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DAIS 0.5 Contributors Rhian McNeff Richard Marsden Alan Clarke Sian Bonnell Urbanomic Falmouth Andy Neal Josh Sinclair Thomson Kate Marshall Sian Bonnell Alex Turvey Photographers Richard Marsden 10, 11, 12 marsdenphotography.co.uk Oliver Rudkin 14, 16 rudkinphoto.co.uk Dean Chalkley 17, 19 deanchalkley.com Cornish Lettering Archive 26, 27, 31 Sian Bonnell 34, 36, 37 sianbonnell.com Kenna Hernly 41[4] Catherine Frowd 40 [2] Kate Marshall 47, 48 katemarshall.co.uk Writers Charlie Derry Josh Sinclair-Thomson Sam Batt Matthew Smylie Millie Gibson Anna Kiernan Design James Booth Laurie Robins Special Thanks Anna Kiernan Carla von der Becke Luke Friend Lotte Mahon
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“ DESIGN IS THE MANIPULATION OF FORM AND CONTENT…CONTENT IS THE IDEA, OR SUBJECT MATTER. FORM IS WHAT YOU DO WITH THIS IDEA. HOW DO I DEAL WITH IT?,DO I USE COLOR? DO I USE BLACK AND WHITE? DO I MAKE IT BIG? DO I MAKE IT SMALL? DO I MAKE IT THREE-DIMENSIONAL OR TWO-DIMENSIONAL? DO I USE TRENDY STUFF?…THESE ARE ALL QUESTIONS YOU ASK. THIS IS PART OF THE MANIPULATIVE ASPECT OF DESIGN.” Paul Rand
0.5 COVER
The branding for DAIS is still in a stage of progression.
DAIS 0.5
PROBLEM
How do we show this for issue 0.5’s cover?
SOLUTION
A scan from a sheet of the logo, showing the process of its development.
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EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL daisjournal.co.uk
This is DAIS 0.5, and the shape of things to come. We’ve still got a way to go but this is our first step and we are proud of it. Although based in Cornwall, we are less focused on it’s its identity as a place and more about how its culture, location and history has and is influencing contemporary work. The underlying factors that collectively work to create something are what we value. We want to create intrigue and excitement around artists that we feel are provocative, interesting and original. Creative freedom, we believe, is essential in allowing our contributers, writers, photographers & designers to achieve what they want. We are looking to build an archive, we want each issue to be self supportive, but DAIS will be strongest as a collection. If you think you have something to add to DAIS please let us know.
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CONTENTS
CONTENTS 6
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Richarch Marsden A lot of Artists say
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Rhian McNeff Start Without Knowing
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Alex Turvey Enjoy The Absurd
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Dartington Living In a Theme Park
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The Cornish Lettering Archive Intricacies & Connontations
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In the Night Garden In & Out of Open Eyed Dreams
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Sian Bonnell From an Elsewhere Unknown
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Urbanomic Falmouth Tran-disciplinary
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Alan Clarke Simplicity and Clarity
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Kate Marshall Ever the madam never the whore.
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RICHARD MARSDEN
RICHARD MARSDEN Sam Batt
The photographer and University College Falmouth graduate on recent projects, turning points and why he’s drawn to tourist signs and hot tubs. In my third year I used one camera and one lens to exaggerate that one interesting point in my photos. The frame is what makes those relationships in the picture. The relationship is there but when you place a frame on it, it creates it. All my work is about how subjective the frame is. I make it as simple as possible to really bring it back to a single aspect.
[1] Image from Hot Tub series 09
My third year project was hard to describe. I knew it was going to be about the leisure industry and the whole idea of leisure, but it was somewhat difficult to pin down. It was just that these things that I saw interested me, like a car parked on a drive way or a sports hall. It seems very vague at first but once I see something happening it all tends to link quite easily. It was a big turning point when I discovered the work of a group of photographers from the seventies called the New Topographics and an exhibition of the same name. The exhibition was a series of photographs of man altered landscapes. I came across them and it was just one of those moments. The hot tub thing [1] just came about from sitting in the Falmouth Beach Hotel, and some lady was mentioning that her friend had got this hot tub that was in her back garden in this tiny little terraced house. And I was just like “Fucking hell! People are starting to get into hot tubs in England?!” I thought it would be great if I could get some really quirky images of hot tubs in random locations with random people. I’m a big one for the brown tourist signs. I did a project on Radnor Golf and Ski [2] near Redruth. It’s a ski slope that’s indoors on a travelator thing. You come across that from seeing a brown sign. You turn up and are like “Right, what’s this going on?” That happens to me a lot.
[2] Image from Radnor Golf and Ski
Essentially I’m a documentary photographer. I go out and take photos of what I see and bring them back and show people, so I guess that’s documentary photography? But I wouldn’t ever call myself a documentary photographer. A lot of artists say that when it starts to make sense that’s when it’s over and done with and I suppose that’s the purpose of my work, to a certain degree. To not know what it is and to just keep doing it. The humour in my work is just down to my character. My work is as much a portrait of me as anything else. The humour is part of my quirky way of looking at things.
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A LOT OF ARTISTS SAY
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RICHARD MARSDEN
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A LOT OF ARTISTS SAY
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RHIAN MCNEFF
RHIAN MCNEFF Charlie Derry
I’m 22 years old and for 10 years I lived just outside of London, before I moved to the Welsh mountains where I lived for another 10 years. I left home at 20, when I moved to Manchester. I then travelled to Morocco, various places in Europe and hitched my way around Israel and Palestine. I came to Falmouth in 2008 to study the Textiles Design course. My grandma, mother and auntie have all worked within the fashion and textile industry and the male side of my family are artists, designers and composers. Before my degree, I worked in a garden centre for a year which has developed my love of natural imagery and floral patterns. I like my work to be contemporary and original (but then again who doesn’t). I design with a fashion audience in mind and a strong graphic element. My primary concern is a beautiful aesthetic, backed up with a meaningful concept, so I’d say I have a narrative illustrative style. I’m interested in, and driven by, colour and led by concept with current and topical issues in mind. I’m obsessed and addicted to what I do; it’s fun and I always want to create the best work I can. Even when I’m not on a project, I’m constantly thinking about what I could do next.
