Throughout my project work I have continuously been researching methods, ideology and other artwork to help influence my work and also question how I can improve my art. In my studio practice this year I have covered many crafts and techniques and have explored with a huge amount of materials such as paper, photography, painting and the most outrageous one so far, gingerbread. Which brings me to my first quotation; “Freddie Robin’s practice crosses definable categories of art, craft and design. She combines these elements elegantly and with playful wit subverts meaning and making, fusing a melting-pot of approaches to ‘craft’.” Freddie Robins is a senior tutor and reader in textiles at the royal college of art. She tends to use knitting in her work and is often faced with the question of whether her art is actually just craft.  To overcome this she uses “playful wit subverts” to give her work meaning and make it deal with contemporary issues such as gender and human condition. Nearly all of Robinsons work has a sense of perfectionism, with their neatly stitched lines and perfectly executed finishes. I chose this quote because whilst making gingerbread houses for the alter ego project I found myself becoming obsessed with how they looked, wanting to cover every bit of gingerbread with sweets and spending a lot of money on different chocolates and other edible products to find the perfect pieces to stick on my houses. I also found myself questioning my project as whether it was enough to call it art and not just craft however with my strong conceptual side focussing on different relationships and how they change as we get older I felt I had enough connections to explain my edible art. Another craft I have studied this year is calligraphy. I first came across calligraphy when doing the project, drawing transformations. I became truly engrossed in this art and still practice every day since finishing the project. Whilst studying the art of calligraphy I read many books that taught me how to hold the pen correctly, which size nibs to use and the perfect way to form my lettering. Throughout my research I came across a book called ‘Calligraphic lettering with wide pen and brush’ by Ralph Douglas. This book was extremely helpful to me as it taught me to practice strokes before starting to write letters, it also showed me huge amounts of different styles ranging from Spanish round gothic to more simple roman lettering. The most important thing I learnt from this book was “Do not press with pen hard enough to spread the stroke. Let the pen write.” My reasoning for this is that whilst doing calligraphy it is very easy to get wrapped up in the technical side of things, for example what exact angle you should hold the nib or exactly how much pressure to put on the pen and when. In this quote Douglas tells us to ‘let the pen write’ which is incredibly true. If you naturally follow the way the pen wishes to go you will feel freer to enjoy your writing rather than your writing become rigid from trying too hard. Throughout this year I have tended to use my art to question the things that happen around me, for example my first project of the year was very much based on fresher’s and how putting us all together and exploiting us by giving us a huge sum of money and then throwing nonstop alcohol advertisements in our faces was asking for a spread of sexual diseases, colds, flues and general illnesses. Whilst studying a sense of place I came across an artist called Jamie McCartney who created The Great Wall of Vagina. I found this piece fascinating as it was a wonderful way of showing woman that everyone’s vulva is different which in itself is quite a touchy subject especially brought to attention by a man. On the website created for The Great Wall of Vagina it says “Female genitalia have long been a source of fascination, recently of celebration but generally confusion.” I chose this quote as my final quote as my final piece for the drawing transformations project was a plain piece of paper with the word ‘pussy’ written in decorative handwriting on it. I chose the word pussy to highlight how women can often feel that their vagina is misunderstood by men and sometimes their sexual prowess can be neglected through lack of knowledge on how women orgasm.

Infinity is forever, it’s used in many ways such as the mathematical Pi for instance which is a number that goes on and on. The symbol for infinity is ∞ which is the same as a piece of art by Stephen Murray called ‘The come down’. Murray created a human rollercoaster that was a velodrome in a perfect figure of eight, also known as an infinity symbol. He created this in the spirit of the common wealth games.  I first came across the infinity symbol when studying calligraphy, I found that this particular loop was very commonly used as a signing off point for calligraphy users and was also a great way to practice letting your hand run freely as it writes. It was also a great way to practice how hard to push with nib and when.

Postmodernism followed on from and replaced Modernism as a theory and encompasses a far wider area. It is far less defined than Modernism and does indeed reveal Modernism ideas to be stricter and more rigid. There is more room for change and speculation within Postmodernism theory which brings about the question of what will follow it (as it did Modernism) or rather will it just continue to expand?

I plan to explore this when applying the theory to the Francis bacon painting me and my group are working with throughout the Deconstructing the Grand Master project.