Author Kate McCalmont-Woods

Where Have I Come From?

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I started this post a while ago. The act of going through all of my blog posts for the book and making the 5-minute video has encouraged me to think about the journey that I’ve been on. Sometimes I have so many thoughts in my head that I need to put them into words so that I can get some clarity and order. So, here goes…

I started this course thinking that I was an oil painter who enjoyed working with colour and shape. I’ve been looking back at the work that I was making two years ago. This is an example:

It still appeals to me – I like a narrative. It was made in response to the brief, ‘On Having an Outside’. I like a painting inside a painting, inside a painting and so on, and the use of a mirror, a play on Magritte’s ‘Not To Be Reproduced’. I thought about it a lot – the idea that we wear masks but in this case what you see on my mask is a reflection of you and how you feel about yourself which you then project onto me. It expresses how I felt at the time. I still like looking at it, but it does feel contrived, controlled, and static even though it depicts me turning to look at the viewer. I didn’t enjoy making it. I had a very fixed idea in mind as an end goal and so the process of making it was restrictive and frustrating. I kept at it until it was how I wanted it to be, what I thought was the best that it could be. It was all about the product and I was driven by my controlling perfectionist self. I haven’t painted very much at all over the last two years. I’m wondering why. Maybe I should?

These are screenshots of some of my recent Instagram posts:

I look at these images and I like what I see, but most importantly I remember how I felt when I made them. I felt free, unencumbered, excited, and intrigued. Interestingly, they are predominantly monochrome, exploring mark-making and movement.

I’ve been wondering what to do. When clothes don’t fit me I sell them or take them to a charity shop. What should I do when my work no longer fits me? Treat it like a photograph of a younger self maybe, a reminder of where I’ve come from?

The last two years have revealed many things to me:

I am happiest in the process

I am at my most productive and enjoy making the most whilst in the process and without a defined end product in mind. One of my mantras used to be that without intention there can be no expectation. I think that was useful in the early days to keep my focus on process, but I’m not sure that it’s strictly true because I experiment and explore with intention. Furthermore, the making of the book is a very intentional act with an end product in mind, but the specifics of how it looks have developed in the process. I think that the difference is that the book itself is not important save to the extent that it is documenting my process and the making of it has allowed me to develop further, as well as to reflect on the last two years.

I don’t need to be in control

Embracing the process has allowed me to give up control and it is now the foundation of my practice. It has helped me better understand myself and has changed me. It has allowed me to see that there is a direct correlation between my behaviour in making and my behaviour in life. It has taught me that in moments of personal overwhelm such as becoming a parent and caring for my mother my instinctive reaction was to try and exert control over circumstances. This behaviour fed through into my making. By allowing myself to give up control by experimentation in making, I now realise that I can deal with uncertainty in life and rather than trying to control it, I should lean into it.

I don’t have to make what I like or like what I make

Just because I love to look at Surrealism, works heavy with narrative or full of colour does not mean that is the kind of art that I should be making. Viewing and making are two entirely separate experiences. Because I am privileging process over product I may not always like what I make – what is most important is what I experience in the process. Just recently, I have been working more with video and I’ve realised that this actually gives me a means of exploring narrative.

The meaning of my work is in the process

As in the example above, I used to start out trying to make work that already had meaning. Now, the meaning comes out through the process of making, and the finished piece embodies it in some way. That doesn’t mean that I begin without any direction—I often still start with a line of enquiry or an idea—but it isn’t fixed. It stays open, changing and developing as I work.

I can embrace both the accidental and the incidental

I now feel more comfortable with accepting responsibility for the accidental within the process, and I actively look for the incidental and often go off on a tangent.

I want to be able to choose whatever process or material seems right in the moment

I don’t want to restrict or pigeonhole myself. I refuse to attach a label to myself either as an artist or as a person. I want to be able to choose whatever process or material is right in the moment. I don’t want to limit my ability to experiment or to discover new languages of expression. I live and I make.

I need some soft structure

I think that there are two distinct areas of my practice – the experimental side which is exciting, uncertain and can be overwhelming, and the side which is more of a structured wandering, for example, repetitive mark-making. I’ve commented previously that the act of drawing line after, or even now more recently, stitch after stitch makes me feel contented – it’s as if there is just enough structure to provide a frame for my attention yet loose enough to allow for response. I’ve also been using motifs such as contour lines, automatic drawing, my father’s silhouette etc. throughout the course, and it is really only recently that I understand why that is a feature of my practice. I have accepted that I can never rid myself of the perfectionist self and the soft structure provided by the repetition keeps that part of myself happy.

