Side Quest | Kate McCalmont-Woods

I’ve had enough of this side quest (©️Rebecca). I regret the day that I started it. Have I enjoyed any part of it? Maybe the beginning, the anticipation, the thinking about it. But when it comes to the process, it has been a monumental headache, from the execution to the photographing.

I realise a few things may be influencing my feelings about it. I keep getting reminder emails that the submission deadline is approaching – like I don’t know. Also, my daughter phoned me up yesterday morning in a crisis during an online exam – she was having IT issues. She had already contacted the helpdesk and taken screenshots, so my only advice was that she could only do what she could and not to stress, they must have procedures for this sort of thing. A couple of hours later she was feeling better, whilst I was still feeling the effects of all her stress, and trying to work out how on earth I was going to take a photo of a reflective surface. That, and the fact that some of the glue had managed to escape from under the cut-outs, and the realisation that I had fixed the die on the wrong way round.

Anyway, this morning it wasn’t raining for a change, so I took it outside. I’m not entirely sure how I’m supposed to convey its reflective qualities without including a reflection which then looks like it’s part of the work. Well, following my own advice, I can only do what I can do.

I feel like it’s been a shambles and that I’ve been amateurishly stumbling from one thing to another. The process hasn’t been the experience I thought that it would be. Because I had no expectations, I thought that there would be no stress – instead I’ve experienced confusion and frustration, and it has taken just as much out of me as other years, just in a different way. The only difference is, if it doesn’t get anywhere, I really don’t think I care at this point.

But every experience is a useful one. So what have I learnt?

Mirrored acrylic has an amazing quality of turning into a super static magnetic for all manner of minute particles floating around in the air and so is impossible to get clean.

Whilst deadlines can assist in making decision making and getting on with it, a lack of time reduces options, options which may have been the better course to follow. I should have had the image screen printed – it would have avoided so many issues – but I just didn’t leave myself enough time.

I’m not neat, and I don’t do small and fiddly.

I’ve tried something different – maybe next time I’ll enjoy it.

I can submit work which I don’t like and which contains what I know to be obvious errors.

I’m going to do mirrors again, sometime – they will not defeat me.

The process of exploration and experimentation is not just about serendipity and happy accidents or things that just don’t work, it can provoke feelings of confusion, frustration and it’s just not that easy.

But for the moment, I’m so over it.

“So, what do you think?”

”It’s not one of your best”

And now I’m in a state of flux, and feeling a bit stressed, thinking where do I go from here? I have nothing else.

I use my husband as a sounding board and as a gauge as to what I’m feeling and what I’m doing. I value having someone to give me feedback, to hold a mirror up to me. But to what extent should I rely on this and allow it to influence how I see my own ideas and work? Why is it when someone says they really like my work, I feel it’s easy to ‘do it down’ – ‘oh, it’s not one of my best’, ‘there are some bits of it I’m not totally happy with’ (when actually I think that it’s as good as it could possibly be and I’m actually quite pleased with it), and yet when someone is ambivalent about my work, I feel unable to ‘big it up’?

Anyway, I now feel directionless, and at a loss as to what to do.

I have looked at how other artists have approached the concept of dialogue, and, in the main, they all involve figures. None of what I have looked at has inspired me so I haven’t even bothered to include any images of them in this post.

I don’t know what it is, but I’m feeling a bit fed up at the moment. Maybe it’s the theme of ‘Dialogues’ and the idea of connections etc. – it all seems as if it’s something that has been done before ad infinitum. Maybe it actually bores me – I don’t know – I just can’t seem to get inspired by it. Maybe it’s the fact that I only have a week to make something and I’ve got other more pressing things to be getting on with. Maybe this little side quest of mine is becoming an unnecessary distraction.

As a reaction to this feeling, I decided to take a literal, and some might say, infantile approach. I kept on coming back to my perverse love of Catchphrase and the birthday card. I started fiddling around on Procreate and came up with this:

A die, a log.

It’s pretty basic, but strangely appeals to something inside me. Maybe it’s a bit cheesy – but do I care? – maybe I need a bit of cheese at the moment. Then I remembered a piece I saw at the Pallant Gallery last weekend.

’Neighbourhood Witch’, 2008, Simon Periton, Silkscreen on mirror coated polyester

I really like the use of the mirror which reflects the viewer so that they then form part of the work. It reminded me of Craig-Martin’s ‘Conviction’ which I had seen at the RA. I could use this idea because one of the thoughts on my mind map referenced the need to reflect when engaged in dialogue.

I have decided to incorporate a mirror, possibly with the images of the die and log being raised slightly away from it so that they reflect in the mirror as well as the viewer – a die, a log, with you. It’s now becoming a fully matured wedge of Stilton!

I experimented by printing them off on some inkjet friendly acetate but my home printer didn’t do a particularly good job, but good enough to allow me to see whether the idea had legs. I wasn’t averse to it: it would mean that I would have to have it professionally printed on something more rigid, such as acrylic/perspex, and frankly, I don’t really have the time to get this done. Also, on reflection, I wasn’t sure about the reflections creating multiple images, as it was no longer a die and a log.

The only solution that I can think of is to fix the image directly to the mirror. The image in ‘Neighbourhood Witch’ above is screen printed on. I don’t know how to do this and I don’t have time to learn. I could get it done professionally, and after having done some research, it may still be a possibility but it depends on timing. Another solution would be just to collage them on. I researched the best type of adhesive and came up with Gorilla Clear Glue which is used a lot in glass mosaics. I will need to experiment with how best to apply it. In the meantime, I put some image cut-outs on a A4 mirrored piece of acrylic. I like the size.

Despite its luke warm reception, I’m going to carry on with my current train of thought. It may not be my best, but I like it because it is something that is totally different for me and it’s way outside of my box, and frankly, I’m all out of other ideas. And as General Patton said – a good plan violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan executed next week.

So I had a couple of sets of the images printed up on some 200gsm paper by my local print shop and cut them out and placed them on the mirrored acrylic to see how they would look.

I don’t know why I didn’t realise that this would happen, as it seems so obvious now – unless you stand dead straight on to it you can see the white reverse of the cut out image in the mirror.

My proposed solution is to have the mirror images printed and then fix them together so that any reflection is of the image itself.

Onwards and upwards, I hope!