Homeworking: A Liberated Making Process

Having realised visual outcomes independently for the first three weeks of this project, a pre-arranged FaceTime meeting enabled dialogue around developing working methodology to be shared. Ideas were exchanged in response to both the original series of pre-determined rules, in addition to emerging themes/opportunities presented through working in this way. Interestingly we both acknowledged challenges around making work at the agreed scale, and exchanged these alongside solutions found which have resulted in first ideas being altered, amended, re-imagined and re-made. We agreed that this has limited the range of media and processes able to be made use of, although in my case this smaller scale of working aligns to the smaller desk space available during homeworking. Having originally been concerned around making a response within one week, we both agreed that this timescale has liberated making with pressures of refinement removed.

We exchanged working methods noting adjustments made to how we live and work at this time, alongside the emergence of new routines around the allocation of time to this project throughout the week.  Interestingly, this different way of working seems to be enabling outcomes to be produced more quickly as the project develops and we agreed to continue with this timescale.  We both recognised being influenced from each other, and although making work individually each week, starting points such as the use of alternative words from online dictionaries, art making with found objects, and the use of every day materials are being used by both of us.   P spoke of constructing a list of media, materials and processes available to her whilst at home and then referring to this each week. I have worked in a similar way by gathering materials together, but was drawn to this way of cataloguing what is and isn’t used within each response and am interested to employ this within my own responses. Favourite processes around cataloguing, systems and structures are being returned to from earlier projects and ideas are being made use of again. Towards the end of the conversation we discussed our individual responses to the selected letter this week, and whilst some similarities exist linked to the use of dictionary definitions and responding to these alternative words alternative outcomes have been constructed.

Home-working 3: B is for…

 

P: Bookcase Background
The majority of my home working time is spent online teaching – so the dilemma of the appropriate ‘backdrop’ has had to be considered; the College directive suggests ‘be aware of where you are, try and sit in front of a plain background’. Before this process began my desk looked out onto the garden, the backdrop was a large charcoal framed drawing plus the sofa, however I made a conscious decision to reposition the desk in front of the bookcases. As TV enables us to glimpse into the homes of newsreaders, politicians and the famous on a daily basis, it is clear that the same consideration has not been afforded by everyone.

I began by reflecting on how I could catalogue the section of the bookcase that I sit in front of. Working with the B theme, I examined the spine colours of each book in beige, black and blue and then used percentages to develop the idea; disappointingly the number of books within these colour ranges was limited, therefore the concept was expanded to include all colours. Next I examined the book’s authors to find those with the surname beginning with B, these results were typed and assigned to the appropriate spine colour. On reviewing the other bookshelf contents – a box of marker pens offered further data. I selected all the blue markers and arranged them tonally from light to dark, inspired by Sam Winston’s drawing breath project, https://www.samwinston.com/artworks/drawing-breath the pens were initially depicted through line length to reflect the tonal range and thickness, however this looked too similar to the spine section; recalling the pen drawings of designer/artist Daniel Eatock https://eatock.com/2015/pen-paintings/ – tests with nib bleed were also explored, but rejected. For the final solution, I devised a system of three dot sizes to represent the small, medium or large nib sizes, and arranged these tonally.

Finally, on top of the book shelf sits a range of objects, five are blue – a jug, plant pot, three-legged giraffe, perpetual calendar and metal flask. These would form the final part of the piece. I was initially inspired by T’s approach of drawing around objects, but the scale did not sit comfortably with the other elements, so after a range of experiments I resolved to use a typographic approach, and attached a system based on the number of letters in the word of each object to a particular type size. Each word is rendered using a blue marker that reflects the colour of the object.

To present these ideas, I used a page from one of the books on the shelf that best matched our size and format – The Illustrated National Pronouncing Dictionary  – ideally the page would have been photocopied, but without access to a copier, the page had to be removed. By pure chance the word Background appears as part of the selected page.

T:  Bureau
Employing the use of an online dictionary, I began to construct a list of words which resonated in some way to home working in current times. I re-read current government policy noting words such as basic, back and balanced within the published phrases ‘shopping for basic necessities’, ‘back to normal’, ‘back to school’ and ‘lifting lockdown requires balanced judgement’. Ideas evolved around daily activities including: beginning (linking to time of day, and the starting of a new role this week), breakfast, baking, bike rides, and the process of working at my Grandma’s bureau in a corner of the lounge. I recalled both playing at the bureau in my grandparents house as a child, and receiving it as a gift from my grandparents for my 21^st birthday, and considered linking these thoughts in some way.  Thoughts around the changing role, and position of the bureau in the houses I have lived in, led to ideas which could inform composition and pattern making.

