monastery that held rods to keep a carpet in place) that have been sitting, neglected for years in my found object collection. I plan to set these into stone using sandblasting but in the meantime I am studying them in the basement, turning off the light and rendering them blind onto paper with minimal gesture. Why? Alexa Cox talked about ‘authenticity of line’ and here I am attempting to find such a thing. But also im playing with the Dali/Breton idea that all found objects have been waiting in the unconscious.