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START WITHOUT KNOWING
“Sweet, but not too sugary,” is how Rhian McNeff describes her own work. The refined pieces of fabric are not only pleasing to look at; they are richly informed by the landscapes of her past. Rhian’s travels have also helped her recognise different attitudes and gain a set of influences, which is expressed throughout her sketch book.
For Rhian’s final project in her second year at UCF, she was given a set brief with a prescribed subject and outcome. Her target market was for Saltwater, a high-end British clothing design label based in London and Cornwall. “Regardless of what I’m trying to communicate or the brief, I just want a beautiful aesthetic,” she says.
From living in a city outside London to the countryside in the Welsh mountains, a contrast has emerged creating a strong undercurrent in Rhian’s work. Bold images of industrial machinery are placed in front of faint watercolour marks to express these two landscapes colliding together. Rhian describes this as nature fighting back, taking over; “I fused the two together to create out of context, sort of dream-like imagery.”
Rhian believes that an organic way of working is to “start without knowing what to expect from a project. I don’t know what it’s going to look like in the end that’s the exciting bit for me,” she says. “My first love is drawing so it always stems from that.” Rhian’s sketch book is full of detailed drawings, much like the ones in her final piece. Her style is gained from traditional paintings, the work of fashion designers and the use of space created by illustrators.
Fine lines, loose delicate marks and subtle colours are a trademark of Rhian’s style. Her work is based on her love of floral patterns and her desire to create a beautiful aesthetic. Being outside, gardens and wild places is where Rhian finds her inspiration. “I have a fascination with urban living, but really, what I’m comfortable with, and what I enjoy, is living in the country,” she says. William Morris expressed a preference for the flat use of line and colour, an idea that seems to resonate in Rhian’s work. Morris’s emphasis in designing tapestry was on force, purity and elegance of the silhouette of the objects represented, which can also be found in the balance between delicate colours running into an industrial element, and in Rhian’s vision of creating “a subtle beauty with a bold punch; a louder element.” As with the Arts and Craft movement, the environment and sustainability are also important elements to Rhian’s work. She worked in a commune in Spain during her gap year, which was an on-going experiment with eco-living. She also visited Cairo in the first term of her course, describing it as a colourful but oppressive place. These experiences have strengthened her focus on the disparity of place which is constantly printed in her work, and which at certain points seems to have more in common with Warhol’s 1950s etchings than the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. “It’s all about catching a feeling,” she says.
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The colours produced in Rhian’s final piece have not turned out how she had planned. This was a mistake from insufficient testing, caused by using natural dyes which reacted with the pastes she used. “I had a few technical problems, but that’s always part of the journey,” she says, explaining that these accidents do not happen often, or atleast not in her final print. Research and development would usually mean that these accidents would happen sooner, giving her more chance to experiment with them. She described this as a “happy accident” – a technical error but one she is content with. Textiles have always been a major part of Rhian’s life. A love of arts and fashion runs through her family; it was only natural for her to carry on the passion. Through travelling, working and studying an art foundation, Rhian believed that she wanted to do something different in what she described as a “rebellious” stage. But in the end, Rhian realised that it was all about textures and putting her work onto fabric. The balance of fine arts with a more technical side is the reason why she chose to focus on Textiles. “Now I do it, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else at all,” she says.
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RHIAN MCNEFF
*
*
†
* Manual screened, natural dyed ground fabric, print paste, procion + pigment. † Digital print. 12
ALEX TURVEY
Excerpt from a telephone conversation with:
ALEX TURVEY Sam Batt
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ALEX TURVEY
DID YOU HAVE A PRECISE DIRECTION YOU WANTED TO GO IN WHEN YOU STARTED OUT? What I like is initiating ideas. I use commercials as my bread and butter then I can go off and do something I want to do. Although commercials are something I never imagined myself doing. I used to want to be just a music video director. Now I’m thinking I’ll do music videos when I want to, commercials to make money, fashion films for fun and then I want to write and direct a short film this year and direct a feature film before I’m thirty. I would love to adapt or write a feature. That would be fascinating.
WHY MOVE FROM DESIGN TO FASHION AND THE MUSIC VIDEO WORLD? Generally, if I want to do something I will. I’ll make it happen in any way I possibly can. I get hooked on the idea of it. I did some animation in college that ended up on Channel 4 and that gave me a path into motion graphics. Then I put some money into a film idea which I’d saved from freelancing after work. This gave me a basis to pitch for other film projects, as I had that important first piece on my reel. My work is very aesthetic heavy. This comes from my design background, so I’ve always pushed towards the more beautiful fashioney projects. Then this revolution of fashion films started. I got picked up by Dazed and Confused, who put some money towards a film, largely because my approach to fashion films was so strange. All the films that were out were full of symmetry, full of horrible wild rave music and no sense of narrative. The team I work with, none of us are fashioney or particularly cool and we just made something that was very different and people really liked it. My films have a sexual and subversive undertone. I enjoy the absurd, it floats my boat.
ALL YOUR WORK SEEMS TO CONTAIN A REALLY STRONG NARRATIVE. WHERE HAS THIS COME FROM AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT TO YOU? It’s the way I form ideas. They link. It’s really weird but I just run through chains of thought. Even in the way I talk to people, they don’t understand why I say something, because I’ve already been thinking in a thread for two minutes and I’ll just bring them in to the middle of it and they’re like “What?” and I’m like “Yeah it makes sense!” That’s why I had to break away from graphic design because I found it hard to communicate my sprawling ideas within the restrictions of the discipline.
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ENJOY THE ABSURD
ALL THE FILMS THAT WERE OUT WERE FULL OF SYMMETRY, FULL OF HORRIBLE WILD RAVE MUSIC
AND NO SENSE OF NARRATIVE.
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ALEX TURVEY
IS THERE ANY PARTICULAR PROCESS YOU CONSISTENTLY FOLLOW? I am very, very, very thorough. I over-think the initial idea really. I start off by collecting visuals, finding a visual hook. Whether it’s something from a shoot I’ve done or something off the street, it can be anything. I used to collect odd scenes. I would just think them up and write them down, and I always refer back to those and see if I could make a two or three minute idea or where I could go from that scene. Then I craft a script, write a treatment and then re-write that. I’m really thorough, writing them again and again. I do loads of storyboards, more than most people. I put loads of pressure on myself and then I end up feeling massively dissatisfied because I barely even reference them on the shoot! But I have to get it out of my system to feel like I understand my idea enough. The fear is that I’m on my shoot, I’ve got one day, I’ve prepared for a month and, on that one day if it goes wrong, that’s all gone. There’s no way of recovering it so I over-worry and think of everything at the beginning, then in postproduction I’m much looser.
