Some Reason led me to discover a conceptual artist.

At the opening of the MA show in Dean Clough Mills, Halifax, I stumbled across some metal words set on a walkway between the industrial buildings.
It caught my eye: in particular, the words 'some reason' stood out. The whole thing (a weighbridge, apparently) looked like this (thanks, Google):




So after changing my Facebook cover picture to the above, I wandered into the realms of wondering the whole sentence could mean:
                     'some limestone some sandstone enclosed for some reason'

Googling this was the obvious place to start, and it led me to a blogger in whose footsteps I had followed who recorded the vision as a piece of public art as part of the regeneration of the mill. (This blogger called it 'pretentious' but added: "wondering why it being done by an artist rather than an engineer leads me to change my feeling about it so markedly.")
So - the artist. Next on Google's list is from the The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art, Volume 1, with a section on Weiner, Lawrence.




There was a sentence tacked to the original Google image :
Steel pennies don't come from or go to heaven.
This search led to a book of these words by Lawrence Weine (no 'R')

Lawrence Weiner was featured at the Henry Moore Sculpture Gallery in Leeds with his work Steel Pennies Do Not Come From or Go to Heaven19.02.1993 - 23.05.1993
Oh, by the way, this is what Lawrence Weiner looks like. Isn't he avuncular?





If you'd like to read more about Lawrence Weiner and can't afford the book, here's the Wikipedia page about him:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Weiner
And some very interesting information about more of his work here:
http://www.lissongallery.com/exhibitions/lawrence-weiner-within-a-realm-of-relative-form













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Random stuff

Well here I am at the end of my third year. It's been three years of fun ... I mean, hard work... and now, the end is near, and now I've reached the final curtain.

So I thought I'd use my blog for some random thoughts and pictures as no-one really ever reads my blog so it doesn't matter what I put on it.

So this is London, where I was at the weekend. I walked miles, as usual thinking that distances weren't so far. At various points in my meander from Covent Garden to the Southbank I encountered men in smart suits with tourism officer badges. This was one such, walking past a posh hotel with his white paper bag.

Can't remember where this one was. But I seem to have taken a picture at an interesting moment.

So here is my doll's house. It is an interactive piece with visitors encouraged to move the occupants and items around in the rooms. 

Three sculptures: of action man; charity shop item; action man man cave.

My homage to Marcel Duchamp.

My toy sculptures are sprayed gold to show how value can be added to low value objects,

Detail of wall hanging.

End of year show:

Friday June 10

4-8pm

Then weekdays 10-40pm to June 17.

Outside(r) art

Outside(er) art.

I an coming to the end of my second year at college (yes really - by mid-May we 2nd years have to be out of the way and our spaces vacated for the degree show).

My work has amassed into a jumble of what I have labelled 'box sculptures', with influences including Joseph Cornell, Louise Nevelson, Gaudi, Michael de Meng and many more. Mostly though, I have made my box sculptures up as I have gone along, by combining stuff I already had at home (years of collecting junk and bits and pieces for workshops) along with charity shop finds.

So I have selected a few of my creations to enhance my corner in the studio, and await the results of the assessment in a few weeks' time.

I apparently do not qualify to be an outsider artist, (Henry Darger), as I am at art college. I disagree with this exclusion as I do not feel my work falls into a particular fine art category.

(The term outsider art was coined by art critic Roger Cardinal in 1972 as an English synonym for art brut, "raw art" or "rough art"), a label created by French artist Jean Dubuffet to describe art created outside the boundaries of official culture. Wikipedia).

I made a lot - more than  10 - sculptures and there's no room for all of them in my final display so I am going to experiment further with my 'outsider art' by putting them outside in my garden and watching their decay.

"Mother's Ruin"

Ceramic work from the year

Good things come in threes

So there you have it. I'm half way through my three year degree course in visual arts.

This week I made the finishing touches to my work - techniques and processes, and studio practice, For both I have done ceramics and loved every minute of it.

In the last few days I have enjoyed visiting my former colleagues on the textile course, and admiring their endeavors. A lot of beautiful woven and printed work there. As I looked, I realised that I had made the right choice to leave the course and go to visual arts, and that was a reassuring feeling to have.

I have also seen some snippets of work by other students who have worked in what is called the Painting Studio or Spinning Shed. There is Beth's cardboard life-sized horse, Ian (Dash)'s 3d painted pallet explosions, Maggie's ceramic wall of curved bricks; Kristof's intricate tiny village.

Here are a few pictures taken of my work as it looks now, ready to be assessed over the next couple of weeks (along with everyone else's work too!)

Three different balls of wool, dipped in liquid clay, fired and glazed.

Ceramic spools - clay extruder, hessian and felt fibres dipped in slip, fired, glazed

Handmade textile coil pots, slip, firing, glazing, glass bead added and re-fired