First Day

Well, sort of not my first day. I've been hanging around UWE for some 10 years since starting my BA in 93. I've been a sort of hungry ghost ever since, wandering purposelessly around various departments looking for some sort of purpose. I'm trying to decide whether it's a good thing, because it means I'm not an unknown face and I know certain things about the different departments, or a bad thing because people will assume that I'm aware of things I simply am not. It remains to be seen, although I should guard against ascribing any problems to this slight peculiarity. Truth is that the support for research students is a lot more on the flexible/ad hoc basis (with the empahsis ther being quite neutral, honest) and I need time to get used to the various systems that it is composed of.

Today saw me sit in on a mandatory module that they make all the new research students do these days: a year-long module on methodologies: potentially very welcome. Anyone for practice based research in the Fine Arts? No? Thought not. So I figured this would help a bit and help me try to fashion some sort of shipshape research model I could take around the block for a spin.

It sure is confusing. I haven't helped: not being able to turn up on Thursdays- which is when the other raw researchers are attending has meant that I'm in with the 2nd and 3rd year MA students who follow the same program I'm doing over 3 years ( I think), but on a slightly different timetable to me: and lots of other possible things I could attend or not, and a reading group to share wee snips of useful texts and various inductions I have to attend to be allowed near the saws and glue I need to make my art&research Frankensteinia. Confused yet? Me too. However, help is at hand, with my supervisor and the module leader both promising enlightenment via personal tutorials wher it will all be cleared up, of course. I need to ask the right questions and get my peace of mind out of the way before I attend to the getting-rid-of-paperwork that will possibly be what the time is really for.

I haven't found today all that inspiring. A bit raw from parsing down so much information intended for people in other circumstances ( I think there are at least 3 different award/research groups within the group that sat down wit5h me today. And, really, I didn't come out of it with much more knowledge than I started out with about what I'm supposed to be up to for this module, because I am (blush) different from the rest.

Actually, maybe not quite so. There was talk of the MA students keeping logbooks of studio practiuce and commentary of various stuff they'd come across which had informed their work, which sounds like a good thing to get hold of: various things arising from this will certainly comprise some facet of a practice based research in the fine arts, I would've thought.

For now:

Must sort through a couple of emails: one to try to sort out some inductions, and one to my supervisopr to remind/confirm with him what he said he'd do as regards a tutorial.

I suppose I should be making some artwork too, hadn't I?

Many things

Last day before enrolment at UWE and the chance to meet, officially, some of the people I've been hanging around for some time. I've many other different strands to pull in.

The latest one is the new e-newsletter that the bookarts list is about to start publishing. Called The Bonefolder, it'll be a peer-reviewed newsletter about book arts. Probably with a committed regular set of commentators who move mostly in the book-art-as-binding/total book end of things, if the content of the book arts list is anything to go by. It does have times where the history of book arts is discussed, however, and I'm sure if I trawl the archives a bit i can find out that people have in the past written about the creative side of it as well: how do we create the books? How do we decide on the content? Most importantly for me, why do we choose book art over something else? Perhaps I can work up something on these themes that might be suitable. Certainly it would be no bad thing to begin publishing pieces, however modestly.

Other things include my two outstanding exhibits at Ale& Porter, my commissioned work for the same, my other artworks, my commissioned design work from the library, the class I'm about to teach at Spike, and oh, hey, how about I learn some research techniques and project management skills too? When I'm not grinning at the thought of the good stuff I'm going to get to do, it seems a bit overwhelming. But it is, after all, work i like doing, which is why I'm doing it.

Countdown

My last couple of days before enrolling on Tuesday. I've spent part of the day continuing to produce some pictures for use with the Corporation Bible slideshow, and partly at the library, to all intents and purposes wasting time.

