Tag Feedback

Feedback

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

Over the last couple of months I’ve had the benefit of receiving feedback on two occasions: Peer Feedback on my 3-minute video and Assessment Feedback for Unit 2.

Peer Feedback on 3-Minute Video

The first part was Emotional Feedback following the prompts ‘I feel…’, ‘I wonder…’, and ‘I think…’.

The feedback was incredibly supportive and generous. The words and phrases which particularly stood out for me were:

Reflection

Self-exploration

Open mind

Process

Letting go

Experimental

Experimental reflecting personal journey

Vulnerability

Openness

Impulsivity

Not avoiding or seeking to escape

Honesty

Threads

Don’t shy away

The second part comprised Affirmative Feedback using the prompt, ‘What worked for me…’.

Some comments which stood out for me:

Ever changing as people

Can relate to ‘choose the process, not the result’

Bravery in genuinely stepping away from the outcome

Feeling inspiration in seeing the processing of the process

Raw sense of vulnerability and the value of being transparent especially in this day and age

Letting the contours and mapping unfold and then running with it

Presentation seeming to be part of the work

Evidencing of own becoming and the becoming of each piece of work.

I’m pleased that what I’m trying to do is coming across, that it connects with others, and that the ongoing process of understanding myself and developing is intrinsically linked to the process of making.

It’s interesting that a few of my peers have mentioned that the process and the documenting of the process could be seen as being works in themselves. I’ve previously thought about possibly producing a printed form of the blog as a piece of work in its own right. I did a bit of research but decided that it might be rather complicated and time consuming. I might take another look.

Unit 2 Feedback

I was really pleased with the feedback for Unit 2. I was even more pleased with the number of questions that were posed, that have been loitering in the back of my head for the last month or so. Weirdly, some of them anticipated thoughts that I was already mulling over.

What role does the myriad of experiments, successful or otherwise, drafts, models etc play in representing the state of becoming?

Seen as a whole they represent an ongoing process of becoming. Each one is like a version of me at that moment in time. Whilst making and engaging with materials I learn about myself and develop, and often each step builds on what has gone before and influences future work.

How might these represent those thoughts, ideas and problems that are being worked through not yet resolved? How important is it to share this part of your process with your audience?

Many of the experiments produce works which are unfinished or unresolved, or which have the potential to be developed further. They evidence what doesn’t work, my decision-making, or lack of it, make me ask questions of both it and myself, lead me to dead ends and force me to change direction and think of new lines of enquiry. Some experiments result in work which I can’t take any further but which perhaps could be taken in a different direction in a different work. Does that mean that they are resolved? I need to differentiate between resolution and evidencing process. I don’t think it matters whether work is resolved or not. If it isn’t then that just reflects the way in which I remain unresolved. If the process happens to result in a resolved work then that’s ok too because that just represents a snapshot in a moment in time – I’ve already moved on to become another edition of me.

I vacillate between thinking that the work needs to evidence the process and that it doesn’t, that it’s enough that I prioritise it over the product, that when I look at the product, to me at least, the process is evidenced, that the product has embodied the process of making and consequently, my becoming. After all I could view a piece of work as unresolved and as evidencing the process, and someone could come along with their own interpretation and think the complete opposite. Also, I need to resist thinking too much about the product in terms of what I hope to achieve with it, because that risks influencing the decisions I make within the process, instead of just being in the moment, and it could give rise to an expectation which might not be met. Of course that’s all well and good in a world in which I can just experiment and see what happens. I am having tremendous difficulty in figuring out how to deal with scenarios in which I need to make specific work as an end goal.

Your primary focus on mapping in Unit 2 has both narrowed your attention and deepened the possibilities. As I read your reflections and research paper I can’t help but think of Snakes and Ladders, the Möbius Strip and the idea ‘we are the children of stars.

