Author Kate McCalmont-Woods

Chasing My Tail

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I’m conscious that each time I post I’m creating more work for myself in terms of making my book. But there’s so much to think about, to process and to make at the moment.

We started this week’s session by reflecting on the response we had to the prompts last week. It’s quite interesting in that I didn’t, and still don’t, feel concerned about my identity. Maybe it’s because it can’t be defined, because it exists in and is created by my work. It doesn’t seem important to me – I live, I make.

We then looked at adjusting or disrupting our practice, considering whether there is anything we can do which might create new possibilities. We looked at placing ourselves on a line between two points and considering what would happen if we shifted those points.

Material______________________________ Conceptual

Iterative Making ______________________________ Research-based

Intuitive ______________________________ Structured

Continual ______________________________ Periodic

Process ______________________________ Outcome

At first glance I placed myself clearly to either end: material, iterative making, intuitive, periodic and process. But thinking about it more carefully, and discussing the concepts with other members of my group, I began to see that it is not as simple as that.

  • I’m very much about materials, but then again I often have a concept in mind eg experimenting with combining specific processes
  • I make iteratively, but often there is a period of time in which I consider the work, research how other artists have approached it etc
  • I would say that I work intuitively but often that intuition is grounded in the structure of previous experience and knowledge
  • I have periods of activity in physical making, but then I’m thinking about things all the time
  • I think process v outcome is the only one in which I can say that I am possibly on the side of process although it could be said that outcomes are important in the sense that they feed back into the process of iterative making, and that outcome does not necessarily carry a sense of finality, in the same way as product does.

In a way, for me, they are more like recursive loops than linear continuums (or continua?). It was a helpful exercise as it highlighted to me that on the whole, I am not necessarily one thing or another.

We then considered, what are the most important things to do that are not directly making art. In addition, to continuing to be part of a creative community, making space and time is important to me. In The End I talk about my concern that my time will be sucked up by everyday life. This last week has been busy and I’ve been making every day. The consequence is that tasks in everyday life have not been done and are now mounting up. Others have been wandering around rather aimlessly at times, and quite a few meals have been eaten separately – my art making has a direct impact on home life and to a certain extent that validates questions about time spent by me making art. In an ideal world, I could say that it’s time for everyone else to step up, and they do from time to time, but in the real world it’s not sustainable long term.

Having developed a way of working, I now need to put in place a time and place for working. By having a dedicated work space away from the house, I can try to develop a regular routine of making, physical or otherwise, in which the boundaries are clear and which minimises disruption to everyday life.

It’s funny, because what immediately comes to mind is the Ad Reinhardt quote in After Everything Else:

‘one paints when there is nothing else to do. After everything is done, has been taken care of, one can take up the brush. After all the human social needs, pressures are accounted for. Only then can we be free to work.’

A Video Made By Walking

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I’ve made a short video using clips I took in Vienna last December. I thought I had recorded a lot more, but no. The audio is me playing the Blue Danube on a piano with one finger. I played around with a lot of the effects on Capcut. My one of the moment seems to be archaic lens although I find the dirty lens bit of it rather irritating- I like the colour and the texture. I’ll have to experiment some more and see if I can achieve anything similar. Some of the transitions need a bit of work but, as a first iteration, I’m particularly pleased with it.

My next video project is to film the ink and water in my fish tank.

A Video Made By Walking

Layers

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I’ve been thinking about layers again. I want to make a layered piece but I need to experiment with combinations. I’ve been meaning to have a go at making paper by squirting paper pulp. I used an old Nurofen syringe, but had to make the hole a bit bigger because the pulp kept on clogging it. I used a hot skewer to make it bigger, but while I had the lighter I decided to burn some holes in some of the mulberry paper I’ve been using to make book cloth.

I like the effect of the burnt edges. In the last two images they resemble coastlines, the last one similar to the Thames Estuary.

I made a mould out of some stretcher bars and some mesh, wrapped some thread around it and then squirted on the paper pulp. Removing it from the mould when it was dry was satisfying.

Video removing paper from mould

I took whatever images were close to hand to see how layering might look using some bits of cork as temporary spacers.

It was a really interesting exercise. I find myself drawn more towards the burnt paper than the thread and paper pulp. Maybe I need to try the paper pulp on different images, but my initial thought is that I don’t like the combination with the thread, although the thread does allow it to be suspended, rather than lying flat. I think that I much prefer it when I made the paper with the thread embroidery in a whole sheet. The paper pulp might look better without the thread, with the thread incorporated into a different layer.

I think that I’ll just start making the piece and experiment and make decisions in the moment.

The Book II

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I’ve been making the book cloth for the second book. This time I lino printed onto a sheer fabric and a plain cotton.

I need to sharpen my cutting tools – there was slip on the left side. I’ll be able to cover it up with the mask for the title block.

