Date of the tutorial: 30th Oct 2023 11:00am
Who with: Jonathan Kearney
TUTORIAL NOTES –
Notes from our discussions and my reflections:
The mind map – whether The Third Space or Self-exploration should be the centre is something that could change over time. Just because I have decided on the former now doesn’t mean that the latter might not emerge as the centre at a later stage.
Reflections: I found the mind mapping process very useful in bringing clarity to my thoughts and practice. However, I recognise that it is important to avoid being too rigid. Need to make sure I give myself the space to think freely and not to bind myself to a fixed structure which could hinder my scope of exploration.
The extended-brain system of note taking – zettlekasten, can use this method to help me organise my thoughts when reading and researching about The Third Space as this book is so foundational to my practice at the moment. Obsidian software is an useful tool for this.
Reflections: I have found reading The Third Space very useful but have felt that I needed a better way to make notes and capture my thoughts so that I can build on what I read and make sense of it in the context of my practice. I am always worried about useful thoughts escaping me. So this part of the discussion was very helpful and I will research about the zettlekasten concept as well as try the Obsidian software.
Chinese painting – we discussed why not blogged until now and related discoveries.
Reflections: It was useful to delve deeper about the Chinese painting part of my practice. To talk out loud about where it has been and where it is going was helpful. Not only is the Chinese painting a skills-learning opportunity, it is helping me to discover my heritage and my personal history. It has led me to explore a range of topics such as Chinese philosophy and poetry as well as art. I was surprised to find that there was so much of that culture inherent within me despite leaving HK and my family when I was a young teenager many decades ago. I do feel blessed that I have a lot of material to ‘mine’ because so far that content has been largely untouched. However, among my excitement there is much hesitancy because of the uncertainty of what I might find. Also I am mindful of managing the challenges of vulnerability, detachment and self-preservation. Nonetheless, I am excited overall but I will take my time to ‘mine’ like an archaeologist doing an ancient monument dig because of the fragility.
The real challenges in my practice – Aside from the technical challenges such as digital printing on canvas, what are the real challenges for me in my practice?
Reflections: In this discussion, I reminded myself of a key part of my practice that I have been struggling with for some time – expressing my transculturalism. It was in this search that I came across The Third Space and I have been hoping that its research would help me with this challenge. I feel I am still at the beginning of that discovery. I have also been researching into other transcultural artists (as listed on my mind map) to gain insight into how they express their transculturalism. To explore my third space, I have been working on layering images from cultures that have influenced me. My challenge is to discover that something ‘new’ or unique to me. Right now, I feel my images are layers of culturally distinct images rather than a coherent whole – this remains my challenge to explore how to achieve that aesthetic coherence that uniquely describes my third space.
My creative ecosystem – we discussed this and how I have been building an ecosystem for my creative practice. I was asked to think about ‘working at my best – what is it like?’
Reflections: Referring to my search for a way to express my third space, I need to be more mindful about the ‘practice based research’ part of my work and make it an integral part of my day-to-day discovery. I will work on this and also consider the posed question carefully.
My prep questions requesting help – all answers captured under original questions below.
Next steps:
Be mindful to not let the structure that I build into my practice hinder my creative exploration.
Research zettlekasten and try out the Obsidian software to support my reading of The Location of Culture and research on The Third Space.
Although I said that I was not ready to ‘dig too deeply’ into my family history yet due to the fragility of the process, I will explore using some recently found family photo images for my forthcoming work.
Consider the question ‘working at my best – what is it like?’
My response to the question ‘working at my best – what is it like?’:
When I am working at my best, what is it like?
The environment –
In my home studio, alone. The room is warm but not hot; relatively orderly; quiet outside, with the radio or a podcast on; materials available and accessible.
My state of mind, how I feel –
I have lots of time, not in a rush, no pressure to be elsewhere. Free from interruptions.
My mind is free from worry.
I am doing the work for myself, not for anyone else.
I feel completely free and anonymous. The work doesn’t matter, it is not for show. That is when I can be truly liberated in my thinking and making.
Dance like no one is watching; sing like nobody’s listening; paint like no one will ever see your work and you will never have to explain.
Preparation for Tutorial:
I have been working on several strands to develop my research-led practice. To bring clarity to my thinking, I have created a mind map to capture the different topics that I have been working on or plan to work on in order to show their relationships to each other and their context within my overall practice. This map also shows the areas that I am currently working on.