And my Study Statement?

Since the first year I have thought from time to time that I need to change and update my Study Statement because I’ve wandered off course. In it I was very specific about how I was going to approach things. I had an end product in mind (what a surprise!). Instead of exploring all of the different roles that I’ve had in my life, complying with my detailed workplan and finding out who I am, I naturally deviated from my plan and later made the conscious decision to embark on a dérive contemplating those things which seemed important or of value. To have amended it would be to remove the evidence of my progress and my process. I’m not the person I was back then – I am becoming and the prescriptive framework of the Study Statement would have limited that becoming. Thinking about it even some of the categories on this blog are irrelevant.

Soft Structure

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Jonathan started off by commenting that the films I’ve been making are really interesting and that there are so many different things to discuss, the book, the films, and he particularly likes ‘I’m an Artist’ . There’s something about the drawings, the books, trying to make the end papers, the disaster of the suminagashi but me noticing the connection to the line. I explained that I feel like since the end of last year there has been a sense of change, like things are linking up and coming together. He agreed.

He mentioned my videos of the ink in the fish tank – beautifully filmed, and not to diminish them but something you can get hold of quite easily from stock image websites – what’s impressive is what I do with them afterwards – the addition of the thumb harp to the droplet video which he thought was magical, and the addition of the audio to the speeded up version of the ink – I take it to somewhere else, and that’s what’s interesting to him. It interests me too. Before the course I was very much into narrative and I’ve realised that I can satisfy that part of myself in video-making, freeing up other processes for different things – I seem to have reached a point where I can satisfy different parts of myself by using different processes, including the perfectionist chimp which I can keep quiet by drawing lines and repetitive acts.This makes me feel more contented in my making and gives me a feeling of cohesion, but not in a closed way, in a momentary way – next week it could be a different combination of processes.

Jonathan moved onto the book, which is a huge challenge – it’s quite contained within its format – the signatures, the binding and stitching etc. I could have fed it into a website to produce it, but there’s no control, and he felt that it needs my hand because that is what it is about; it needed to be handmade. I commented that I felt a great sense of achievement about my first attempt, even though it hadn’t worked and it wasn’t really passable as a book (I didn’t mention this but I have actually showed it to friends, I’m that chuffed with it – I can’t imagine doing that a couple of years ago!). There’s something very special about making a book. Jonathan understood what I meant and showed me some of his concertina books which he often makes – the form of the book transforms the content. I said that having to go through my blog again has been a helpful process, even just glancing, looking at the images, reminds me of what I’ve done and how I felt at the time. Jonathan said that I have an incredible story to tell myself.

Turning to the videos, Jonathan commented that my video-making is astonishing considering that I’m using Capcut and that I need to step up. It’s something I’ve been thinking about going forward, to become more proficient but not to the extent that there’s nothing left to discover by accident. What would he recommend? Final Cut Pro – watch some video tutorials and will it come easily, allowing me more precise control on edits, layering images and sound etc. Mostly filming with my iPhone – I don’t need anymore than that but what I need to bear in mind is the fps – moving image is 24fps – my phone probably defaults to 30fps. Film in slo-mo (120fps), but will probably need more light if it is dark. Then when I slow down to play it back at 30fps I have 4 times as many frames to play with and the playback is much smoother. A downside is that it creates larger files and will take up more storage.

I commented that I have been wanting to learn how to use my phone to its full potential. Jonathan said what’s intriguing to him is that I’m doing incredible things with it as it is now and learning new techniques isn’t the most important thing – I already have an artistic eye – it might be that for now increasing it to 120fps is enough to be getting on with and will give me lots more to explore. I said that I am very much about using what I have in the moment, having a go and seeing where I can improve things. Jonathan thought that there’s a beauty with that and that it comes from all the other experiments and the comfort I have developed to take things that haven’t worked to somewhere else.

