Earlier in the summer I had a go at some trophies and a medal in response to a brief for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year using kiln carving based on beautiful designs by Alfred Waterhouse’s original terracotta tiles at the Natural History Museum.
Award prototype
Waterhouse sketch for terracotta tiles
Trophy prototype
A mural of 160 glass tiles made with the help of Neve, Kara, Daisy, Calen, Calum, Marshall, Rowan, Rory, Finn, Ryan, Logan, Fraser and Martin at Tiree Primary School commissioned by Kilmartin Museum. We looked at patterns on pottery made by people living on Tiree about 2,000 years ago. We also made a skyline of other islands seen from Tiree, a view unchanged from when the people that made the pots lived here on Tiree.
Mural detail
Mural located at the entrance to the school
Realised that the mushrooms growing on the oak timber of the raised beds were oyster mushrooms and fried them up for lunch. Delicious! And cholesterol lowering apparently. Plenty more for tomorrow!
Oyster mushrooms on the raised beds
Will Bruce survive his lunch?
Kiln-carved platter for Scottish Salmon went to a seafood show in Brussels and then got won by this man!
Tiree Glass platter with Anton Immink
10 mm 100% recycled glass kiln-carved platter
This project recycled one whole house. Inspired by the earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2010 which resulted in at least 10,000 homes being demolished and many materials suitable for reclamation being wasted. Every item from the house was cataloged and artists could apply for materials to make work. I have been sent some pieces of window glass! Working with this glass has given me a sense of the specialness of an ‘ordinary’ piece of waste glass. Sometimes the amount of glass available to work with is overwhelming.
Whist this abundance definitely drives and loosens my style. The preciousness of the small amount of glass from Christchurch has been a lovely change of emphasis.
The work has now returned to NZ to become part of an exhibition in Canterbury Museum to be held in June 2015. The kiln carved patterns on the bowls echo the lead-light designs in the original house windows.
Small pieces of glass arrived from the earthquake damaged house in Christchurch for transformation
Kiln-carved design based on detail of the rimu doors in the original house
Fused and slumped and kiln carved bowls featuring detailing of original house stained glass
Tin snips cut the mesh easily
Have been experimenting with slumping moulds using stainless steel mesh which can easily be cut with tin snips and then shaped by hand. I used thin fire paper as a release and it allowed the texture of the mesh to show though on the slumped piece which I liked.
Before slumping
After
I am over-whelmed by the words. 143 is a lot of people taking part. But I am disappointed too. I see people and think “I bet you didn’t do it. I wish you had’. I would have loved it if more people had taken part and felt that it was relevant to them. The negative words are fascinating. But sad that people chose this opportunity to have a go.
Overall the project has been a success and a good learning experience in terms of what is possible to do and how to go about it. Working with Fiona has been one of the learning highlights for me. I feel that our project has been successful in terms of meeting its aim to discover what Tiree means to the people who live here. We have a view of some of them. Some of the words are beautiful, some are sad, some are miserable, some are mean. All of them are interesting, like the people that live here.
All the word are on the blog tireewords.wordpress.com and this is where the story of Tiree in Your words will live on.
In the run up to the event I am feeling exposed. What are we doing this anyway? (Possibly wouldn’t feel like this if it was a paid gig!) I think we printed too many cards.
We held a box-making workshop on 29th October. Five folk turned out to help after a the-day-before notice on the Tiree facebay page. It was fun and many hands made light work. People enjoyed themselves so much they offered to return to paint the houses! There were options to make something a different shape or style from the house boxes but people opted to be directed and preferred to stick to the house style. Maybe as these were already part made. People enjoyed themselves so much they volunteered to return and paint the houses. They look beautiful and so do the cards. Was fun putting it all together.
All of the 3 people who came to the initial conversation came along.
We had prepared a ‘key points about the project sheet’, this included specifying that the project was the joint responsibility of Frnaces and Fiona and that Sophie and Sam were collaborating with us.
All our decisions were made! We were ready to advertise our project in the Tiree newsletter An Tirisdeach. Phew!!
We tested the card at the regular Monday Tiree Tapestry Group meeting suggested improvements were
Had a tutorial on 25th Oct with Roxane Permar who is leading the course on Art and Social Practice. We were talking about the plan for our mini-project. ‘Tiree in Your Words’ aims to collect 5 words from as many folk as we can on Tiree with the aim of discovering what people feel about Tiree. Or at least what words they come up with when asked ‘please say what Tiree means to you in five words’
Roxane is brilliant and left us feeling challenged and feeling the need to look at the project with fresh eyes. The main sense I was left with is that we are not really challenging ourselves do something different. We are using a familiar mechanism to collect information, through familiar channels using skills that we are comfortable with. Our main point of contact with people will be at arms length, through the ‘glove’ of a leaflet.
Action points for us following the meeting
It was also good to identify what bits of the project are going well:
Fiona and I got together on 17th of October to talk about our project plan. We decided to run with Sam’s idea, from the public art convo, for a word project and we pooled our ideas into actions and dates to make it happen! Fiona wrote it up into a plan and after a bit more emailing we had a draft we were happy with.