APART FROM YOUR FAMILY WHAT DO YOU RETURN TO CORNWALL FOR? The freedom and landscape as clichéd as that sounds. It blows out the cobwebs. I go on this cliff-walk from Perranporth to St Agnes and Porthtowan, and I find ideas come to me. The bad stuff just falls out of my ears and I have a bit of freedom and space. It helps me breathe. When I’m in London I force myself onto the next thing instead of letting ideas come to me. I feel like I need to ease up the pressure I put on myself and let it happen naturally like it did in college, when I used to get excited about an idea and it was organic, as opposed to now where its “this is my business and I have to make this because that’s what people like,” which is kind of horrible.
ARE YOU STILL A ‘YOUNG BOY WITH A LUCID IMAGINATION’? * I feel most comfortable when I’m swimming around my own mind. In my head I’m still living in Cornwall and I miss it a lot, I’m not a city boy. My parents still live in Perranporth, I grew up there and I need to back there from time to time. * “One particular favorite is the Obby Oss festival. Each May, a horse-like chap, the ‘Oss’, dons a gruesome mask and a huge black cape under which he tries to catch young maidens as they pass through town. Powerful stuff when you’re a young boy in a small town with a lucid imagination.” http://file-magazine. com/features/alexander-turvey
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DARTINGTON
DARTINGTON DAIS 0.5
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DARTINGTON
SIMON VAN BOOY Introduction
As the move of Dartington students commences during the summer break, Simon Van Booy shares his experience and deeply rooted lessons as a previous student from the now Falmouth-based College of Arts. Simon was born in London, but since graduating has moved to various places around the world, finally settling in New York where he writes for three New York papers. He is also an author, an editor of three philosophy books and now teaches writing and literature in the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. His books include The Secret Lives of People in Love and Love Begins in Winter, and he is currently writing a children’s book titled Pobble’s Way.
Words
When I find myself teaching a workshop at a university or cultural center, I always start with fundamental ‘ideas’ about process. I think serious writers inevitably focus on process, otherwise writing leans toward vanity. The Dartington writing program, now at Falmouth, was the first institution I had ever been involved with that invited me to be myself as a writer. Up until then, I had been impersonating myself, which is perhaps why I had been unable to find my writing voice. In this program, I accepted my needs as a creative person, and was able to anticipate those needs and to craft a life where they would be met.So much of what holds people back can be correlated to ego. Dartington is like a cross between a Zen temple, psychoanalysis, a first rate university and an art school. What is learned comes not through blind acceptance of what others think, but through the gradual process of seeing what has always been in front of us and learning to trust. Without this writing program, I wouldn’t have survived emotionally or financially in the international writing community. Many people have written to me over the last few years about the closure of Dartington, but in my experience, it hasn’t closed. In fact it’s thriving. While there are people who believe in ideas and who are passionate to explore, ‘Dartington’ as I know it, will live on, as it seems to be now. The idea that the feeling of Dartington is dependent on particular sites is a dangerous reliance on a pre-conceived idea of what Dartington is, when Dartington taught me something different-to be self-reliant, and to free myself from the tyranny of pre-conceptions as much as possible. The sense that these exciting and vital ideas about learning are limited to a physical place seems myopic. I do think that a natural environment is useful, but the Falmouth campus has this, and so I only see progress from this move and a commitment from the people who made the move to ensure the survival of what Dartington truly is. I’m very grateful to them, as future students will be. When I talk to world-renowned writers and editors about the Dartington process of learning, they are often amazed, because such ideas are frequently at the core of their own practices.
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LIVING IN A THEME PARK
JOSH SINCLAIR THOMSON Narrative
From the moment we left the station and clambered up the high rising hills along the footpaths following rivers and streams it was clear that Dartington was going to be something of an experience. The three of us strolled casually along still tired from our early start, all of us trying to envision what Dartington would actually look and feel like. Arriving at the campus we haphazardly stumbled upon music studios 1, 2 & 3. We walked through them and out into the quad. Sam got busy interviewing people as Charlie and I watched the assembling crowds of students and lecturers gather round us. It quickly felt as if we’d turned up at the Mad Hatter’s tea party, one man with dreadlocked hair danced around as he spoke in a Russian accent to his seemingly unfazed friends. Others came and went, exchanging greetings and moving on. Soon the three of us felt like the obvious outsiders. We had walked in on a tribe isolated from reality, all very friendly and familiar with one another in their shared cocoon. The only sad thing about the scene was the dreary surroundings of grey concrete buildings. That was put aside when we entered the courtyards around Dartington Hall; a beautiful monastic country estate. We wandered around taking in the oddities of our surroundings, lost at how a magnificent tudor estate had been converted into a commune for creative thinkers. The medieval architecture isolated the estate further from reality and time itself. We split up to find and talk to more students. They were difficult to encounter, one or two would occasionally pop up, then they’d disappear amongst the crowds of tourists and locals. I headed off towards the supposedly adjoining studios and flats of the Foxhole Centre on what was actually a challenging one kilometer hike. Up and down hills, on footpaths baking in the suddenly unleashed sun. I felt I was on a country walk not a stroll around an arts college; the only reminder being the plenty full of students rushing off to lectures or workshops. Sam and Charlie got word of Higher Close, the focal point of student activity, and the bulk of
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DARTINGTON
accommodation in Dartington, so I met with them in the cafeteria. The blocks of flats looked like ghettos and reminded me of holidays in Butlins. Out of the cafeteria window a crowd of students were sunbathing on gray concrete floors surrounding a swimming pool. Charlie and I went down and asked them to sum up what they thought of Dartington in a single word. One student from the crowd decided to reply with “Thursday,” as everyone happily participated. Meanwhile Sam felt compelled to interview a middle aged man with an uncanny resemblance to Keith Moon, who turned out to be a mature first year student optimistic about the move to Falmouth. Finished with the interviews we wandered through the library and made our way out the back into a courtyard, where we sat in the shade of trees listening to the clatter of keys from a nearby student’s typewriter. Refreshed from the courtyard shade we set off to explore the gardens and Old St Mary’s Church Tower. After using up all the film in our one pound disposable cameras we relaxed and called it a day. We ordered drinks at the White Hart Bar and sat talking away in the holiday like surroundings of the gardens. All three of us felt that we’d happily visit Dartington again anytime, yet we had mixed feelings over the thought of studying in such isolation. As some of the last visitors to witness the bustle of student life here, it was a fascinating experience. Dartington is as much a retreat from the world as it is a college; a bubble within which to freely think; a community of ideas that will hopefully be brought to Falmouth when they leave the labyrinth like path leading down towards the station and the rest of the world.