He gave me some tips for filming with the caveat that I shouldn’t get too bogged down with technical stuff as I’m doing it naturally and there’s something really lovely about that – what I’m filming and the way that I’m doing it is interesting . With regard to the Vienna video, a small detail which will help is to hold the camera out from the body using the elbow and shoulder as shock absorbers as the phone itself will do quite a bit of counterbalancing. There are some lovely moments when I notice something interesting and I should look to pause longer in those moments – always hold the shot longer than I think because I can always edit it out, I can’t add it in – like with the shadows on the ground. I explained that when I filmed in Vienna it was very much because I was interested in it rather than being mindful of making something out of it later and perhaps that is the downside of the experimental approach. Going forward I will take his advice and collect footage with possible later use in mind.

He advised that when filming water or anything transparent, light from behind, as I have, but what I can also do is to put black card either side of the fish tank. I could also put black card at the back of the tank which encourages the light to wrap around the side and light everything up against a black background.

Jonathan turned to recording sound. Technically I need a dead cat but they don’t do them for phones, but what I could do is just be conscious of wind increasing and perhaps turn my body or shield the microphone with my hand. These are small details but my films are mesmerising and these extras could take them to another level.

Jonathan commented that there are so many different things to look at, the layers, burning the paper, the red stitch, the scrunched up cyanotype material, ‘the line made by running’, which we had a little chat about.

He thought that I’ve written clearly and beautifully about the show being a snapshot – what would I be showing if I did it now? My books are a definite – I’m feeling quite happy making them if only I could stop posting. Jonathan observed that having volumes means that it’s an ongoing thing, something that can be added to. I thought that maybe I could also have some video. Maybe also a larger piece either layered or not, I’m not quite decided. Once the 5-minute video is out of the way I’ll be more focussed but not so that it’s resolved in anyway – I’m ok as long as I make the decisions in the process and see what happens. If it all goes wrong then at least I’ll have the book. Jonathan thought that whilst there’s so much work that I could show, focussing on the book is a good approach. I commented that the book gives me certainty and grounds me so that I feel a lot more relaxed about other pieces I could make. I’ve noticed that whilst I need and thrive in the experimental I also need a bit of loose structure to feel content and to feel like it is sustainable going forward. Jonathan observed that it’s a metaphor for the way I make work generally.

Jonathan was of the view that the book makes sense on so many levels for me – as a reflective piece – a wonderful treasure of the blog containing memories of what I have done and how I’ve spoken to myself. The book will allow me to dive back into there, and it also has a beautiful handmade feel as an object, as an art piece as well as being an element of structure but within which there is also space for experimentation.

Have I thought about how I might present the books? Yes, but it’s difficult because I want people to engage with them, to pick them up, to read them but not in a way where they just toss them back down again. It’s what we have talked about before where interaction breaches the barrier between artwork and viewer. Maybe they are only there when I’m there. I need to think about it – how to achieve a balance. Jonathan suggested that perhaps a couple of pairs of white gloves – maybe their presence would change the atmosphere. I thought this was a good idea. Jonathan then wondered whether the surface could say something eg a university chair with a flip table might have a sense of note-taking, exam, formality etc. Books piled up on a coffee table says something different, a leather inlaid desktop when compared to a white shelf. What about a conceptual relationship to my work? It’s been such an incredible journey. What about books stood up on a shelf so they taken out and put back in? I had thought about that but decided that perhaps that might just read as spines to be looked at, rather than ‘pick me up’, although the addition of the gloves might allude to the books being picked up. What if the third book is open on a different surface – is that enough? I could always lead the way by picking them up myself. What if the second surface is a screen showing the videos because they are so important to what I am doing, so the book needs to be picked up so that the video can be seen? The one issue is what the edge of the screen would like, we could put it on a white plinthat table height, it could be seen from every direction, we could make it disappear or just accept that it’s a screen with a cable there to power it. I asked about sound and Jonathan thought that so many people want headphones that the sound could just be coming from the screen. Being able to walk round it and seeing the videos from different directions could work well. Jonathan then wondered what that might look like if there were layers over the screen through which to watch the videos.

Finally, Jonathan remarked that it’s really helpful that I’m writing about sustainability and it’s wise that I’m trying to find rhythms of time and place so that I protect what’s happening right now because it’s precious. He’s very encouraged that I’m thinking and writing like this already. I think that it will be difficult but I need to find a way. I need to introduce a little bit of structure so that I change from working sporadically to something more consistent.