I feel like I’m in a game of Snakes and Ladders – no sooner have I made some progress and I’m half way up the board, then I am sliding down the snake. I was only thinking about the Möbius strip over last summer. I like anything like that – I like Escher and it forms the basis of a lot of his work. I was also fascinated by the Klein bottle, with no inside and no outside. I suppose that I am observing myself becoming as I am becoming, but there is no differentiation between either, in a process which is essentially a never ending loop.

The maps are made from doodling, you write ‘no intention, no expectation’ – how does it feel to make work with no intention, what does the lack of intention reflect in terms of confidence and agency?

It feels great. It is liberating and creates confidence. In the past, having an intention to produce a piece work created an expectation as to how that might look. The process was a means to an end, and was more often than not, unenjoyable. When things didn’t go to plan, and expectations weren’t met, it would result in me doubting my ability, chipping away at my confidence. I think that I have reached a stage where the very word ‘intention’ makes me feel nervous, like it’s a snake lurking in the undergrowth waiting to take me back to the bottom of the board. As long as I restrict the idea of intention to methods of experimentation and not as to the result I should be ok. But, in the long term, as I mention above, I wonder how sustainable this approach is.

I have previously struggled with the idea of the ‘happy accident’, of chance, of unintentionality. I’ve questioned whether I can take credit for something which happened by accident or without conscious thought or application of skill. I think that I am now more or less comfortable with the idea that I can – it was me that did what I did that caused it to happen, it was my intuitive action based on all that I have done before which led to it happening.

We are excited to see how you further develop this work, will you continue to work with automatic drawing or perhaps include more deliberate mapping and revealing of the self?

I think that there will always be an element of automatic drawing, even if it’s just as an exercise – it is the bedrock of everything that I have done so far. It was what freed me from the shackles of intention and expectation. ‘Deliberate’ is intentional. Perhaps, as long as it stays within the realm of methodology?

How might relationships, milestones, births, death, homes, struggles, goals, speculative futures be shared? Or might you map time, matter, emotions, culture, impermanence as it relates to you? What does a work that heavily references topography need to be resistant to fixity?

In my study statement I went on about how I was intending to explore my different roles and experiences etc. That intention fell by the wayside when I made the decision just to drift. I think that I’m more inclined towards exploring the emotions of relationships and events, maybe within the context of time, and how I relate to them, rather than the specifics. I don’t think that it needs to be resistant to fixity for the reasons mentioned above.

Or will you push the non-intentionality further by incorporating rules/games on what processes and materials to use?

The benefit of imposing rules is that it creates a situation in which I am forced to react against something, to think differently. It also takes away control and agency when they are imposed by others. In my Pushing Paper posts I set myself the task of responding to outlines drawn by others without much direction from me save that the line should not have a beginning or an end and that the line should overlap itself so as to create distinct areas. I have yet to complete the second set of images – when the outlines were being drawn, I asked for some rules as to how I should complete them. I think that I prefer having others set the boundaries for me rather than doing it myself. I like the idea that I am responding to others which mirrors how I am shaped by others and the world around me.

Or will you choose to disrupt or misuse tools and materials intentionally? Like your abstract sticker experiments!

Those who have skills in the areas into which I’ve strayed would probably argue that I’m already misusing tools and materials. I like discovering things by accident, of finding another use for something which wasn’t intended.

You might find Miska Henner’s work interesting.

I will have a more detailed look at his work.

From your tutorial with Jonathan, you conclude that you will take a mixed medium approach. We are intrigued by how you might incorporate the various experiments and skills you have developed towards Unit 3. Perhaps this is also a time to consider what aspects of your practice no longer serve you?

I’m now thinking that I’ve inadvertently labelled myself. Mixed media, multi-disciplinary? I like the idea of mixed media because I’m drawn the idea of re-processing and remediating, but I still want to be able just to make a drawing or a painting if I want to.

You and me, both, although I already find myself linking back to things that I have done in the past.

