BACKGROUND
During my recent tutorial, we discussed how the world events are affecting how I felt about my art practice. The change in world order made me not want to do bright and colourful paintings like my recent Family Dinner paintings as they now seemed frivolous with the destructions going on. I also talked about my sense of helplessness as an artist. Therefore, I am in the stage of reconsidering my practice – what do I want it to be about? I have always positioned my art practice as about identity exploration, starting with my personal identity and I started (chronologically) from my childhood in Hong Kong (e.g. the Cheongsam and Family Dinners etc.).
REFLECTIONS
– The feeling of ‘Voicelessness’ as an artist – see separate blog. I think I have worked through that one for now. Briefly – I believe my choice of being an artist (vs my previous position as a business leader within a commercial organisation) gives me much more freedom but with an unknown and unpredictable audience as there is no defined platform for communication. So having reflected on that, I do really value the freedom of voice that I have now. I just need to work out what to do with it.
– How to deal with the current feelings of despair for the change in world order? I can’t ignore it but I don’t want to directly confront it in my art practice because I would risk ranting and being too in-your-face rather than communicating and expressing sensitively and intelligently.
– So I thought about satire and actually went through the process of creating character metaphors that I would use ( one is a turkey eating French fries and the other a loaf of cheap white bread) but I decided against satire because it would require me to closely study those characters which I don’t want to do as I need to preserve my sanity.
After much thinking and reflecting, I decided to focus on how I feel instead which is anger, heartbreak and grief. Grief for the loss of a world order with values that I understood. It was not perfect at all but there was at least an established sense of right and wrong (usually according to the law); where helping the needed was applauded. I grieve for the loss of all that and more. I grieve for all the vulnerable people who will suffer even more or lose their lives and I grieve for those who have made it their mission to help but are now suddenly left helpless and scrambling for themselves. I am not against change and efficiently, but the destructive way of execution has been brutal – unnecessarily.
I am likening my feelings and others that I know who are going through the ‘world order change process’ as going through the Kubler-Ross grief cycle.
Diagram extracted from:
https://www.healthcentral.com/condition/depression/stages-of-grief
I find myself oscillating around Anger, Bargaining and Depression depending on what new (and shocking) information comes to light on a particular day. But unlike grieving for the loss of a loved one, I feel it’s not acceptable to reach acceptance which is a problem because I am therefore stuck in the perpetual grief cycle until ‘the show is over’.
So I decided to use my art practice to express the grief that I am feeling. I know (and hope) that it is just a temporary state because I believe I am a naturally optimistic person and I want to return to feeling hopeful about the future of humankind.
I remember the book ‘Grief is the thing with feathers’ by Max Porter where a father and two young boys grieved for the death of their lost wife/mother. Grief was portrayed as a crow. The short novel was written creatively in a way that helped me to picture the crow vividly. Inspired by the novel, I want to do something with crows and feathers in my art practice to express the grief I’m feeling right now for the world.
Other reasons for choosing crows:
– They are intelligent (compared to other bird species and mammals) but ‘voiceless’ as they can only caw (according to the human ears). I feel that is a good metaphor for how I feel as a ‘voiceless’ artist and perhaps how many artists feel in the world right now.
– Crow feathers are interesting in colour and texture. I want to explore further in my art making.
– I have always been fascinated by crows and they were once the subject of a personal project in my Chinese painting practice. So somehow I feel a connection with them.
LEARNING
So what does it all mean for my art practice?
It would be useful to think about ‘the fluid circle’ that was discussed during my tutorial – I go in and out of a fluid circle depending on how able I feel in responding to the world events.
– Inside the circle is retreat mode – coming inside the circle to hide from the world and have time-out. When I’m in that mode, I want to work on things that are simpler or more familiar for comfort. I can do drawings which I find comforting, or explore photography and the new objectivity approach to give relief through working with facts and an established process; letting the process take control momentarily.
– Outside the circle is confront mode – where reality is faced and dealt with. It could be energising but likely to be draining. The most useful and manageable thing to work on there right now is dealing with that feeling of grief and work out how to channel that into my work. Therefore I have been thinking about doing art with crows and feathers.
Is this a deviation from my main practice? I have been thinking about this a lot. If my practice is about identity, then I believe reflecting on one’s state of mind is a key part of that identity exploration. So having done much thinking about this, I feel comfortable that what I am doing here remains part of my soul searching – just instead of exploring the past (my heritage), I am exploring the ‘right here’ and ‘right now’ for me.
What about the Cheongsam dresses? I have had such positive feedback from my MA course mates during the low residency week that I feel I should do some more with the dresses especially for the degree show. Perhaps make a dress with crow feathers? Many Cheongsam dresses are decorated with dragons and phoenix, so perhaps a crow instead?
NEXT STEPS
– Just make art depending on how I feel in the moment. Do something with crows and feathers to release and express the grief as well as create time to think about the future.
– Keep thinking about what else I can do with feathers, perhaps Cheongsam dresses and possible installations.
– Give space and time for the thinking.
ADDITIONAL NOTES – CONSIDERATIONS FOR MY STUDY STATEMENT
Here is my original study statement:
https://eliza-rawlings.com/2024/02/03/ma-y1-study-statement-eliza-rawlings/
Since I am rethinking my practice, I revisited my Study Statement to see how my new exploration proposed here would impact my planned study. I feel that my Methodology and the Outcomes would remain unchanged. My aims and objectives were strongly focused on transculturalism and the work proposed here (exploring my currently feeling of grief and loss of world order) would not fall into that topic. However, within my Study Statement, my main goal was to explore my identity and I believe exploring my current state of mind falls well within that – it is all part of me and my lived experience. In my Statement, I also referred to wanting to expand my practice to explore wider societal issues including feminism and power structures – I believe my response to the current global political situations falls within this remit. To incorporate the new exploration into my study, I should consider adding some new ‘aims and objectives’ to ensure I remain on track with my study goals.
After reflecting on the overall work plan, I believe it remains valid and on track. One of the key aims of my study was to find convergence in my practice with the parallel development of my narrative and style that I started the course with. I believe I have achieved that (or at least have found a way to achieve it) in my Cheongsam series of work and I had written in my blog at the time stating that I was delighted to have found a way to converge the two strands through the Cheongsam dress canvases. Therefore I believe there is room in Unit 3 to accommodate an additional set of aims and objectives that have now become pressing for me.
NEXT STEPS
Consider additional aims and objectives for the newly proposed exploration.
COMPLETED ADDITIONAL OBJECTIVES
The following two pages have been added to my Study Statement:
elizarawlings 