As ever, and for the last time, so many good ideas to mull over.

Four Little Words

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I’d be lying if I said that I don’t get moments of anxiety about the End of Year Show and what I will be showing. After all, the plan is not to have a plan, as I’m treating it as a snapshot and the continuation of my becoming, as opposed to the big finale, the culmination of something. But it’s very difficult when all around me are so far advanced in their own work and I also need to give an idea of what I will be showing from a space planning and curation perspective.

At the very least I will have the book – it was ok to have that as a plan as it seems the most natural thing for me to do, it is something that can continue to develop because it is made up of volumes and also the process of making it has been one of learning and development. After my trial run I decided that I need to have some sense of progress and that I would crack on with the second volume before returning to remake the first. So, I’ve made the book cloth that will be used for the cover and the end papers. I’m currently halfway through formatting the blog – the resizing of all the images to a higher resolution suitable for printing and the creation of QR codes for the videos takes up a lot of time. Hopefully I will have finished it sometime this week and so can get on with making both volumes.

I’ve been thinking about my conversation with Jonathan as to how to display it. I want people to pick it up and have a read of it but at the same time treat it with care. Placing a pair of white gloves like those used by archivists next to the books would indicate that care should be taken – I don’t necessarily intend for people to actually use them and I’m sure that there will be some who would be reluctant to anyway. Hopefully, there will be three volumes, so the idea of two being arranged on a shelf and the third being placed on a separate surface, open and an invitation to be read is a good one, but it is also open to being seen as being on display, something to be looked at, not touched and read. So, I’ve gone with Jonathan’s idea of a student table chair/ conference chair as a possible option. I’ve sourced one – it has a fixed writing tablet so nothing has to be moved or flipped up for the reader to be able to sit down.

I’m also intrigued by Jonathan’s idea of using a video screen as a table and placing the book on that, as well as his comment about watching videos through layers. I had in the back of my mind that I would probably make a layered piece rather like the one in Layering. I tried experimenting with the burnt mulberry paper just to get a feel. I also used some mulberry paper that I had cyanotyped on and decided to burn holes in that to see how a patterned layer would work – a health and safety risk assessment beforehand probably would have alerted me to the risk that paper that had been chemically treated would probably burn quite enthusiastically – let’s just say that it was a bit quicker and harder to blow out than the plain paper. I put the paper on top of an acrylic sheet for the purposes of this exercise and so at times you can see my reflection.

Link to Video 1

Link to Video 2

I’m going to have a look at making some new videos and perhaps re-editing some of the existing ones, taking on board all the really helpful suggestions Jonathan made in my tutorial. I’ll keep playing around with layers and see where it takes me.

I also want to try working at a larger scale. I’m still thinking about microchimerism and the piece with the three foetal forms (The Accidental and the Incidental). I still can’t believe how randomly drawing a shape resulted in a form which I now see as having such a strong identity. I could use some of the processes that I have been experimenting with, such as bubbles and ink. I really enjoyed making the paper using the syringe ( Layers) – it feels organic and biological and maybe I could incorporate it in some way into a larger piece or even a layered piece. I can only make it in A2 but I think that I could easily attach sheets together to make a larger sheet. The only question is how I would transport it, but I think that once it’s dry it is quite flexible and more robust than it looks although it would probably be better to take in sheets and then join it together in situ using paper pulp which would have enough time to try over the install period. Failing that there’s always PVA glue.

I’m feeling positive and excited that I have a loose idea – some soft structure – let’s see where it takes me.

Still Playing

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I’ve been playing with making monotypes, nothing in particular, just experimenting with mark-making, water and masks, metallic pencils, thread.

Or maybe this way round?

I’ve noticed that I’m starting to resist the better composition for something that’s counter-intuitive – something that makes me feel uncomfortable.

Life

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As I sit here looking out of the window in need of a good clean, my husband is cutting the overgrown grass. The glass table has turned opaque with dust and the dog is giving off an overly ripe odour (well, at least I think it’s the dog).