*DIVINE
DREAMING
UNIQUE, UN
PLAYGROU
INSPIRATIO
EXPERIEN
COMMUN
PRETENTIOUS
BUBBLE, BU
FAMILY
INDEPEND
THURSD
FRANK
PERFORMA MAD,
GREAT
* WHAT IS DARTIN 20
LIVING IN A THEME PARK
DIVINE,
EAMING-BIG,
QUE, UNIQUE,
AYGROUND,
PIRATIONAL,
PERIENCE,
OMMUNITY,
NTIOUS-WANK,
BLE, BUBBLE, FAMILY,
DEPENDENT,
HURSDAY, FRANK,
FORMANCE, MAD, GREAT.
ELIZABETH MCCOLLUM
HENRIK SKAUGE
1st Year Music and Theatre Studies
1st Year Music
Because there are only 500 hundred people here it’s like living in a theme park. When it’s good, it’s really good but when it’s horrible you’re still on this rollercoaster and you’re like “Fucking hell!” It’s like all the geeky people in a school have been put in an insane asylum, but it’s quite refreshing because you’re allowed to do whatever you want and no-one is here to judge you.
They get this feeling, ‘Oh, we’re at Dartington, we need to be so fucking alternative.’ They kind of forget that you actually have to make something good. I’ve never considered myself nostalgic really. It isn’t out of nostalgia that I’m against the move, because I don’t particularly like it here to be honest. I don’t think it’s been handled very well. I think there should have been an easier transition to it.
ROSS MCKESSOCK 1st Year Music
There’s something about this place. There’s no other uni like this. It’s just completely out there. Dartington finds the boundaries and then tries to break them.
I notice when I go home, to the real world, that there are only artists here. You kind of forget that. Sometimes it’s really good to get perspective. It’s like being stoned all the time, in a way. Getting stoned can be really great for gaining perspective, but if you don’t sober up, you don’t actually gain any perspective.
IAN HENDERSON
JOE BROOKE
1st Year Music
1st Year music student
I’m very excited about going to Falmouth. The performance centre is one of the main venues in the South-West, I mean where else is there? I’m 57 and it’s one of the best things that could happen in my mature years. I’ll probably live longer as well down there, so yeah I’m really excited about it! Falmouth’s got a similar feel to Totnes but its much more up. I’m looking forward to doing my dissertation on the beach.
I’m really going to miss this place. I’m looking forward to the move to Falmouth because there’s some great opportunities there. But if you just look at Dartington, Falmouth is never going to be this place. It’s just not going to happen, and we wouldn’t want it to. There is definitely something unique about this place.
RANDOM GIRL We’re like one big family. But I like Falmouth; it’s bigger, there’ll be more shops, more places to go out and more people.
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CORNISH LETTERING ARCHIVE
[2]
THE CORNISH LETTERING ARCHIVE
[7]
[1]
[4]
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INTRICACIES AND CONNOTATIONS
[5]
[9] [6]
[8]
[3]
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[1]
Pan Stores fruiterer & general stores, hand painted on wood, Pendarves street, Tuckingmill, September 2009.
[2]
Penzance, December 2009.
[3]
Penzance, December 2009.
[4]
Cornwall, October 2009.
[5]
Falmouth, October 2009.
[6]
Cornwall, September 2009.
[7]
GL CAR SALES, Hand painted on metal, Pendarves Street, Tuckingmill.
[8]
(first’),St Clement Graveyard, nr Truro.
[9]
Taxi sign, Outside Truro Train Station.
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CORNISH LETTERING ARCHIVE
LETTERS. A SIMPLE AND CONCISE REASONING FOR OUR INVOLVEMENT WITHIN THE INCEPTION AND CONTINUATION OF THE CORNISH LETTERING ARCHIVE.
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INTRICACIES AND CONNOTATIONS
INTERVIEW WITH ANDY NEAL † Mathew Smilie & Josh Sinclair-Thomas
“Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.” In “The work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction” (1936), Walter Benjamin foregrounds the “aura” of original art objects in the context of a new era of digital duplication. More than 70 years later, the Cornish Lettering Archive (CLA) was set up to categorise the changing nature of the Cornish typographic landscape through the medium of photography, in a way that documents its presence in time and space. Andy Neal is part of a team responsible for redeveloping the project that he says began because, “We like letters; A simple and concise reasoning for our involvement within the inception and continuation of the Cornish Lettering Archive.” The team’s original idea for the project was to document the unique characteristics of Cornish lettering, as they changed over time. The project was initially set up six or seven years ago at the University College Falmouth by lecturer Isabella Livingston. It fell apart soon after, as they were unable to establish a database that was accessible to the public. “We missed the point in that the focus at the time was not upon our shared passion for lettering, hence the project was placed upon the back-burner for a number of years.” “Rather interestingly, the problems that arose with archiving the typography a number of years ago when we first had the idea are oneS that are no longer relevant, as we can now showcase the work on Flickr*, instantly and for free,” says Andy. “The concept behind the group is “let’s grab cameras and photograph things that we’re interested in.” Eighteen months ago Andy was interested in re-visiting the project inspired by a need to shift away from the original motivations around accessibility and focus instead on the group’s passion for lettering and interest in the typographic landscape of Cornwall. “The Lettering Archive are interested in the intricacies and connotations of Cornish typography and its reflection upon this changing county and it’s increasingly varied and interesting inhabitants.” “We went away over the summer of 2009 and managed to capture around 800 images between us, which are yet to be wholly collated,” says Andy. “The premise of the archive as it stands is to keep taking photos as long as we have the energy to do so.”