To plan for Unit 1, I want to consider these two questions:
1. What are my aims?
2. What do I want to discover?
Unit 1 timescale – Two terms from Oct 2023 to End March 2024, approximately six months.
What are my aims?
For Unit 1, I want to continue the two strands of my practice exploration – developing my style as well as my narrative. I am hoping that at some point, the two strands will converge in a way where my narrative work would feed ideas into the layering style work thereby forming a more coherent practice overall. However, I don’t feel that will happen in the next six months.
The aims for developing my style:
– Digital Printing: A key priority is to resolve the difficulties I have been having in digital printing onto canvas. I have contacted CSM Digital Printing lab to find out my options. After receiving some helpful info, I am preparing a series of experiments to evaluate my digital printing options. My aim is to come to some conclusions on this point by the end of Unit 1. Progress so far is captured in this blog:
– Chinese Painting: I have been learning Chinese brush painting and I am enjoying it. Despite learning for nearly two years, I have not written any blogs about this work because I didn’t know where I was going with it. I have now decided that I will continue this path of learning and hope to incorporate more of this genre into my main practice. As a result, I aim to start to blog regularly about my Chinese painting work and I hope to explore how best to incorporate it coherently into my practice through the reflective blogging process. Below is my first blog on this subject:
https://eliza-rawlings.com/2023/10/26/chinese-painting-rooster/
– Research canvas background images: I aim to do more research and make digital image collages that reflect my lived experience to form the canvas background for my style development work. Once I have compiled my latest collages, I will use the CSM digital printing lab for printing on canvas. Then I will use the printed canvases to make the next series of work.
– The Third Space: I am reading The Location of Culture and I am finding resonance for my practice. I have started a blog on my reading, I aim to use it to capture my reflections and thinking as I go along. I also want to research more transcultural artists to explore how they have interpreted and expressed their third space. Reading progress is slow because of the thinking and reflecting involved. Blog for this work so far:
https://eliza-rawlings.com/2023/10/22/ma-y1-research-the-location-of-culture-by-h-bhabha/
The aims for developing my narrative:
– Make work freely and reflect: I don’t have as defined a plan here as I have for my style development work. Here, I want to just make work, leaving it as free and unstructured as possible to make whatever comes to mind. My aim is to use the reflective process on the work that I make to explore my thoughts and narrative. Below is a blog on my latest narrative work – Self-portrait #3:
https://eliza-rawlings.com/2023/10/27/ma-y1-u1-self-portrait-3/
What do I want to discover?
– An improved process for my multimedia layering work: with better canvas materials and using the CSM printing facilities.
– My Third Space: through my reading and making, I want to research and reflect on the meaning of The Third Space for me. I expect this exploration to last a long time and long beyond Unit 1 but I want to make some concrete progress in the next six months.
– My narrative: this is in fact part of the Third Space exploration, but I have not made sense of how they fit together yet. So for the time being, I will continue to discover my narrative through free making. My research into other transcultural artists will hopefully give me some helpful insights.
What do I need help with?
1. Digital printing and painting on large silk canvases – where can I get help if I struggle?
Discussed.
2. Feedback on whether having such a mind map helps or hinders the creative process.
Discussed.
3. Question – will there be any essay writing assignments?
Yes, in Unit 2. 3,000 to 4,000 piece of writing. More info in April.
4. Any other general feedback would be appreciated.
Discussed.
5. Can I access free Adobe suite software and stock photos library as UAL student?
https://www.arts.ac.uk/students/stories/get-adobe-cc-for-under-42
6. Where do I go if I need help with a specific medium, e.g. painting with oil and cold wax?
Technical Moodle – see Paint and surface, some technicians can help.
For info only – Below are other blogs that I have written this month.
A ‘risk-taking’ drawing exercise:
https://eliza-rawlings.com/2023/10/25/ma-y1-u1-exercise-drawing-out-of-comfort-zone/
Thoughts on how I want to structure my blogs for this course:
https://eliza-rawlings.com/2023/10/05/ma-year-1-blogs-planning/
Ideas on work to make next:
A painting based on reflections from the ‘risk-taking’ drawing exercise and the Chinese painting blog – creating a loose painting background using the left-hand and eyes-closed approach, then adding Chinese brush painting style symbols as an experiment.
Third Space/soft power – HK Colonial street names – I want to make something about this topic that I have been giving a lot of thoughts to over the last few years, maybe experiment as part of the above painting to start with to see where it takes me.
A narrative painting from memory – childhood story in HK about a lawn bowling green incident reflecting the colonial era.
elizarawlings 