I’m not sure – I almost wrote off linocut but luckily decided to give it another go recently, but in a way that worked for me at this time. I think that perhaps I won’t need to make a conscious decision, it will just happen naturally – after all there are several experiments that I haven’t repeated or developed – gelplate printing and kitchen lithography, tetrapak etc. But there might come a time when I decide to approach them from a different angle.

From your daily walks and their photographic experiments to the topological references to the parsemage and bubble experiments, to the line drawings, we are struck by how often pattern repetition appears in your practice. It brings to mind Richard Long’s ‘A Line made By Walking’, 1967. Why might repetition appears repeatedly in your work? How does this relate to your thoughts on intentionality?

I think that there is repetition in my work because I’m in a recursive, iterative loop – I progress up a ladder and come down a snake, then go up a ladder a bit further than before and come down a snake etc. I’m building layers of iterations as well as some form of connection, maybe in the same way that becoming is influenced to a certain extent by what was before and what is to come.

As you move away from figuration what is found between the figurative shapes, or fragments of these shapes – what happens when you zoom in on the negative spaces that are created? How might these be reused?

Whilst I think that I am moving away from the figurative, I think that it is likely that it may still feature in my work when it is the only method to express what I want to say. I need to give some more thought to negative space.

These are my thoughts for the time being. They may well change. I’m conscious that they contain contradictions. I think that the long and the short of it is that I simply don’t know at the moment how my research will play out in practice. It is theoretical and is bound to have practical limitations and to create puzzles to be solved. I feel as If I need to write myself some kind of a manifesto to order my thoughts and to try and address the practical implications.

A Moment

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

So, we’ve received our feedback and grade for Unit 2.

The feedback, the most important bit, is incredibly helpful, and has lots of questions for me to continue to think about. Once I’ve finished ruminating, I will discuss it in more detail. In general terms it mirrored my feelings that I have made significant progress over the past few months. I think this was the reason why I felt the way I did when I saw that I had been given the same grade as for Unit 1. I felt disappointed. I told myself that the grade itself doesn’t matter; what matters is the process, not the result. I should be happy with the knowledge that I have made progress, and developed within the process. That is, after all, my mantra: I choose the process, not the result.

So why is there still a part of me that cares about the grade? I spent quite a while talking to myself, trying to resolve it, and in the end the answer I reached is this: whilst I am all about the process, it does not mean that the result does not matter at all, it is just that I care more about the process.

Since Ambivalence, I have reflected further, and I think that it is either a case of wanting the product to reflect the process (which I didn’t think the grade did), or that there will always be a part of me that is invested in the product; I just need to learn to live with it and allow it to be heard, but not to dominate as it has done in the past.

And so, I listened to it, and asked what else I could have done. A typo. All’s well that ends well.

Raita Bitless

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

Not only did I not get the obvious joke with the placeholder name of ‘Noah Bitmore’ until half-way into the session on Tacit Agency with Prof Paul Haywood, but I didn’t really get the session itself at first.

I think part of my problem was that I came into it with a preconception from the title. My understanding of tacit agency is a legal one. It turned out to be about the relationship between who I am and where I am – an individual’s sense of connectedness with their physical and social environment.

The exercise of describing an important place without naming it was a revelation. I wrote white railings, the smell of coal fires, lemon curd tarts in a Family Circle tin. I was describing staying with my grandmother. I’ve previously mentioned that visiting my grandmothers is a strong childhood memory and one which evokes a feeling of constancy. We mostly stayed with my mother’s mother. I recently came across some glasses on eBay and ended up buying them because they were very similar to the ones she had, out of which I had my pop, usually dandelion and burdock, or sometimes shandy, poured out of a glass bottle for which you would get some money if you returned it, which was stored on the floor in her pantry.

I love a pantry. Shelves full of interesting things like bottles of Camp coffee, and biscuit tins of jam and lemon curd tarts, packets of crisps and jars of marmalade.