Returning to the dictionary, I noted that bureau is defined as ‘a writing desk with drawers and typically an angled top opening downwards to form a writing surface’. I was drawn to the words surface and writing and began to consider how I make use of the bureau within my current homeworking exploring hand writing, and drawing the bureau surface.  I considered the positioning of the four hinges and central locking mechanism around the edge of the writing area and began to make rubbings of these.  Reading around this process of working I noted that Max Ernst had described this as an ‘automatic drawing method’ which is ‘dictated by chance as much as choice and that the image ‘emerges onto the surface of the paper.’ Beginning to play with this process, I trialled making use of my current note book and pencil and layering rubbings of sections of the bureau writing surface on top of each other.  In consideration of this as an outcome, I was keen to include something more and, with a nod to Mira Schendel’s illegible alphabets, I used carbon paper to document of all my hand written notes produced at the bureau on the last day of the week. By turning the paper throughout the day patterns of text emerged by chance which became a surface to work on top of to record the bureau.  Continuing with the carbon paper, I made use of this to take rubbings of each hinge, allowing patterns to emerge around the outside edge informed by the placement of hinges on the writing surface. An outline of a section of my laptop, in the position I have been using it, and the date the written notes were made on the bureau were added.

 

Home-working 2: S is for…

P: Safe hands
Whilst much praise has quite rightly been awarded to the nhs, little seems to have been said of the post office workers, who, during these unusual times, offer both a sense of normality and enable access to another form of communication. My local post mistress has taken to wearing black latex gloves adorned with two large costume rings – mimicking 70s singer Alvin Stardust, and the Post Office has operated strict rules regarding entering and leaving the building from day one of the lockdown, thus ensuring customers stay safe – a much repeated phrase since the pandemic began.

This response began by bringing the above themes together, I produced a range of handmade envelopes in proportion to our finished size, some samples utilised used-envelopes, others were made from different paper stock including a map highlighting our home locations of Stamford and Banbury. Imagery was a simple hand cut shape that was inked and printed. As work progressed, I started to consider the role of the post office in more depth – information was found about the journey of a letter, and it seemed that a single posted item could pass through as many as 12 or 13 people’s hands to get from A to B. The phrase safe hands offered dual meaning, relating not only to the wearing of latex gloves, but to the wider context of our postal system. At this stage I decided that it would be appropriate to post the finished piece to T, thereby putting the work into the safe hands of the Post Office, but would it arrive promptly? and would the post office system offer any form of embellishment?

The reverse of the envelope was utilised to write a personal note to all the postal workers who would handle the letter, whilst the front was hole punched to identify the start and end locations plus the Peterborough sorting office. The glove shape was embellished with a ‘ring’ representing and paying tribute to the post mistress.

T: Stay 2m away at all times
Taking inspiration from David Hockney’s recently published drawings and accompanying letter depicting the arrival of Spring in Normandy, I selected to respond to the letter S by systematically recording my garden employing the current rule around social distancing. I began at the back door, and moved around the garden systematically selecting one new Spring plant growth every two metres. Fifteen specimens were selected in this process. These were photographed at the beginning of the week, and pressed to more clearly identify the external shape of each.  At the end of the week and making use of spot and cross dressmaking pattern paper, I arranged the sequence of plants exploring alternative positioning to  conform as accurately as possible to new social distancing guidelines.  By tracing around each plant form, and additionally drawing connecting lines, a uniform grid was produced.  This became fold lines for a maze book, which when constructed enabled further consideration of social distancing through the spaces left between each plant, and I explored the idea of making use of one of these single page layouts as the visual outcome for this week. Whilst interesting, the initial drawing of each plant lacked accuracy, and I re-traced each more carefully by trapping it in-between layers of tracing paper.  This enabled a more detailed outline to be recorded.   The use of tracing paper enabled each of the fifteen plants to be layered on top of each other creating fading outlines and overlapping shapes which presented an alternative final outcome.  I explored both making use of a only a section of each plant to conform to the agreed format, and altering the sequence of these drawings so that the sixth and seventh plants were moved to the front of the group in order to further link to the given starting point for this week. Alongside developing drawings of each found plant, I began to plot the fifteen social distancing positions in my garden and considered how I could make use of this within the final visual outcome. With a nod to Hockney’s preferred choice of media, I returned to using a pencil to produce the final outcome enjoying the time taken to make tonal marks reminiscent of natural forms.

 

Monday 20 April:  The postcard from P safely arrived with the postmark embellishment of 5 black lines printed over the red stamp

Home-working 1: 7& is for…

P: Look & Learn
At the start of the first task, work focussed on two concepts for 7 – the virtual Grand National and seven days of Twitter trending hashtags; however, both ideas failed to reflect a personal connection to the current situation. As an educator, I began to consider how in recent weeks online teaching has become normal practice, and with fewer distractions, time is currently at a premium; therefore, would it be possible for me to engage with online learning to gain a new skill? A 3 minute 30 second video showing how to hand-draw an ampersand was watched twice, I then practiced drawing as many & symbols within a set hour. Reading around systems within art, I began to draw parallels between this, and the present-day Government imposed guidelines; so the ampersand drawings were developed further by implementing mandatory rules (not dissimilar to the Windham project), thereby taking away artistic freedom. Having completed the first piece, a day later I drew for a further 33minutes to produce a new set of ampersands, the quality of these drawings were better, and whilst a set of similar rules were applied, the outcome bears little resemblance to the first solution.

