It was a long day at the hospital yesterday and once everything was sorted and my daughter was settled in bed, I needed to do something to switch off.
Some wandering lines in different colours on flip chart paper – I quite like the flimsy quality to it. Then dotting the connections, many of which I’ve missed I’m sure but my eyes were getting tired. It was brainless activity, but incredibly soothing. That done, I decided to incorporate some of the contour-like lines I have previously used in my doodles.
Add in some grid lines and the result is something akin to a map. But what to do next? How can I incorporate this into something else or develop it further? I decided to leave it for now, whilst I still like it, before I do something I’ll undoubtedly regret but which is all part of the experimental process.
I’ve reflected on it further today – I had a look at some ordnance survey maps (incidentally OS is half an hour down the road from me in Southampton) to think about symbols. I remembered last year in Mallorca and the Miró/ Picasso exhibition at Sóller train station. There was a key showing the symbols Miró used and their meanings.
I didn’t think that I liked Miró, but then I hadn’t seen any of his work in the flesh. They were extraordinary and thinking about it now full of map like qualities; symbols in a spatial relationship, a visual expression of his inner world. Which now makes sense, considering these ones are part of his ‘Constellation’ series!
I was very lucky to have Cheng and Dalal in my group for this week’s group crit.
I showed my recent experiments with graphite and pencil.
I explained that I have become interested in the idea of inheritance recently and mentioned Donald Rodney’s work. We had a really interesting discussion about where we come from and our legacy, how it’s sometimes comforting to know that someone else before us was like us which frees us from feelings of fault and guilt, the idea of all that has gone before distilling down into us, much like our family tree before us, ends with us. How what we pass on feels like a responsibility or a burden.
Cheng commented that the white shapes give the impression of something that is no longer there and the dark shapes are reminiscent of shadows. Thinking about it, the shadows are cast by something that is there but is not visible. A figure’s absence is felt yet we feel a figure’s presence somewhere – it just about sums up ancestry.
I explained the process of making the pieces and how they seemed to develop into a type of map. I mentioned that the subject of maps has come to the forefront of my thinking recently along with the idea of connection. In my Unit 1 feedback one of the comments was: “It feels as though you have been working through an abundance of techniques that are maybe a type of mapping – now is the time to compare and contrast all of those experiments in order to develop an intuitive and personal way of mapping your experiences…”.
For sometime I’ve been interested in Deborah Levy’s idea of her mother being her internal sat nav and I used Google maps to obtain the aerial image I used in Parental Loss. My art class recently gave me a scarf with a Grayson Perry map on it. I was thinking earlier in the year of mapping the course of a river. The coincidence that I chose to draw the lines in colours which reminded me of maps somehow has linked all of this together. That, and the fact that I have been complaining ad nauseum about not having a sense of direction.
During these two years, I am, to all intents and purposes, mapping my life.
There seems to be a strong unintentional link to maps in the images: Cheng said that the images in which I’ve marked the intersections remind her of constellations, and Dalal observed that the lines themselves could be interpreted as borders, which then feeds into borders marking the the point where countries connect. This led to me seeing that the outline of the shapes themselves resemble coastlines.
Cheng and Dalal both made some really helpful comments about potential development:
playing with scale: a large image on a wall giving the impression of a map but then coming in close on a small scale to create a more personal experience and stronger connections
Drawing on a vintage map or incorporating old family photos
Using a pin to attach separate images to the points of intersection – this has since led me to think about criminal investigation maps – maps with string coming off from them to images and additional information on the perimeter
Thinking about how I can use materials to create something that looks older, that comes from a past time – this brought to mind highly decorative old maps with sea monsters in the oceans
creating a large scale reimagined map
Shortly after our session ended, I had a thought about making a digital map of my life with events or periods of significance being marked by specific points, a bit like a Google map, which you could then drag the yellow man to and drop into a space where you have a street view – maybe of images relating to that particular event. And then I laughed, Alexa laughed, Siri laughed, my husband laughed.
Kate McCalmont-Woods 