She’d ask me to shell peas from her garden for dinner (I’d eat most of them), the outside loo with the wooden seat, housecoats, woolly hats and Victory V sweets on the ‘buz’ to Derby sitting next to her on the front seat on the top deck so that I felt like I was flying as we went over Swarkestone Bridge, walking down to the village shop where she’d buy me cola bottles and Swizzels double lollipops, going past the pub on the way and breathing in the hoppy aroma, stodgy Yorkshire pudding whilst we watched Emmerdale Farm, the seersucker checked table cloths, the cupboard full of Woman’s Own and People’s Friend magazines from which I used to read the serialised stories, sometimes annoyingly having to miss an instalment because she hadn’t bought that week’s issue, going to Swad and having a cream doughnut, spending hours making mud pies and selling them from my shop in her front porch, the tops of her hold ups visible as she bent over to clean out the grate in the morning and lay and light a new fire – she must have had asbestos fingers – with her horse brasses hanging either side of the fireplace and her ornamental carthorses on the mantlepiece, climbing up the stairs at night into a freezing cold bedroom, shivering under the counterpane until I warmed up, memorising the Lord’s Prayer from the framed embroidery on the wall, watching horse racing and wrestling on the TV with her on Saturdays, hours of country walks pretending to be a horse, and many hours of playing with her plastic cowboy horse in the front room, playing cards and going up the passageway to visit Uncle Walter who would slip me 50p and Auntie Tamar with her slightly greasy hair who never seemed to move from her chair beside her 3 bar electric fire, but most of all, the white railings – a flutter of excitement because we were almost there.

As for my father’s mother, not so many memories. Although we visited her a lot, we rarely stayed with her as she didn’t live far from my other grandmother. The garden shed where I used to spend a lot of time lost in my imagination, I loved the smell, I loved the greenhouse, the smell of tomatoes, when I smell that smell I’m right back there, I saw a candle in Sainsbury’s the other day which was supposed to smell of tomato plants, but I’m not sure, searching for frogs on her rockery at the bottom of the garden, jumping over her decorative white fencing, yes, pretending to be a horse, being fascinated with her dressing table, glass containers and hairbrushes with tortoiseshell, the plastic pink powder container with a puff and her stone Westie doorstop I used to pretend was a real dog, Battenberg cake, her taking exception to me repeatedly playing my Growing Up With Wally Whyton record which I had got as a Christmas present one year, which included the lyrics:

“Oh you canny shove your granny off a bus, oh you canny shove your granny off a bus, oh you canny shove your granny for she’s your mammy’s mammy, oh you canny shove your granny off a bus. You can shove your other granny off a bus, you can shove your other granny off a bus, you can shove your other granny for she’s your daddy’s mammy, you can shove your other granny off a bus.”

Visiting her in the nursing home with my father and the patch on her forehead she kept on scratching, her limp arm and having to go with her when she wanted to go to the loo, watching her eat a slice of bread and butter with her cup of tea whilst she told us about the old man who kept going AWOL, told off by my father for not singing at her funeral, and the bracelet and the ring that she left me.

In my Unit One feedback there was a question: Beyond the photographs you are using, are you channelling memories through your practical experimentation in other ways – how might you explore more of this? Might you introduce more conversational elements – your voice is already present in your work, but would it feel relevant or interesting to explore recordings in text or sound? What would happen if you were to layer those recordings over animated/ simple stop-frame slide sequences of your cyanotypes and prints?

I’d been thinking of exploring using video before the feedback, and having just written this post I think that these childhood memories are so rooted in the sense of place that I need to go back there and make some mud pies.

By the way I dislike my voice, it sounds totally different to how it does in my head, and that’s why I resorted to using Siri on the recorded message on my red telephone, which is one more thing that I’ve yet to progress…

In the meantime, in the words of Kazimir Malevich,

Swim! The free white sea, infinity, lies before you.