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flickr.com/photos/40224872@N07/ * Andy Neal † is a lecturer at the University College Falmouth and has been for the last ten years. Neal studied graphics over a period of six years, both in Cornwall and then Edinburgh, eventually graduating with a first-class honours degree in visual communication and later an MDes in Graphic Design. Andy is also a member of the International Society of Typographic Designers, which is reflective of his love for letters. Andy has also been an assessor of the ISTD student assessment scheme since 2004.
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CORNISH LETTERING ARCHIVE
The CLA has already seen a great change in some areas of the typographic landscape in Cornwall. “One of the places I photographed during our initial foray into the project was the Lemon Street Market in Truro, a place that, at the time, featured heavy original and characteristic typography that reflected the history of Cornwall. During that time however the street was renovated and updated, the lettering on shops changed completely, so that upon my return visit last year, a marked difference could be seen,” says Andy. “The CLA is as much a database documenting the evolving environment of Cornwall as it is a gallery of intriguing photographic images; an archive of photographs that documents the changing landscape of the county’s typography, whilst capturing a distinctly Cornish characteristic in local lettering.” The project has similarities in places to the works of Tom Phillips of the Royal Academy, in that it chronographs a specific place in an ongoing period of time. In Phillips’s exhibition “20 sites n years” he mapped out 20 locations in south London and has been photographing them from the same spot every year since 1973 onwards. Phillips created a timeline of specific locations and the changes that take place in each shot taken year after year; that now act as an archive as much as they do a product of artistic value. Similar also is Frank Auerbach, who imagines his work as a constant reconstruction, often using the same landscapes and portraits but never expecting the same outcome. Andy and the CLA, much like Phillips and Auerbach, have a deeper and timely interest in their work that goes beyond the aesthetic value of each image. Andy has also taken an interest in Cornish headstones as a source of historic typographic documentation. “Graveyards are an incredibly fertile place to gain inspiration due to the care and attention lavished upon the lettering of the older headstones, some of which include the typographer’s names.” The Cornish Lettering Archive can also be found on Flickr*, and will have its own dedicated site in time.
[
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INTRICACIES AND CONNOTATIONS
[1]
[2]
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[1]
Farm Shop, Penstraze, Jan 2004
[2]
Drainage Cover, Daniell Rd Truro, June 2002
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JOSH SINCLAIR THOMSON
The animated little bird hopped in a circular dancing motion, Still croaking with a disfiguring laughter.
INSOMNIA I sat a’ top a field at Tremough; My eyes winced in the burning sun.
Josh Sinclair Thomson
IN THE NIGHT GARDEN
Insomnia reflected my uncertainty of things around me, Confused, I found I couldn’t slow down. Time came and went without warning; The hour and minute hand freely switched places. In and out of open eyed dreams, A fraction of harmony here in the sculpted gardens, Away from the cramping claustrophobia... in the library…the seminar rooms… the scratching pens... “A beautiful morning if I say so myself,” came a voice. Opening my eyes a raven stood in front of me cocking its head. “What brings death, and is shrouded in darkness?” The raven seemed to riddle. “Me johnny boy! Me the bloody raven ha ha!”
I stood up to end the dream and the raven took flight. I walked along the path adjoining the smaller gardens of green houses, Till I came upon an opened door I’d never seen before. Inside amidst bright red maple trees and bright blue bells Stood a metallic golden clock tower. Its Roman numeral face said it was eight. But minutes ago it was six.
OCEAN I was in the ocean on my back. How? Rain beating down so pointlessly… With such effort To drown the already deep sea! And that idiot almost drove his surfboard into me, didn’t even say anything After I’d leapt out the way. Cutting myself on a rock… Not that it bled, No blood, no life, no feverish cold slap Of a wave to bring me round.
SUPERNOVA The golden clock wasn’t real. I woke up mouth full of grass right on the spot where the raven had been. It was midday and people had sat all around me, not that it was particularly warm, not much of anything. Sat so close, as if to wake me up, fuckers…Now I’d never sleep. One girl was looking directly at me from under a tree. A pretty little blonde in a flowery dress. Yet it was like she wasn’t even seeing me…And no one was seeing her; Everyone was too busy being comfortable to ever see us.
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IN & OUT OF OPEN EYED DREAMS
I’d fallen down a hole, not a very big one, But some enthusiastic young hole diggers had been Spending too much time on the beach. I had a cigarette lit. Bemusing myself, I felt almost content. A pale milky blanket of moonlight groped my skin As the sea soothed my ears. I gazed at what might have been stars, with intense psychedelic flickers... Possibly a whole cluster of planets were colliding… Like thirty days ago and the light had just reached us…
I felt my whole body sink. Florescent candles outside flickered, more intensely each time, in one big supernova overtaking the pinks… I was just a giant cushion, one big pink fluffy cushion burning! Whilst life danced to an end.
INFINITE It was nightfall and I’d been dazing in and out of focus. The garden was empty now.
“I guess, I mean, racing too fast it’s too bright! Help me!”
Josh Sinclair Thomson
Pianos crashed with a bluesy anguish and everything was silent; A quiet before the storm.
“You know there’s so many chances, we just can’t see them all, I mean if the universe is infinite then so are we right?”
IN THE NIGHT GARDEN
Moments later I’ll see them smash together, And at that precise moment all the debris Will instantly Collide with Earth.
He smoked a small wooden pipe that had a weedy scent. I was dizzy, very dizzy; “I’m sorry I have to go home, I think I, I have a really bad headache, I can’t see very well!”
“It’s OK now, everything will pass through you, and you will finally pass from everything, it’s really not that bad, really not that bad…not that bad.” I hadn’t slept, I’d had my eyes open this entire time, dreaming wide awake; That’s one hundred and six days of no sleep… Pink clouds still lingered on the hilltops out of my window. Only minutes had passed! Rain beating down so pointlessly… with such effort to drown the already deep sea.
Turning to my left a badger in a blue tuxedo appeared, Bobbing side to side on its hind legs towards me. “You know when the stars change colour like that, means someone’s Passed on to the heavens,” said the badger, Now sat on the ground next to me.