And this is how I know that the way I have been working, particularly recently, is not sustainable. The ‘it’s for my course’ has been both a blessing and a curse. It has validated me spending time making art but on the other hand, as usual, I have gone all in and seen it as a permission to be totally selfish and to allow my head to be somewhere else for most of the time and, to be fair, I did warn them that this would be the case. There have been times when I’ve been so caught up in the intensity of making that I’ve emerged at the other end feeling like I’ve binge-watched a box set or had one too many chunky Kit Kats. I’ve needed a break after such episodes, which probably explains why my rhythm of making is not consistent but in sporadic bursts.

Everything in moderation – isn’t that the key? Well, perhaps not necessarily in moderation, but certainly with more attention on life in general. It’s getting to the stage where I’m finding it difficult to hold more than one thought in my head at a time – road taxing the car and whether I should try cyanotyping on tracing paper. I used to think that I should allow myself to be submerged in the making process for as long as I need to, at the expense of whatever else was going on; to seize the inspiration and run with it. But that’s not the way forward. Once this course is over I won’t be able to say that ‘it’s for my course’.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and I have recognised that I need a little structure, nothing too rigid but with enough strength to support my practice in how, when and where I make. For the first part of this course I went full on into experimenting to try and rid myself of the product driven perfectionist self. This approach worked as I immersed myself in the process not worrying about results but simply making and responding, although I realise that I can never be truly free from that side of myself. It felt so liberating, but having broken out there was so much out there for me to try and I suddenly felt the urge to try everything. But I don’t do well with overwhelm – even the process of deciding on a research question overwhelmed and subsequently paralysed me. In the past I have reacted to overwhelm by going to the extreme of trying to take control. In retrospect, I now see that didn’t work either, so there must be a half-way house.

Because of the contentment that I felt when I started making the line drawings at the beginning of the last term, I now realise that whilst I my practice is still very firmly rooted in the experimental and the process, I do need some soft structure to keep my perfectionist goal-driven self, quiet. This soft structure in how I make takes the form of repetitive mark-making, using the same patterns and motifs such as the contour lines, my father’s silhouette, automatic line drawings etc. Just recently I’ve also found that working on more than one thing at once has also been beneficial. When I get fed up of formatting the blog for the book, I go and do something else and whilst that is drying I move on to another. I also think that the concept of soft structure will also enable me to make work which is capable of fulfilling a brief as opposed to being solely the result of experimentation, which has been a concern of mine in looking towards the future.

In terms of where I make, I am in the process of sorting out an outbuilding where I will be working. I have been sorting it out for the last two years, but up until now I haven’t really needed it. I need it now to create a separate physical space to work where it will be more difficult for everyday life to encroach. Getting a studio somewhere would probably be the cleanest solution, but then what about those days when I’m not really in the mood? At least this way I’ve only a short walk.

As for when I make, the making the most of the moment approach will have to change because of its impact on everyday life. I need to decide how much of my time is to be spent on my practice and when. Making a rigid timetable won’t work – my work plan to my Study Statement proves that. Maybe a general aim to spend x hours a week, or a number of half days. I think that’s something which will emerge in practice. So, from now on, as an experiment, I will spend my mornings during the week on art making and course related activities. After lunch I will then concentrate on everyday tasks and once they have been completed, I’m free to return to art. Obviously, I’ll have to fit in other activities so there will have to be some adjustments.

The irony of having to separate my everyday life from my art practice which is grounded in everyday life, doesn’t escape me.

The Interview

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I’ve learnt my lesson from the 3-minute video. I set about the 5-minute video by writing down what I wanted to say first and then selecting images with reference to the voice over. There was some adjusting in between with tweaks to the audio. The difficulty was getting the structure right so that there was minimal repetition of thoughts and ideas. But 5 minutes of my dulcet tones! Something had to change.

So I restructured it in the form of an interview, using Speechify to alter my voice to a middle aged man called Benjamin. There was no particular reason for this choice other than his voice was the least irritating and also I wanted a male voice so there is a clear difference between the two.

I’ve learnt and developed even more in the process of making it.

Link to 5-minute video

Tick Tock

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For some very light entertainment I’ve been watching ‘This Is Not a Murder Mystery’ a quirky fictionalisation of the gathering of Surrealists at Edward James’ West Sussex pile, West Dean. Whilst he was a champion and friend of the Surrealists and owned the largest collection of Surrealist art, this particular gathering at which several murders take place is a work of make believe, with Magritte waking up next to the first murder victim in a mise-en-scène exactly like his painting The Lovers which up until that point had not been seen by anyone.