Self-Accountability W/C 15/4/25

Kate McCalmont-Woods Leave a comment

What I was supposed to have done:

What I did:

  • Finished my work for the Interim Show
  • Attended the Interim Show and the Low Residency Week
  • Posted on the blog a few times

I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I haven’t really done very much over the last 3 weeks since the Low Res. My inactivity has caused me some stress. But I have been thinking, and feeling a bit overwhelmed: processing everything I experienced and learnt from the week, cogitating as to how it could inform my work, thinking about where it all leaves me and where I go from here, trying to find a sense of direction, but to be honest I’ve been feeling more than a little lost. I think that was why I felt the way I did when I looked at the second year blogs; they all seemed to have such a clear sense of direction.

When I curated my blog for the Unit 1 Assessment and looked back at my Study Statement I had a sudden realisation that I might never get to the end, that I had bitten off more than I could chew, that I would only be able to cover all of the individual elements I had identified in a cursory, superficial manner which would not do the subject, or me, any justice. For this reason, my request for specific feedback was:

“I am concerned that the subject matter of my programme of study is too broad and, that by its very nature, is a process which will continue beyond the end of this course, something that I have already acknowledged in my Study Statement. I would like some feedback as to the consequences, if any, of there being no ‘conclusion’ as such, and whether I should consider narrowing my line of enquiry.”

I had hoped that maybe I would be gifted a steer, or a hint. But, the response was:

”You asked about whether you ought to be narrowing your approach but arguably you have to explore a double diamond shape for practice…

start at a narrow point

then expand wide

then narrow again

then open out again

— this good and a helpful place to be and probably clarity will emerge organically. You are certainly doing all the right things to create the environment where focus emerges.”

I felt like I was being told to step up to the edge and jump, and trust that there is probably a safety net waiting to catch me. A blind faith that the process will lead me through the confusion and show me the way.

But having thought about it some more over the last couple of weeks, I now realise that to progress forward I need to concentrate on those aspects which interest me the most, which I believe have affected me the most. In doing so, I will naturally leave to one side matters about which I don’t really have a lot to say. Already, in my mind, the possible avenues to explore have been significantly reduced to those which have been the strongest emotional experiences. In exploring these events, I still want to keep open a range of possible media, although I already sense that some appeal to me more than others, but I want to finish exploring the possibilities before concentrating on just a few: I tend to choose the medium which I think would best express what I’m trying to convey. Whilst I don’t like too much choice, I do like to have a few options. I don’t think that I could only ever work in one medium – I would find that too restrictive, particularly as I think that I have quite different needs to be met – a need for detail and control at the same time as a need for loose expression and experimentation.

I have also resolved to scrap my work plan in so far as I have sought to set myself on a prescriptive path; I will work on whatever interests me when I wake up in the morning. In my work plan I have also attempted to impose a way of working which really isn’t who I am. I’m trying to force myself into a pigeon-hole which isn’t my shape; to have some self-discipline, which frankly I don’t have. I work to deadlines, although just recently I haven’t left things to the last minute, which has been a huge change in me. I completed my Study Statement and Unit 1 Assessment leaving myself plenty of time to review and reflect. I also recognise that I don’t have a constant rhythm of working; I have periods of intense activity and then I reward myself with a period of doing nothing, although I am – I’m thinking and processing and doing other activities such as reading and looking at art, which are equally as valuable.

So, I’m not going to beat myself up that I haven’t produced anything over the last few weeks. Instead, I’m going into this week having recognised some truths about myself and intending to do whatever takes my fancy, if anything, although I do need to finish my posts on the Low Res. Maybe if I do make something I will feel differently about it because I have chosen to do it rather than feeling that I ought to have done it. I came across a reel of Steven Bartlett’s podcast with Chris van Tulleken, who was explaining a time when, at the end of a family dinner, he had decided to to clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher, but before he could do so, his wife turned to him and asked him to clear the dishes away. He commented that he had gone from having agency and contributing to family life willingly, to doing someone else’s bidding.