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SIAN BONNELL
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The ‘Glowing’ series was created as a protest against the Iraq War. A protest against idiot men going to war over this false pretext. It was so totally absurd – as absurd as having Tupperware creatures popping up from the ground.
‘Glowing’ is a series of light-box photographs by Sian Bonnell that reference bad B Movies like The Blob to create ‘an elsewhere unknown’[1] out of jelly moulds and colanders. I was reminded of her photos when I read Josh’s surreal story ‘In the night garden’, so I met up with Sian to find out where her ideas come from.
[1] Bonnell, Sian (2004). From An Elsewhere Unknown. With texts by Mark Haworth-Booth and Mel Gooding. Ffotogallery: Cardiff and Hirschl: London.
I’m a huge fan of The Archers so everything was coloured by that fictional experience. I was trying to reclaim the land with my domestic things at a time when BSE and other major environmental scares
It all came from a concern after having children. After the birth of both of my sons I suddenly became aware of what was going on in the world. You can’t hold the future back; you can’t control it. A lot of the work came from moving to Dorset from the city and being surrounded by an idealized view of the countryside. It was a time when every toaster had a sheaf of corn on it.
From an elsewhere unknown Anna Kiernan
And the more serious I got the more stupid I became in my work. At first people’s reactions upset me; then I realized that was a fantastic hook to draw viewers in. I could use the humour and put a little sting in. So producing discomfort at the same time as pleasure in viewing the work. Absurd images that were utterly beautiful in how they were presented that also made you laugh and made you think. I work intuitively. I’m a slow developer.
were commonplace. So I was coming at the work from the position of my political and ecological concerns.
SIAN BONNELL
FROM AN ELSEWHERE UNKNOWN
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SIAN BONNELL
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My work now is dealing with a performance aspect, it’s got a kind of theatrical and fictional component. I like the fact that I’m working with fiction in that I’m writing the image. Where it was very literal, the context is changed – removed in the past. Now the context is the intention so the intention has changed. I’m a terrible control freak with my work. I discovered some time ago a freedom in having a very tight starting point. I’ve always been interested in the minutiae. Liz Wells wrote a book looking at view finding from a female perspective and it was interesting to see the masculine
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shower. A lot of ideas come from being intensely annoyed in the shower. I like to make work about real things: The mundane stuff of the everyday. When I can’t sleep my mind races… I have a notebook by my bed. Sometimes in the morning the ideas are great but sometimes I think, ‘What were you on?!’
view of looking out at the broad vista was quite different from what I was doing. I was looking at the ground. Not where I could be but where I am now. I like the idea that my work ‘undercuts the rhetoric of romanticism’[2]. That comes from being a willful child. I liked to see what I could get away with. When I first started, I was more concerned about what people thought; I like the idea of getting more mischievous as I get older. I am influenced by theatre, literature and sculpture. And listening to The Today Programme in the
[2] http://www. land2.uwe.ac.uk/
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URBANOMIC FALMOUTH Robin McKay
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TRAN-DISCIPLINARY
Who are you? What is Urbanomic? I’m Robin Mackay, the director of Urbanomic. Urbanomic has been active here in Falmouth for two years. Before that Urbanomic was already a publishing company - we publish the journal Collapse. The idea of Collapse is to bring together philosophers, scientists and artists to create new hybrids of thought and to explore the way those different disciplines cross over each other. Each volume has a theme, which is addressed from multiple angles by people who operate in different worlds of research. And all the activities we are doing in Falmouth are an extension of that idea. Your recent exhibition, “Secrets of Creation [1]” showed a lot of what you describe as ‘Tran-disciplinary’ work, is that a common feature? I’m coming at it from the point of view of philosophy, and frustration with academic philosophy. My approach to philosophy is to look to other disciplines, each of which creates its own, or discovers its own, philosophical problems. When artists are working, they discover philosophical problems, which they explore, and scientists do so as well, so it’s about discovering how those fundamental problems might overlap and communicate. That’s what the ‘Secrets of Creation’ event was about: the process of scientists and artists trying to discover their common ground. They were really addressing some of the same fundamental problems even though they were doing it in with very different motives, and in different worlds. The events seem to show heavy concepts but in an accessible way. When we planned that event we were quite aware that this whole idea of art and science coming together has been a big thing for the last five years at least. Many of the attempts that are made to do it are really not very effective because they just involve an artist going into a laboratory, looking around, getting a superficial impression of what’s going on, and using that to create an image of science. There’s not really any communication going on there. That’s why we wanted to do it as a week long residency, with an artist and a mathematician working together intensively over that period. The reason for choosing Conrad Shawcross is that his works have always reflected his interest in scientific concepts, but at the same time they’re not just models or demonstrations. There is this aspect of his work where he is ‘twisting’ those ideas and using them in unexpected ways, and that’s what we were interested in. The events seem to be more about the process not the final outcome? This was something that became more and more evident, in the process of understanding how we could curate the outcomes from such an event. We gave ourselves just one day between the residency and opening the exhibition. The idea of the event wasn’t to create a finished new work and display it immaculately; we just wanted to show the process of research itself, to share that with the public. And Collapse has the same aim. I think it’s important to communicate before you are sure, before there are conclusive outcomes. That’s basically what artists do as well,they’re not necessarily interested in reaching a final conclusion.
[1]
Secrets of Creation www.urbanomic-studio.com/event zuf10-doc.php
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URBANOMIC FALMOUTH
[2]
Do you have a set process for the events? The major question is who you get involved. And the reason that we’ve been able to put on all the events we have in the last couple of years is because we’re drawing on a network of people from different disciplines, all of whom contributed to the journal. We were very dissatisfied with the kind of art that tends to be promoted in Cornwall. And we just decided that, if we wanted it to happen, we had to do it ourselves. If we want to have provocative, conceptual work, to generate this kind of research process, and to have in-depth conversations with artists, we’ve got to do it ourselves. Do you have any connection with UCF? No official links. Right from the start it’s been really important to me for Urbanomic to be independent; and although the art college is one of the factors that makes Falmouth an interesting place to be, it can also be a bit of a monster, in that anything art-related that happens gets sucked into UCF. I think it’s important that there are other people and organisations doing independent things. Has Cornwall influenced your work? Because of our desire to resist being associated with the “Cornish art scene”, we’ve always tried not to make a big deal of the fact that we’re doing things in Cornwall. We always just tried to do things that we’re interested in and to invite people that we find interesting. But recently, for the Falmouth Convention, we were asked to do a field trip, taking some delegates around the area. That was the first time we’ve done a project that really engaged with the place where we are and that was quite an interesting exercise. But characteristically, we tried to link it to universal philosophical themes and look at it from the widest possible perspective. We did a tour exploring in a quite heavily conceptual way all the incredible industrial history of the area, with an ecologist, a geologist and a philosopher as our tour guides.