Overprinting on paper

Print on sheer fabric

Print on cotton fabric

Fabrics bonded together and backed with mulberry paper and addition of title.

For the end papers I asked my husband and daughter to draw some more outlines for me to fill. I’d been experimenting with not using straight lines.

I then redid the cyantotype for the remake of volume I. Whilst I was waiting for it to develop, I scrunched a piece of fabric up and left it outside. I was pleasantly surprised by the result.

A Line Made By Running

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I went out into the garden this morning. Of course I had noticed it before now, but I hadn’t acknowledged it. The path has gone, the grass has regrown and the trace of his physical existence is no longer there. It left me feeling sad. He would run from one end of the trees to the other barking at the cyclists who would greet him as they passed. The path embodied his physical presence.

Video – A Line Made By Running

The line in Richard Long’s A Line Made By Walking (1967), embodied his physical presence in the act of walking and questioned which part is the art, the walking, the line, the photograph documenting it?

I then started thinking about how dogs see the world and about colour, about whether colour only exists because we perceive it and what the world would ‘look’ like if we didn’t. It took me to the classic question of whether a falling tree makes a sound if no-one is there to hear it. From a scientific perspective it does because it still creates the sound waves. But what about a banana in a dark room? It still exists even though we can’t perceive it, but is it still yellow? My initial thought was no, because there are no light waves to be reflected or absorbed.

I think that I prefer the scientific view to Berkeley’s idea that ‘to exist is to be perceived‘ in which neither the tree nor the banana exist until we perceive them. But that led me to thinking about whether my work is art when only I perceive it or whether it needs to be perceived by others as being art. I think Merleau-Ponty would say that it is enough that I experience it as art because our perception is embodied in our experience of being in the world. It is art because I declare it to be, the perception of others enhances it and adds to its meaning.

Rightly or wrongly, some rambling thoughts when I’m supposed to be getting on with something else.

What Is My Work About?

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Our first two sessions since we’ve been back have made me think – a lot.

This week’s session was about our artistic identity and how to answer the question – what is your work about?

It’s a difficult question to answer. I don’t want to be pigeonholed and I don’t want to be pinned down, which is why I deleted the contents of the ‘About’ page on this blog because it didn’t relate to me anymore, and I’ve been struggling since to think of what to say. I couldn’t think of a way to encapsulate how I see my practice and my work.

But this session helped me in finding a way forward.

Jonathan showed us a quote by Robert Henri:

‘The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.’

It resonates with me as I interpret it as meaning that art comes out of a way of being, and that artists should focus on the process rather than the making of a product.

We considered the 6 prompts: idea, material, process, context, identity, and mood.

My responses:

Identity:

A woman who feels like she’s on the back nine of life who has been trying to find herself by reflecting on all that has been, is and will be. After Fatemeh mentioned the Iranian philosopher who said that his identity was a lover and his job was to love, I think I’ll change mine to a living maker who lives and makes.

Context:

My lived experience

Process:

Drawing, painting, photography, video, printing, sewing, paper-making, mark-making, playing, whatever feels right in the moment.

Material:

ink, pencil, paint, fabric, paper, canvas, paper, thread, charcoal, pastel, whatever feels right in the moment

Mood:

Exploratory, experimental, fluid, reflective

Idea:

The reiteration of shaping what I make and in turn being shaped by what I make.

A possible short answer: My work is an exploration of becoming; how I shape what I make and how it shapes me in return. I work fluidly across a range of materials and processes from print and drawing to video and photography allowing each piece of work to evolve naturally through experimentation. My work is rooted in my lived experience both past and present, reflecting on an ongoing shifting sense of self.

I like the reference to fluidity, it reminds me of my earlier thoughts and videos about flow and flux. It needs further work, but will do for the time being.

Material

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Whilst I’ve been contemplating the book cloth that I might make for the second volume of the book, I cyanotyped an image onto some sheer fabric. Cyanotyping onto fabric is something that I’ve been attracted to and tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, over the last couple of years. As early as the Interim Show I had visions of long billowing swathes of fabric.

But what caught my attention was the effect when I held it in front of a mirror, almost like the effect of the 3D printed images you get on postcards and bookmarks. I’ve still got a sheet of mirrored acrylic from my ‘A Die and A Log’ and I thought it would be interesting to experiment with layering images over each other on top of a mirrored surface. I toned the image with coffee to see what it would like other than in blue. I also wondered about using a different process – solar plate printing is something that’s been on my radar for a while, but I think that it can be quite tricky and it’s probably something best learnt in a workshop setting – again something to think about for the future. Another option would be a direct image transfer. I’m going to give it some further thought and have a play to see if it has legs as an idea.

It’s impossible for a photo to convey what the eye can see, and also I may need a better image.You can just about make out the reflection of the second head.

