Beginning of a new idea

I want to try and move on from looking just at death and look into the whole life cycle, New life, Being reborn, life after death i'm not sure where this will take me as i have only just begun investigating. I created these piece's this morning and hope to generate a lot more experimental pieces on the same topic.

Fusion

Not being sure as to wether i am generating appropriate material for this next part of the silence brief i have been faffing about with the grave rubbings and photographs, i created these yesterday.

La Antena

Flicking through channels late last night into the morning hours i stumbled across a film called La Antena the description was a futuristic sci fi set in a city which has lost its voice. Intrigued i thought i should watch at least the first half hour to see if it would be any good and of course because of the reference to silence, This film was so unexpected it was filmed in b&w and was absolutely visually beautiful it was a near silent film with the characters communicating by mouthing words which appeared as sub-titles within the screen as though it was in thin air. The only person who has managed to keep there voice is the singer La Voz (The voice) who works for the evil Mr TV the owner of the only TV channel to be aired in the city, He is the major voice of the city even though he does not have one, they eat MR TV food can only watch his channel and everything in the film relates back to Mr TV, The part of the film i loved (if i had to pick one part) was were the son of La Voz who has no eyes is waiting for a package to be delivered containing his new eyes, This is delivered to the wrong address and is opened by a little girl (daughter of a man who works for mr tv) as she opens the envelope and shakes it 4 pieces of paper fall out onto the table then magically come together to form a musical dancer like the ones you see in jewelry boxes this is a beautiful scene, after this she delves into the envelope and pulls out a pair of glasses which look like 3d cardboard glasses these have images of a pair of eyes for the boy to wear, unfortunately not long after this i fell asleep as it was heading on to 2am but i am so upset that i did not get to see the rest of the film i am now going to buy it, i strongly recommend you watch this film you will not be disappointed.

Old work

Last night i was rummaging around in a box that has yet to be unpacked (18 months later) i came across some of my work from foundation. Its some of the experiments i did for my artists book based on heaven and hell (sins & virtues) i didn't realize how much i liked these and it has worried me that i feel it is better than the work i have been producing while at uni, I've realized how much i used to enjoy just experimenting with stick and ink, different medias getting mucky with paint and charcoal its defiantly been a great thing to come across as i now feel more excited about getting back to working in a way which makes me happy and enables me to produce better work rather than producing pieces i am not overly keen on by trying to work in a different way which i now realize just isnt me ...so maybe while i've been worrying about never finding my niche possibly i had it all along and ive just lost my way for a while so here's hoping from now on i have my creative mojo back!

experiments with rubbings & photo's

Some of the rubbings didn't turn out so well so i decided to see what they would look like with some of my photographs printed on them i think a couple of these have worked really well.

Grave rubbings

On Monday i decided to take another trip over to Blackley crem to do some rubbings of headstones i managed to get some fantastic examples and also produced a stunning piece on a paper tablecloth of a full headstone.

Art & Design foundation work

When coming back through from the MA show i stumbled upon the Art & Design foundation summer project exhibition which featured birds they had made which reflected themselves the maker, My favorite pieces were the little artist books.

MA show

On tuesday 13th October I went to take a look at the MA Show which featured work from D&AD and Textile students all the work was interesting and inspirational but i found myself drawn to a few collections which appealed to me more than others maybe because i could relate to it in someway or just because i found the imagery visually captivating.

The following images are from the collection created by Grace Sutcliffe (textiles) Which combines textiles & photography when fused together create a feeling of domestic nostalgia one image reminded me of the fireplace at my mums house which always brings back happy nostalgic memories from my childhood.

Bushra Bodla (textiles) This collection consists of a selection of bespoke wallpaper inspired by Ancient Chinese Gardens..Ying & Yang also bringing the outdoors inside.

Reflections

I took some photographs through windows at the crematorium to capture the reflection of the graveyard, i was a bit spooked by one of the images because when it was taken i wasn't aware of the statue/mannequin inside the building and wondered were it had appeared from.

Graveyard

I find it amazing how different a graveyard can be during the day and night, I have no problem strolling around one during the day i actually find it quite a peaceful and enjoyable experience but as soon as the sun sets and the mist adorns the yard i am absolutely terrified to step foot through the gates, But feeling brave or stupid i felt i really needed to capture some images at night so at 11.00pm friday night we took a trip to St Gabriels church a beautiful local church with a small graveyard (there was no way i would be entering blackley crematorium at this time of night.) I managed to get some really nice shots.

Cemetery

After much deliberation and confusion and a bit of help from Mac i have finally decided on how to take the silence project forward, The subject i have chosen is the silence surrounding death, As in being laid to rest in the coffin, The silence in graveyards and also the statues that adorn a lot of the headstones within church graveyards, A bit depressing maybe but i have found this to be a really interesting approach, On friday afternoon i visited blackley crematorium its a huge graveyard which i would only visit during the day im not brave enough to venture in there at night.

This is a picture of the cemetery from the road side as you can see its pretty big.