It’s been almost 3 weeks since my tutorial with Jonathan, and even longer since my last blog post. I’m usually very good at writing tutorials up immediately afterwards, whilst I can still remember what we discussed. I don’t usually take notes – it’s too distracting.

Oh, how I wish I had taken notes, but I think that I can still remember the gist of it.

My clearest recollection is just how good it was to have a chat about something other than accidents, operations, hospitals and pain relief. On this subject Jonathan mentioned Late Night Ramblings, how at first glance it looks like a map but then when you look closer you realise that it doesn’t relate to anywhere. We talked about the methodology – what came first? I explained that I started off with the coloured lines, placed the dots at the intersections and then decided to add the contours and finally the grid – in retrospect I probably should have reversed the order as it was particularly difficult putting in the contour lines after the event – I couldn’t see the lines for the lines. We discussed the previous experiments which led to this point in particular the use of the photo of my father to create the outline of the figure, how the pose still retains its meaning, the angle of the shoulders and the head looking down, and how, because he reads my blog backwards from top to bottom, it only became apparent that the photo was the source of the outline once he had worked his way down. He also referred to What Was I Thinking? and my openness as to how I viewed my actions.

We talked about whether I would experiment with other media – I explained that I liked the flimsiness of the flip chart paper as it reminds me of the paper on which maps are produced and how I am interested in the idea of folding. Jonathan referenced how maps are folded, in a concertina, and how a piece of paper no matter what size it is can only be folded in half 7 times. Intrigued, I looked into this further after the tutorial finished. Generally, this is the case although in 2002, Britney Gallivan, a high school student in California, set a new world record by folding a piece of tissue paper 12 times, but it was 1.219km long. Funnily enough, whilst driving to Exeter yesterday morning to start and finish what my daughter was en route to do when she had her accident, clear out her room at uni, we had the pleasure of listening to Radio 2 when the Paddy McGuiness show came on, and listeners were invited to message in to explain how it can be true that if you fold a piece of paper 42 times it could reach the Moon? Did you know that you can only fold a piece of paper 7 times I asked my husband. Yes, you’ve already told me that, he replied. It’s a matter of exponential growth – if you assume that the thickness of a piece of paper is, say, 0.1mm, then when you fold it in half 42 times it will theoretically be 439,804km thick, approximately 55,000km in excess of the distance between the Earth and the Moon, the same kind of principle as in A Bird In The Hand.

I mentioned that I was thinking of creating a ‘map’ which would embody all that I have learnt over the course, and have been toying with experimenting with canvas, how I would need to think about image transfer etc. Jonathan mentioned Citrasolv which works really well on laser print, especially high quality print such as National Geographic. After the tutorial I watched a few YouTube videos, ordered some and have had to wait a couple of weeks for its arrival, this Thursday.

We then discussed Raita Bitless, and how Jonathan felt that there are some very important elements which are emerging and this is one of them. It feels like these are important memories which need to be explored further, and I agreed, explaining that sometime over the next couple of months I want to go back up to the Midlands and spend some time just wandering and reliving.

I’m sure that some of these discussions were prompted by a question, but the only one I can vaguely remember is when Jonathan asked me whether I was missing anything or needed anything more. I said that I didn’t think so, that I am quite happy just doing what I am doing. I have realised a lot about myself and the way I work (or not) – I had been attempting to squeeze the round me into a square hole. As such, I have effectively torn up my work plan, as it’s just not who I am, and have decided just to wander; to go on a dérive, and to wonder. Jonathan liked the idea of wondering whilst wandering – there’s a name for it, he said. I thought of it afterwards – a homophone – although apparently wonder and wander are not actually homophones because of a very subtle difference in pronunciation of the first syllable – what killjoys! I like it anyway, and there is a lovely interplay between the two.

We then got onto the subject of the research paper and he referred to The Paradox Of Choice. I told him that I felt as if I had been told to go out and buy something, anything; that I had decided that I wanted to buy a cake but that I couldn’t specify which cake I wanted until I had visited all the cake shops and seen all that was on offer. I would have responded much better to having been given a choice of topic out of a small selection, akin to an exam paper; that I felt overwhelmed by choice and asking me what intrigues me doesn’t really narrow it down at all. Anyway, because of where my current experiments have taken me, I have decided to think about maps particularly in an autobiographical sense. We then went on to discuss maps and the issues with them in terms of distortion both physically in respect of projections and political motivations, perspective etc. Jonathan also mentioned Professor Steve Peters – Jonathan had been to a talk and had been given a copy of The Chimp Paradox – I had started reading it a while ago but didn’t finish it as I was probably distracted by something else. He referred specifically to the idea of the helicopter view. It’s a technique to gain perspective on something by imagining hovering over the issue in a helicopter which enables detachment and a more rational and objective view.

Does the need to do the research paper risk having a negative impact on my current wandering? This was a difficult question to answer, but on the whole I don’t think so – I’ve already recognised that I am a person of extremes, either really tidy or messy, focussed or distracted, honed in on the detail or preferring the bigger picture – each will appeal to my polar opposite needs and I am optimistic that what I discover whilst writing the research paper will have significant impact on my current practice.

I hope that I have covered everything we discussed although we must have talked about carbon paper at some point because I have used it recently. I have done a few things recently – I need to include them in a post but, frankly, all I have wanted to do is to make and not necessarily reflect on and write about it.