Relaying the path

That title now that I look at it again, is a bit open to interpretations - but no - I am not running relay races - a bit past that ; but on the other hand it does sound rather pretentious. Anyway keeping it simple  -I am just trying to get the communications onto a more regular footing....... footing, path.. ??! geddit  - oh leave it alone.

I haven't mentioned much recently about my own work and that may have had something to do with some of the uncertainty I had been feeling, but now there is a degree of enthusiasm present that was missing.

You may remember my earlier comment on caustic soda and some of the experiments I tried t see if I could damage the Box  .... I failed with the box due to the vinyl covering but this,....    appeared  on some card:

 

There are larger versions of this which  I have put in for the progress review to indicate whence certain images had been derived. I discovered later that the solution had leaked onto some earlier zinc plates producing a surprising efflorescence.

In short it was suggested that I might print from these  and here are some of the results:

 

 

This was over the existing image

 

...and this was on the back of the other plate

These by the way are the prints.

 

Then I decided to pour caustic over more plates and these were some of the prints that resulted. There are a lot more possibilities  here because these have used with different colours and then overprinted onto the Back:

 

 

there is an immediate feeling of landscape here and as I have said elsewhere this is the skin of the earth and when these images are put together with some of the skin pictures there should be some good result:

 

 

 

This is the image of the  Back that was  sugarlifted (by silkscreen) onto a znc  aquatinted  plate and  printed  - later I will show pictures of these results.

Just in the last week we have been having workshops on Photoetching from Susannah O'Reilly and I have been particularly interested in this because in puts together two techniques in which  I am deeply interested.

 

 

This is a close- up of my thumb with cracked skin ; this was taken with a little macro lens attached to my iPhone

 

Here is a very similar photo processed through threshold in P/S:

 

 

then put onto acetate:

 

 

and then photoetched  onto a coated zinc (or aluminium) plate:

 

 

 

Later I will post the results - the process needs some more work as the print wasn't as black as I would like it to have been; but because this plate is zinc I will treat it to the metal and then acid etch it and see if I can get a better printed result.

 

However the main benefit over the past while is in the  aesthetic. The study of skin - particularly ageing skin as a site where culturally much of the 'west' is in denial(indeed one might say even denial of death) and when this skin is compared and blended with the skin of the earth(landscape, seascape) -  provides a contrast worth thinking about.

 

To finish,  another shot of an old favourite 

 

Ground Art Rides Again!

 

 

 

 

 

 

the path of shame

note the lack of capitals - I am not really sure why my attendance to my faithful readers has been so sporadic but I can only claim lack of time - the old excuse.... but this time there is some substance to it . There has been a lot of outside activity in my life over the past six months and that won't change for the rest of this year(academic) so I can only plod forward.

I will give one piece of good news to begin and that is that my creative thinking and consequent work in the studio and workshop is in the best state it has been for the whole of this year so far. After a lot of thrashing around (metaphorically and physically) I have found something that I wish to pursue deeply,widely and perhaps contradictorily, narrowly, and that is - skin.
I will later talk a little more about how I intend to investigate this but first I will do a quick recap over the past few weeks.
Revive (Y3 Print Show) opened and ran very successfully for a week at the Sailors Home and all the work can be seen on Third Year Print Buddies Facebook page - photos beautifully taken by Dervla Mulcahy - and now some of the prints from the show can be seen in the corridor outside Y4 PCP studio (on the way to the canteen - LSAD)
One of the surprising results of the show for me was the main work I put up; when I came here first I would have been quite dismissive of digital print work but all that has changed because I have found out how much effort may be needed to produce the pieces involved.

Edge 1           digital print           50 x 157 cm

 

Edge 4         digital print       40 x 57 cm

The other thing I got from the show has been a very positive boost in both the creative and the theoretical areas of work with skin becoming the topic of my Third Year Project:

 

This photo of my heel has produced a wide variety of images already and apart from the obvious, aquatints are appearing and there will be photo etches  - if not of this part of my body then some other:

 

 

 

 

 

thee will lead into and be combined with landscapes seascapes and sand patterns because after all the land and the sea is the skin of the earth and sand -the seashore is the edge that joins the two sections of skin together.

 

 

So like the surface of my skin

 

 

But there is an artist to whom I must draw attention here as was my attention drawn to her by my indefatigable tutors - in this case Noelle:

 

 

Vija Celmins (b.1938, Riga) Ocean - lithograph

 

This artists' work appeals so much because of its apparent simplicity but also because of its endlessness ands not least because of that feeling of its being a portrait of the skin of the ocean which conceals so much more that it reveals .... one of he great qualities of skin.

Celmins' work reminds also of another artist whose work inspires me  -Norman Ackroyd (already mentioned above): the subject matter of both artists deals with the edge and the endlessness of the sea where it takes over from the fussiness of the land.

 

 

This is Achill Head (pictured from a boat in 2013)and it would be  the sort of land/seascape favoured by Ackroyd

 

 

 

....and these are the landscapes that make up my skin  -    you will see more of these

A important diversion on the path.

I know, I know, I'm always moaning but the last ten days have been fraught and the much overused phrase 'roller-coaster' (on which I will have to admit, I have never been) comes to mind.
There have been, to say the least a number of dead-ends which produced images not universally adored - but that's alright : you have to expect that not everything is going to work.
The long and the shirt of is that while Dissolution has been fairly thoroughly explored albeit at a kind of an angle, the process moves on. The focus on the body that became part of the last project has been retained but it has been narrowed down and the concept that has always been there lurking in the background moves into the light once more. The next enquiry will be into Edge...... edge of me .... ie skin , my skin.

The first signs of this will be in the digital prints I will show in Revive  - the Third Year Print Show @ the Sailors Home in O'Curry Street , opening on Tuesday Feb 3 at 7pm. There will also be a piece from the end of the Dissolution process

Now to the Sailors Home the inside of which I only got to see  for the first time last Saturday when bringing the stuff in. What an interesting space .... I am going to show a few photos here of the site as it is prior to installation and later hopefully a record of the show.

 

 

New Limerick lurking

 

 

 

PCP 3  Students lurking

 

 

 

Wall Space being discussed

 

 

 

 Through various windows and doors

 

 

Some textures

 

While there on Saturday the natural light kept changing and produced some good interiors:

 

 

 

One final full view down towards the port makes Limerick quite a fascinating mixture of past and climbing into the present

 

 

 

I will resume musings on art and artists and discuss some new names that have come my way and how these are influencing my thinking regarding the sort of images I want to make and what I want these to show.

 

All this after Revive is over.