[2]
Image of Conrad Shawcross and Matthew Watkins from the recent Secrets of Creation residency in March 2010
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TRAN-DISCIPLINARY
[3]
[4]
[3]
Image of installation from Russell Haswell event ‘Recorded While it Actually Happened’ in March 2009.
[4]
Image from Florian Hecker’s performance at the event ‘Sound Out Of Line’ Urbanomic Studio in June 2009
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ALAN CLARKE
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SIMPLICITY AND CLARITY
ALAN CLARKE
Words
Interview Charlie Derry
I am a recent graduate from the Graphic Design course at Falmouth. After graduation, I spent seven months as a junior designer in Falmouth and am now moving to London to further my career. I am interested in brand design, book design, editorial, way-finding, typography, design history, art books, colour theory and design research. I put subtle ideas into my work and aim to produce well-crafted solutions. I try to simplify the message that I am trying to convey by making it bold and quickly understood. I would say my work has a modernist influence, often with typographical solutions. However, I take a lot of influence from the past too, such as Japanese modernism, optical art, the international typographic style and old posters to list a few. I have also been inspired by many designers and agencies in London such as A2/SW/HK, Pentagram, Spin, North and Browns. My work has been featured in Creative Review magazine, Wallpaper magazine, Pro Design Journal (New Zealand) and Design Week. I won ‘Best in Show’ at the D&AD New Blood exhibition and am also a member of the International Society of Typographic Designers.
Alan Clarke’s Olympic poster proposals for London 2012 have given designers something positive to talk about in relation to design and the Olympics. Although they are not being used for the Games, take a quick trip around the various online creative blogs and you will find many who believe that they should be. Alan’s proposals have, however, been used on the London Underground to work with the Transport for London branding. They were designed to help travellers associate specific tube stops with the Olympic events that are being held there. Alan has always been interested in the Olympics and their logos and graphical designs, as well as the rich history of art and the London Underground, both of which informed and inspired his proposals. The posters work as what could be described as a set of optical illusions, each representing a specific sport. The designs focus on the movement inherent in the Games, conveying the athletes’ speed and energy in a simple, yet abstract, way. Alan’s objective is always to create a clear message throughout his designs with a classic and timeless approach, much like the Munich 1972 designs which are noted for their simplicity and clarity.
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ALAN CLARKE
“The main focus to the project was that I wanted to find out about communicating to an international audience through signs, pictures, form, colour, symbols and way-finding,” he says. “I tried to repeat things a lot throughout the designs and simplify the elements as much as possible, pairing everything right back. I was trying lots of different ways of layout and elements on the page.” Alan graduated with a first-class degree in the BA (Hons) Graphic Design course at University College Falmouth in 2009. He has since had a huge amount of success with his work. “I have been very lucky, which I didn’t expect,” he said. “This has opened a lot of opportunities for me.” Discovering Graphic Design He discovered Graphic Design through his Art foundation course. “I wanted to do illustration or fine art, but my tutor at the time showed me graphic design and I have enjoyed it ever since.” He described it as the first subject he had studied that he ever really enjoyed and defines it as, “Communicating a message, to a target audience, for someone else.” When receiving a brief, Alan analyses it thoroughly to make sure that he fully understands it before asking the client to clarify the brief’s purpose again. Alan said that a large amount of research is always important on a project, especially to look at work that has been previously done for a company. He finds it helpful to gain advice and opinions from a variety of people, which has often helped him in his work previously. “I just did projects that interested me the most and I really got into them and worked hard,” he says. “I think everyone works differently, I just found the way that worked best for me.” Inspirations from Cornwall Originally from London, Alan came to Falmouth in 2006, knowing that this was the right place for him to be. Cornwall has become a base for clear thinking and creativity for him. He loves the outside, and being by the sea has become a great influence; going surfing gives him a chance to clear his head when his ideas are not working out properly. Alan gained motivation from his tutor at UCF, Sue Miller, who challenged and pushed him, making him want to work harder. He also finds inspiration in books on design, art, nature, designers, agencies and music. He is particularly fond of artists such as Patrick Caulfield, Ed Ruscha and Edward Hopper and designers such as Armin Hoffmann, Herbert Kapitzki, Willi Kunz and Otl Aicher. UCF has always encouraged its students to enter competitions, and as a result has helped Alan’s work gain some well deserved recognition. His posters won best in show at the D&AD new blood exhibition, featured on Johnson Banks Review in 2009, appeared in Creative Review magazine and on their blog, and featured with an interview in the January 2010 issue of Wallpaper magazine.
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KATE MARSHALL
KA MARS
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KATE MARSHALL Millie Gibson
In a brightly lit seaside studio on the south Devon coast, artist Kate Marshall sits amongst her strippers, burlesque dancers and naked bodies engrossed in sexual activity. “Cath Kidston meets Benetton shoot meets porno shoot,” is how she describes the series, which also includes portraits of the artist as a mad hatter, old whores, purple roses and a cockatoo.
“The first year after I left university I didn’t really do much,” she said. “It is a shock to all of a sudden be on your own, not having that constant peer group pressure, not so much driving each other, but providing a rhythm. When you are kicked out at the other end you go, ‘Oh right, OK, what now?’ and sometimes lose that rhythm.”
Marshall’s incongruous style is one measure freshfaced country girl to two parts dirty city tart; a logical cocktail given Kate’s education at University College Falmouth where she completed her Foundation, and Goldsmiths in deepest South East London where she graduated with a degree in Fine Art and Art History.
Kate soon got her groove back, though, and was selected for a national showcase for emerging creative talent in 2006, judged by renowned artist Stella Vine. Soon after, she had her first solo exhibition in London and was singled out by the Sunday Times as a “must-see”.