T: Positive Connections
First ideas included utalising each day of the week, daily routines, sequences, and rhythms of dancing, walking and running.  Reading around the number 7, I noted links with luck, colour, music, sins, virtues and wonders! I considered the count of 8 used within dancing and running as a way to visualise &.  I mapped out the shape of my current daily exercise and trialled the use of this as a first visual response.  As I began to gather materials and surfaces to make use of, I read around the working methods of Louise Baldwin and Agnes Martin.  Working often in isolation, Martin made work at a uniform size, visualising  positive emotions, which often incorporated pencil line grids cut into the surface of a pre-painted background. Baldwin makes use of everyday packaging, cutting this down, turning it upside down and rearranging.  In response, I returned to a first idea around the 7 days of the week and how government imposed homeworking has impacted upon this. I have maintained the (happy) daily routine of a morning coffee and swapped the take away cup for favourite mugs from my home. I have continued to use my work diary, recording video calls and family events as week 3 of lockdown coincides with week 1 on the Easter holiday. I selected to use the layout of lines across 7 days within this work diary as a first pattern of lines. I plan to form the solid bands, seen in the work of Martin, by using sections of envelopes received in the post throughout the week.  Over the top, I will position and trace around 7 cups to imply the 7 cups of morning coffee enjoyed within this week. The colour palette will be taken from given surfaces and used objects.

In constructing the piece, I noted the smaller scale of working suits my new home desk! I received only 3 letters this week – a book, a letter from the UK Government about Covid 19, and a bank statement contained within a white envelope which was grey inside. Whilst planning the pattern of lines taking from my diary, I noticed that Tuesday was 7 April and removed this number from the page of my diary to make use of within the final visual response. The placement of this is aligned to its original position within my diary and links with my daily ritual at the start of each day. The additional yellow and red sections are taken from the colour of the mugs I have used for my morning coffee to visualise something of my positive experience of home working.

Homeworking

 

 

 

A pre-arranged FaceTime meeting was an opportunity to discuss the next stage of the P White/typewriter project.

Our previous discussion had led us to consider the current world-wide, covid19 crisis – and how as artists we could respond to this through our work. Ideas around social distancing and isolation were considered and parallels were drawn between the current situation of enforced isolation, and what would be considered the self-imposed isolation of P White – as a writer.

The very nature of creative writing is a solitary pursuit, but without taking great care, can morph into a feeling of isolation. And this can occur whether an author lives in a quiet rural town or in midtown Manhattan. Dan Balow.
https://stevelaube.com/the-isolated-writer/

This theory is supported by Ernest Hemingway who is quoted as saying “Writing, at its best, is a lonely life.” He also said “There is nothing to writing. All you do all you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” Did this resonate with P White?

However, whilst for P White isolation was a choice, we find ourselves in the unusual situation of not having a choice, and having to follow Government guidelines and adapt to living and working in isolation.

So how could we bring P White’s 1976 world into the present? It began by considering aspects of the typewriter… the ribbon / the qwerty keyboard / correction papers; the proposal was – could the keys offer an opportunity for us to respond individually to a specific letter or symbol and to build up a body of work in response to these extraordinary times?  T suggested that in the spirit of ‘social distancing’ only alternate keys from the keyboard should be used, so drawing upon previous working practices we started to make a series of decisions to initiate the project.

Size: The initial proposal was to continue working at A6, the format of the WBN postcards; however we returned to the correction papers, each measured 60 x 86mm, placing two side by side offered a working size of 86 x 120mm.

Format: We discussed whether or not to keep the format optional, T suggested that for continuity it should be pre-determined – the decision was made by working alphabetically with the toss of a coin, landscape = heads / portrait = tails, the latter won.

Process: Various issues were discussed, including whether or not to include the symbol keys, it was decided that as they appear as part of the numeral keys they could offer an alternative option if required. Using alternate keys will result in a total of 20 letters, numerals/symbols. The time scale – as we have a two week holiday, we will initially work to a one week deadline per key, however this can be reviewed as the project develops. We will work in isolation, blogging our finished piece together at the end of each week. For production purposes we will only use materials currently available to us in our respective homes.

Starting Point: The project will start today, Monday 6 April, as we enter week 3 of isolation in Britain.  Alternative typewriter keys have been selected, printed, and placed within a box to be selected each week.  The first has been drawn and we have 1 week to produce a visual response.

Our aim is this will become  A Visual Study of Homeworking 2020.