Space

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I’ve been thinking about life afterwards.

I need a space of my own, a place where it takes positive effort to find me. I have such a space and at the beginning of the course I said that I would sort it out, in the third post on this blog, embarrassing, but not surprising – That Sunday Feeling…

That is what I will do. In fact, I have recently started trying to sort out the stuff which currently inhabits the space – a collection of this and that from our past and our parents’ past. I came across some of my old exercise books from school, covered in pages from Smash Hits magazine, which my mother would buy me on Fridays, which was shopping day, together with a yoghurt and a chocolate bar. I also had several pieces of fruit that were to last me the week, and which sat in the fruit bowl on the dining table, slowly decomposing.

My daughter couldn’t get over how neat my handwriting was. My handwriting is a standing joke in our family – I should have been a doctor, apparently. What I noticed was the frequency with which it changed – experiments in mark-making.

Neatness was something which was commented on and leaving space for your work to breathe wasn’t encouraged.

My sister had obviously got her hands on them when she was a child living out her dreams of becoming a teacher. She even gave me a lower mark than the teacher. But I’m glad to see that I had my priorities right at that age: I liked drawing, pop music, going to parties and discos, and also boys.

I suspect that I will discover a wealth of material to prompt further work. This is the right time.

My Best

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‘…the sane human being is satisfied that the best he/she can do at any given moment is the best he/she can do at any given moment…’ Art & Fear.

A question I’ve been asking myself recently is whether I have done my best over the last two years. Yes, I think I have. Yes, I could have spent more time making, but even if I had, I don’t think that I would be in any different position than I am now. What I have done has been enough to enable me to see that I have discovered my way of thinking, seeing and making. There are things that I had hoped to explore within the structure of the course, such as my childhood in my grandmother’s village, but circumstances have not allowed me the time to do so. No matter – it is a project for the future, something to look forward to.

I never used to have this attitude. I always had to do my absolute best, I had to fix everything and in my head I was the only person who could do it. I decided to become a parent. I would be the best mother that I could be. Fortunately, (or maybe not), I was able to give up work and stay at home, devote all my time and energy to my new job. I tried all sorts of things from pureeing superfoods to baby Beethoven dvds and playing educationally stimulating cds in the car which used to drive me round the bend. I kept up to date with all the new advice being dished out by ‘professionals’ as to how to be a good parent.

I wish I’d seen this:

You’re Not the Architect of your Children

And I put my hands up to being a helicoptering mother who carried out her own 360 appraisals as to how well she was doing as a mother by looking at the success of her daughter – how well is she doing at school, how many friends does she have etc.? I’m not entirely sure how it all came about as I wasn’t the most ambitious person, but I suppose I was brought up to always put my best foot forward.

With hindsight I can now see it for what it was – a coping mechanism – a practical way to try and deal with a situation which was emotionally overwhelming. And that’s what I do when I feel that way – I try to exert some control. If you were to ask me what the most momentous events in my life have been, my answer would probably be having a child and the death of my parents. In both instances I felt overwhelmed, by responsibility, fear, vulnerability and grief. That feeling of overwhelm has lain unresolved and has affected how I have related and responded to circumstances since.

This course has given me the time and space to realise and to begin to process. One might argue that all I needed was a break from everyday life or therapy, but there is something intrinsic within this course and the making process that has brought me the clarity I needed – the process within which I felt able to be out of control; to experiment and to accept where the process led me, that I should lean into the uncertainty.

Ideas

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Often as I’m scrolling through Instagram I’ll save posts which interest me, that create effects or demonstrate processes which I want to try out. I get inspiration from a whole range of sources and often this includes other people’s thoughts, writings or art work. I suppose this goes back to Will Gompertz’s view that there is no such thing as an original idea (Part One: Think Like An Artist), but even so where I know that I have been directly influenced by someone I do acknowledge it – Do Ho Suh, Shiota, Rebecca…

But then what about situations where the influence is subconscious? I was listening to the radio on the way home the other day and an author was being interviewed about one of his novels. The interviewer asked whether it had been written as an homage to a film made by one of his favourite directors and which shared a very similar plot line. The author’s response was awkward. He acknowledged that he knew of the film and thought highly of it, but that he hadn’t written the novel as a direct homage, although he had possibly been indirectly influenced by it. I wondered afterwards why the exchange had seemed, to me at least, a tad uncomfortable.

When considering an issue it is often helpful to turn the tables, so, what would I do if someone took an idea of mine and made it their own? I suppose that I should feel flattered but I’d probably feel irritated. Would I feel any better if my influence was acknowledged? Most definitely. But why is this? Shouldn’t I just accept that once it is out there it is anyone’s, part of Brian Eno’s scenius? After all, there is no property in an idea as an abstract form.

Something to ponder.