I'm looking forward to having some sense of purpose, however. The last week has been a bit amorphous as I've starated the process of getting organised for my research but still have no particular reason to research in one direction or another. I'm hoping the next few weeks will see me pulling myself together in this respect.

flickr

DSCF0242
Originally uploaded by aesop.

here's a photo from flickr, which is an online photo sharing hoozit-thing, which also has handy features that'll allow me to post the selfsame pictures to my blog. This is just a test posting to see what the results are like: It also features several different layout options for the pictures as they go up, which I'm hoping to experiment with here by making a piece of text that, I hope, might be long enough to wrap aroound the image in certain reso;utions. I wonder if I have written enough here?

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

yuck

God, I feel awful. I have a cold, and tried a hot toddy.

The hot toddy, while being temporarily effective, hasn't been the cure I seek. However, I have at least got the day off to deal with the paperwork that has stressed me out to this low point anyway. Amonst the fun is the new improved course fee for the PhD, which in all the other lit has been £8XX is now £11XX. Still, I suppose it'll keep the canteen in plastic spoons. What added value do I get for that extra £300? Grrr... no, the moment has passed now...Kinda disappointing, though. But what you gonna do?

I'm trying a new piece of software out called Quicksilver, which is a sort of quick access utility that will search a catalog of specified sources and allow me to perform various actions on them. A sort of simplified finder that allows me access from the keyboard- and FREE, too. In theory it can do masses of things, but right now, I think it's a nifty way of bypassing the nested folders that comprise my filing system. I've yet to see exactly what it'll turn out to be like. I actually bought Konfabulator ( a widget environment that runs on or behind the screen and does dozens of widgetty things, essentially what Apple have been inspired to make Dashboard from, in my opinion) and at the moment use it for finding out the time, moonphase and keeping track of hours worked on various projects. Not everything it can do- it has some good web options that aren't taken up by me, since I'm not always-on. But kinda nifty, nonetheless.

The quicksilver website has been acting up this morning, but I think it'll work soon:

quicksilver.blacktree.com

Bradford on Avon visit

Paid a visit to Fiona Haser in Bradford on Avon yesterday. Fiona runs Ale and Porter Studios on Silver Street there, and I've been in touch with her via email for a little while about some opportunities arising from some drawings of mine Fiona saw online.

There's going to be an exhibition at the soon-to-be-completed exhibition space in the ground floor of the former brewery or cask house that the studios are based in. I'm told by Fiona that the floor used to have drainage holes in it so that it could simply be sluiced down whenever neccessary. Should prove to be a boon in clearing up after openings, if the feature is preserved in the new configuration. The upcoming show (after the opening, which will involve a show of brilliant automata with a seaside theme) is going to be a sort of art supermarket, with rafts of whimsical and wonderful multiples piled high to sell low (well, sorta low, anyway). There are uniforms for the artists so that we can help out as counter assistants. I hope to be attending to spillages in the aisles by springing into action with a fresh bottle of whatever it is that gets spilled. I got to try the outfit on- an enchanting companioning of tabard and pink hat. I was hoping for an hygeinic hairnet, but perhaps I am hoping for too much.

Fiona wants to produce a dictionary of art terms (in a Biercian vein) for this show, and has asked me to provide some illustrations. As well as that, Linda Clark and I will be producing customised variants on the drawings in They Walk Among Us for sale in cellophane bags.

The next show after that is going to be a mixed portrait show of sorts. I've been asked to provide a few large portrait drawings, and my current thought is to produce a series of ancestral portraits in ink of assorted boggle-eyed madmen.

Although the place is, at the moment, a building site, it has a great atmosphere and the building itself is really lovely. I'm quite pleased at being involved in my small way in the beginning of a place like this. Part of it, to be sure, is the charm of Bradford on Avon itself- I spent an enjoyable few minutes watching warm, sleepy fish hovering beneath the bridge, oblivious to the comically raucous ducks that thronged in ducky profusion. I also had a cardiac-assaulting bacon and brie sandwich at the Bunch of Grapes pub near the studios, also recommended, with ensuite cat to hoover up any scraps. I enjoyed meeting Fiona, too, whose enthusiasm overshadowed her understandable nervousness that the place be ready for its opening on the 24th. I'm hoping to work with her again, and plan to show her Personal Effects when things have settled down there a bit and she has a Film license.