On graduating six years ago, Kate felt under-prepared for the reality of being a working artist, describing the business as a ‘complicated and strange beast’.
It is no surprise that Kate’s work is featured on the Saatchi website, as both her painting and writing seem subtly indebted to the Saatchi tradition of conceptually new and sexually subversive female artists.
ATE SHALL
Images from her recent work include a devil farmer with horns painted red and black, an old goat with braces around his penis and a sea monster with an unnerving gaze and tentacles. Such turbulent paintings recall the work of 1970s photographer Hannah Wilke, Tracey Emin and Jenny Saville.
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EVER THE MADAM, NEVER THE WHORE
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KATE MARSHALL
ON ALL FOURS Much of Kate’s work is about flirtation, sexual excess and the stereotype of the celebrity rather than these darker imaginings.
be prepared to use myself. This series is based on photographs I have taken of myself. Ever the madam, never the whore…no more!”
Rosy Posy on all fours against a Cath Kidston background is reminiscent of the sordid celebrity photographs often leaked to the press and the dominant selections at Saatchi are all about beautiful women in burlesque costumes and poses making out (‘I could gobble you all up’) .
THE GREAT LIVES OF THE ARTIST
But these indisputably sexy paintings can be viewed both as referencing the great Western tradition of the male gaze and the female form and subverting it:
Her most recent live art show was a collaboration with sound artist Ben Hudson in October 2009. Spectators of the show ‘The Drowning Room’ , curated by Gareth Ballyn and inspired by Michael Pye’s novel of the same name, saw Kate illustrate the walls of Dartington Hall’s clock tower whilst listening to a composition by Hudson. “We had a place in the old clock tower, in the top room,” says Kate, “I was
“As a feminist I am always aware of the problematic use of the female form in art,” Kate says. “I was very conscious that my paintings were previously of other women and I decided that if I was to use them I should 44
Kate now lives and works in Devon. “When I first came up and started doing willies and tits, I was a bit like ‘oh dear they are going to hate me.’ But actually they love it,” she says.
[1]
[2]
[3]
EVER THE MADAM, NEVER THE WHORE
drawing all over the walls in charcoal, and this guy was playing this quite scary, atmospheric music which you would listen to on headphones so you were completely immersed in it. By the end of the show I had completely covered the walls with all these charcoal drawings.” Kate is currently working on a book of prints called The Great Lives of the Artist. “It is inspired by Vasari’s The Lives of the Great Artists and the renaissance biographies,” says Kate. Based on the lives of some of some of the more famous contemporary artists such as Sam Taylor-Wood, Grayson Perry, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin, the series of prints examines the idea of the artists’ reputation out shining their work. “It is mostly looking at the image of the artist and particularly the ‘celebrity artist’. I have chosen them as their private lives or their artistic persona is in danger, perhaps not through their own fault, of becoming more famous than their artworks,” she says. Working on this project has not only inspired Kate to explore new avenues for producing art but has also furthered her interest in the contemporary artist, “I have a new found respect for their work,” she says. “I haven’t chosen particularly seminal pieces but what is suitable for the process of printmaking, and this project is all about the print making.” The idea of continuing to learn new techniques after graduation is an important topic for Kate, as is the idea that graduate artists need more representation after leaving the university environment. Kate was fortunate enough to be picked up and represented by graduateart.com, a website committed to helping unknown graduate artists sell their work, but she feels that institutions need to prepare their students for the reality of life as a working artist. “It is weird and it is difficult if you are trying to earn money as an artist and doing it on your own is hard. I am sure that there are artists better than me who don’t know how to promote themselves,” says Kate. “Students need to make the most of an art school environment; courses need to mix so that transferable skills such as PR are learnt. Students need to go to each other seminars, collaborate and do a project and get involved with final shows.”
SIXTY NINE -
Currently working on a project that might be called “sixty-nine” Kate is playing with the idea of “decorative meets pornographic”. She hopes to embrace the masculine form as well as the feminine for this project, and says she has long been “interested in the idea that the porn of the day becomes the decoration of the next.” “I want to wallpaper the room in salon style hangings and to feature blokes into it a bit more. I have been meaning to do that for a long time,” she says. “Women tend to worm their way in, but this is an area I have wanted to explore for a while. There will be more sexualized images of blokes. Bring on the boys.”
KEEP YOUR TIES Kate is also considering teaching art. “I would love to do some teaching,” she says. “I think I would get a lot out of it. I would love to go back to Falmouth to be surrounded by young people that keep you on your toes and push you.” [1]
www.saatchigallery.co.uk/ yourgallery/ artist_ profile/a/7377. html
[2]
www.thedrowning room.blogspot. com
[3]
www.livesofthe greatartists.com
She also expresses the desire to promote the idea of combining artistic methods. “I have noticed quite a lot of artists who have taken up life drawing, but I felt there wasn’t enough emphasis on paint and life drawing and traditional methods,” she says. But for the time being Kate is busy working on her book of prints, the “sixty-nine” project and venturing to and from London, selling work and visiting other exhibitions. Vivacious and full of enthusiasm when asked what final advice she would give to the student artist she says “keep your ties with places like Falmouth,” and jokes that “it helps to have a partner who has a steady job.” DAIS 0.5
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So… We’ve finally come to the end of our journey on the 0.5, a very special issue if we say so ourselves. Like the crucial moment that the Chuckle Brothers are sat in makeup having their mustaches shampooed ready to ride the Quadricycle on another search and destroy rampage. Or when Kermit the frog’s puppeteer gets loaded on wine and nicotine just before the show. We’ve been collating our ideologies, meeting many an interesting creator of things and now we have this. That not quit issue, like seeing Kermit drunkenly dancing in his own drunken tomfoolery, or the brothers combing their marvelous upper lip bandits. A moment as beautiful and exciting as the actual show itself. Josh Sinclair Thomson
Thanks to all who took part. The support Angela Annesley and Jacqui Boddington in Learning Futures at UCF provided. The UCF BaHONS Journalism for providing us with this opportunity. Anna Kiernan, Carla von der Becke and Luke Friend for their invaluable advice. Lotte Mahon at The Vine for all her support and guidance. Will and Alex from It’s Nice That and R Booth Ltd Printers.
daisjournal.co.uk daisjournal@gmail.com
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