#artdegree

They then head behind the counter and start serving drinks.

Halt: Forge some seals and documents, you know...

I have created a sort of studygram, sort of blog, sort of place where I can be comfortable sharing what I do with my art studies and post about art in general, follow me if you would like to read me and if you love art!! 

Terrific talk by ex-Strode-art student Alex Loughlin (* @rrealexx on instagram) about his progress on the Fine Art Programme at MMU, now in the second year. Life in Manchester, transition from college to uni, the pandemic, ambition, portraiture, visiting speakers, life as a student, accommodation and practicalities, networking, opportunities and lots of inspiring drawing. Alex also joined us for the life-drawing sessions and talked to many students, clearly in spired and now considering MMU for their UCAS applications.

So finally, I had my degree. I remember that period where I was suffering from pretty heavy depression. I didn’t know that at the time and just thought my life was rubbish. I remember everyone being so excited on the final show night with suits and dresses and wine but I felt very little joy. Mum had sent me a tenner through the post and I bought a secondhand charity shop suit with it but was pretty penniless. Looking back though it was more Reservoir Dogs than Tux so that was good. The only thing that did make me smile was the grade of 2:1 because it was the same grade as someone I was deeply in love with (but he was largely unaware of me). It gave me the chance to spark up a conversation about grades. I remember during the viva the moderators sitting in my space talking privately and seemed far more impressed with my work than they had to my face, when they were quite dismissive. One of them had asked from my previous year’s drawings, “so, fascism, violence, AIDS, queer bashing etc; do you think you’ve grown up at all since then?” I called him smug and privileged and lost my shit with him. By doing so I figured I had thrown my degree away but didn’t really care- it turned out not so. My giant vent fan functioned as a secret sound tunnel to the next room where I was sitting drinking coffee. They were far more positive than when they were trying to goad me into defending my work more fiercely. One of them asked another about the handles on the sides of “I Thirst” saying, “these are really neat - you can’t even see the weld- how do you think he’s managed that?” - to which I finished my coffee and muttered to myself, “I glued them you dick…” the last two pages here are my friend the excellent Saint @lorin.davies in sketchbook - hallowed be his name, glorious and radiant in Shelton. (That was my bedroom door off the living room with the posters on) and a design for a confessional booth with a vent fan to suck the unanswered prayers out of your mouth. There still was really a lot of anger in me then. #artdegree #consumatum #artstudent #finalgrade #queerartist #queerartistsofinstagram #endofanera #completion (at Stoke-on-Trent) https://www.instagram.com/p/CXROyp9sgex/?utm_medium=tumblr

The penultimate set from the skinhead images photoshoot went a little deeper into relationships and power with images implying issues like dominance, protection, ownership, strong allegiance or attachment, a tongue-in-cheek power metaphor of a pissing contest and the possibility of union and fraternity on an equal footing. Some of these felt more successful than others but the first image was the only one that was actually exhibited from these. #artdegree #degreework #finished #queerart #queerartist #queerartistsofinstagram #queerskinhead #queerskins #photoshoot #identity #bootsandbracesdontmakearacist #powerrelations (at Toxteth, L8) https://www.instagram.com/p/CWV9HpAMELP/?utm_medium=tumblr

The photoshoot for the drawings I showed yesterday happened (I think over the Christmas or Easter break that year as it was) back in Liverpool with my friends in their cellar on Percy Street. I was about 22 so look like a tiny slip of a thing. I remember @owens449 and @elshaaaaa took the photos for me and I know @extremenoisejasper and @steve73uk modelled with me to get a set of shots (only partially resultant from the drawings). The reality of a photoshoot is that one responds instinctively to the elements of the space that actually exists rather than any previous ideas about it. Certain things were important like that the shots would be black and white (to suggest two tone but also to suggest the rigidity of right wing radicalisation where views are simplified down to “us and them”, “right or wrong” etc). They had to be spot-lit in darkness to because I loved Caravaggio and chiaroscuro. The details of the space itself should be used - here a missing brick to the next room provided a chance for disembodied hands to silence me or blind me like a see no evil type idea. Disembodied hands continued on the 3rd one like cherub wings but with an element of threat and control making the figure like a hostage. The last shot, of my backside, when hung in a bar in Stoke led to the comment “he’s got a neat little arse” from the bar man, who didn’t realise I was hanging the work but also the model. He cringed when realised it was me. On a separate note, within a month of that I had been walking along the canal in Stoke with mates and overheard a Welsh girl walking behind me describe me in a beautiful accent as, “ooh he got a disastrous ass..” (these conflicts of description led me to some ambivalence about my appearance in my later years…) these self portraits are the first four. There are more to come #artdegree #photoshoot #queerartist #queerartistsofinstagram #queerskinhead #selfportrait #blackandwhite (at Toxteth, L8) https://www.instagram.com/p/CWLcpMcMH88/?utm_medium=tumblr

The casting process for the Greek Hoplite helmet was new to me and was pretty arduous from start to finish. It started off with a clay shape, over which was built a microcrystalline wax shell from a plaster negative mould. The wax version was then dipped in a liquid ceramic that had to be stirred in a big vat by hand and the whole of the mixture had to be fully liquified so no lumps were left or the batch would be ruined. I remember it took about twenty minutes to fully stir it, always feeling for lumps by hand. It was freezing cold and I remember how achy it made my hands. A fine powder then had to be sifted over it and allowed to dry for a day. That process was repeated each day until a solid shell of ceramic that looked like frost encased the wax (making a surprisingly beautiful object itself). That case included the helmet itself and additional runners and risers (seen in these images like a bizarre crest) to pour molten bronze into which would vaporise the wax so it escapes out of the cast ceramic tube like a chimney. While that daily process was going on I reused the wax lined plaster shell to pour casting resin in to build a lightweight fibreglass version, which was also new to me. It was modelled here by Andy and Patrick (who were the “long haired Argives” on my course”) It was probably those few weeks that most of the technical skills of my degree arose. Two days before it was ready there was an unrelated catastrophic fire in the foundry area that meant that this finished bronze never actually happened- during this process I learned complex skills and how to deal with disappointment. #artdegree #sculpturedegree #lostwaxcasting #lostwaxmethod #procces #achilles #helmet #hoplite #trophy (at Stoke-on-Trent) https://www.instagram.com/p/CVsc8gosjHd/?utm_medium=tumblr