Les Amants, 1928

I was trying to put togther the transcript for my 5-minute video earlier and I was thinking that I would like to make some work with me in it, me now, rather than videos from years ago. I managed to get over my reticence at using my voice and so I think it’s time that I bite the bullet. It seemed to me that being obscured in some way rather like in The Lovers might be the answer, a veil of sorts which could also represent am element of feeling disconnected. Because I’ve been looking at my work and my blog recently, the idea of time passing has been in the forefront of my mind, and I really dislike the sound of clocks, a constant reminder, particularly the one my husband has which belonged to his parents – it ticks so quickly it makes me feel anxious.

I’ve also been wanting to have a go at stop animation. I know that I could have just taken a video and used apps such as Capcut to create the effect, but I wouldn’t really be experiencing the process, so 153 photos later…

Link to Tick Tock

Whilst it was time consuming, the act of exporting, rotating and uploading the photos was repetitive and was strangely enjoyable for that reason. There are quite few things I would do differently if I did it again, the sheer fabric has creases in it which really I should have run an iron over before starting but I was so excited to get started. Having said that, I do quite like the diagonal that it creates. Also it was difficult to see the image on the phone screen because of the double layer of fabric and there are a few areas which could have done with being straightened out. Having said that I’m really pleased with the outcome, I enjoyed the process of making it and learnt a lot and even managed to tackle it in a logical way, dealing with just one photo at a time and not rushing it, which is unusual for me, although some of my impatience is obvious in the video, as already mentioned. In particular I really like the effect of double layering the sheer fabric which creates a contour-like effect.

Fish Tank III

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As I was editing the video of the ink in the water I decided to see what it would look like speeded up. It had a whole different feel to it, less calming, more violent, and so I experimented with adding some audio. I’m pleased with the result. I can trace it back its roots – the doodling, the contour lines, the attempt at suminagashi that went wrong and the inspiration that came from that, of observing ink in water, the ink and the fish tank and the curiosity to experiment with effects that I have developed since I’ve been making videos over the last few months. It’s so satisfying to see how it all connects, although I can probably say the same about most of the work that I’ve been making recently.

In many ways this video is as mesmerising as the 5 minute one of the ink moving slowly through the water. After I had increased the speed it reduced from 5 minutes to only 6 seconds, so I duplicated it over and over. The audio clip was slightly longer than the video clip and so the effect of duplication was to delay the audio on each subsequent repetition. This led to me thinking about when we know that something is coming we anticipate it and often it reduces its impact or sometimes, such as scary moments in films, even though we know it’s coming, it still makes us jump. I was then interested to see how many times it had to be repeated to get back to more or less the right place – it was 7 times (the maximum number of times that you can fold a normal piece of paper in half). My daughter didn’t notice the delay in the audio each time and so I gradually reduced the volume to draw attention to it.

The blackness and lines created by the ink remind me of Gnawing Grief in Klimt’s Frieze. The video reminds me of how grief feels – when it initially hit me it was like having the breath knocked out of my body by a monumental force, over and over, and it made me feel disconnected and out of sync with the world, which just seemed to carry on as if nothing had happened. This video is as close as I can encapsulates that feeling for the time being.

Link to Video

I’ve really enjoyed experimenting with ink in water. Next time I’ll try different sorts of inks and perhaps venture into some colour. It’s been a great learning experience well particularly in terms of working out how to apply layered effects in Capcut and also in learning how to load the video to Vimeo instead of YouTube – the quality wasn’t that great on the latter. I think that I’d like to get more proficient at video-making and editing as well as photography and editing tools such as Photoshop as I anticpate them being a significant part of my practice in the future.

Fish Tank II

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Now for the ink:

Video Ink in Water

There’s no audio because I don’t want to distract from the visual. I had meant to put in a drop of ink, but it was more like a splodge. Next time I’ll be less heavy handed. It was really exciting to watch the ink slowly flow in the water; it was mesmerising. I really like the way it creates layers and veils of lines, and all the different shapes and images which momentarily appear and then disappear – at the beginning the jellyfish which then grows a nose and transforms into a face.

The ink was in motion for about 10 minutes and when it stopped it just hung there in the water, as if it was frozen in time. It reminded me of stalactites and stalagmites. It was difficult to capture fully what I could see.

Video Ink in Water II