We discussed our personal interests.
For Frances these were:
For Fiona they were
SWOT analysis for Frances
| Strengths
Creative ideas Experience Boldness Glass as a medium |
Weaknesses
Poor planning Poor listening Fixed ideas Not used to reflecting |
| Opportunities
New skills and learning New connections
|
Threats
Overload Project grows too big It looks crap People hate us |
We didn’t discuss how we would work together, and any risks around this. For me it felt like we were flowing in terms of a shared vision and working through suggestions and decisions easily.
In hindsight, we could have spent more time talking about how our different styles may cause us stress and on thinking about how could we reach as many different people as possible.
The conversation went well. A big thanks to Sophie, Sam, Pat and Fiona for coming along. Sophie and Sam work as Youth Workers for the Tiree Trust and Pat is a voluntary Director. Fiona is a fellow student on the Art and Social Practice course. The group was positive about the idea of ‘something big made by Tiree people’. Something to visit. Something that spans the age barrier between parents and children. Something that blends old and new traditions.
We talked about the difficulties in getting people involved. Although there are 51 different community groups on Tiree! Ideas that came up:
This last suggestion seemed to capture the group’s attention. Ideas for how the words could be used flowed. A book, audio, visual art?
My reflection
Some of the things I planned for were included. My plan helped me remember some pics of projects to help set a context. I was pleased that I managed to keep my gob shut quite a lot and provide a space for others to speak. Allowing pauses is effective.
The glass making went smoothly. The making was with no direction on content apart from each person having a smaller piece of a bigger thing. I think this was okay given time constraints and caution of some participants. But was a bit of a cop out too. The process may have benefited from more direction, like some of the ideas discussed in the plan, to try to create a piece with ‘meaning’. Everyone learned to cut glass and overall it was a good ‘taster’ with some experimentation thrown in.
It might have been good to go outside for 2 mins before we got into the making – or to have sent them and I could have got more prepared. But mainly to give a sense of stillness before starting to make.
Making glass the 'exchange' element of a conversation on community art
I am planning to hold a conversation around public art with staff and a director from Tiree Trust, so am thinking around the subject. Why does public art interest me?
What do I want to get out of conversation?
“The expertise of the artist lies in being a non-expert, a provider of frameworks on which experiences can form and sometimes be directed and channeled to generate new insights around a particular issue.”
Pablo Helguera p54 Education for Socially Engaged Art
Discussion ideas
Discussion:
Making glass points to communicate
I went along to Fiona's conversation on Saturday 5th Oct. Prior to the meeting Fiona gave us two tasks; to bring along something we would like to talk about, and something we would like to give away. The format worked. Fiona has good skills in allowing the conversation to have its own life, while gently leading us.
The conversation flowed around the new bus stop. Is it useful? And the butchers closing. Thoughts on how information is transferred on Tiree and that some people feel that a distinction between incomer and local is relevant. I got to know the other participants better. My topic was 'is there a visual tradition on Tiree?' and I was intrigued by the responses: the houses, the unique light, the lack of shadows, the flatness, the 'Tiree colours', imprints of waving patterns, cupmarks and hares. But not a tradition of visual making perhaps.
At the end Fiona gave us five questions to reflect upon, and asked us to return our comments to her if we wished. The questions included 'what did you expect?'. This made me realise that I hadn't considered what to expect. Only thinking that I would enjoy it and would be stimulated. A reflection for me was that I might come across as quite forceful in the conversation that might be off putting for others. My natural tendency seems to be to be to find clarity in my thoughts by articulating them. The result may sound judgmental and fixed, so preventing others from contributing. Maybe if I had thought about my expectations for the conversation, I could have guarded against this tendency and so learned more from others. Next time!
Went off to Oban for the night to see the wonderful and moving play about the life of Angus MacPhee from Uist. Catch it if you can!
The four hours each way boat journey gave me the chance to read Pablo Helguera's Education for Socially Engaged Art. The book is very readable and I found it useful to have some clear definitions and 'dos' and 'don'ts' to think about.
This week's homework is to continue with conversation. We are to think about what it is the other participants gain from being involved. And to introduce an element of exchange. We noted in our class discussion that participants were probably already gaining from the conversations. Examples of this were:
I love being provided with a framework in which to act. The brief to think about a formal aspect of exchange has helped me to plan my next conversation. I will base it around public art and introduce an element of making. Which I hope the participants will feel rewarded by doing, and get something to take away. I hope the conversation will help me to develop skills in listening, openness to others ideas and contributing clearly.
The other element we will be introducing is recording. This led me to remember facilitation techniques I came across when working in environmental education 'Open Space Technology' is one I will look up. There must be lots of parallels to the techniques that we are developing in this course and disciplines such as community development, environmental education. Is there a distinction that makes the techniques we are learning unique to the art arena?
I love filling my kiln. The freshly batwashed kiln shelves are my blank canvas. Anything is possible. And then the painstaking slog begins with sporadic flashes of inspiration. Lots of bombay sapphire bottle glass this time for a couple of mirror frames for the gallery and some swirly things from the big 4mm float window glass from a Tiree house renovation.
