Untitled

The blank canvas stares back at me like a mirror, hard and cold. Its reflection is scrutinising, I can hardly bear it. Worse still, its silence nauseates me. Unsure, I continue to stare back searching the blankness for something, anything! My act, though full of artistic intention is futile, it only serves to amplify the silence and blind me with its gleaming whiteness. A void; avoid the void I plead with myself...yet, my mind travels towards it at an alarming speed. It begins with self-doubt, my no-goodness and good-for-nothing self has hijacked my founding optimism. The canvas looms, ominous. Intimating but never intimidated. I recoil in fear and uncertainty, unable to make a mark on its untouched roughed up surface. It notices my failing and challenges me to a mental duel – I hesitate. It hits first and jabs me with gut-wrenching inadequacy, speaking to me in a cruel, unforgiving whisper, “You’ll never be good enough”. Worthlessness consumes me, my potential to ruin stunts any creativity that might have been my salvation, my saving grace. I try to retort but cannot find the words or articulate their meaning. Language can not save me now. It has taken sides and acts as a barrier between me the words I seek. I am abandoned by language, left alone in a vast chasm of unfathomable symbols and indecipherable chaos. My mind tries to fight back, an attempt to mark the canvas, but it is too weak, too defeated now to go on. I become as blank as the canvas itself. It exudes nothingness, projecting itself onto my own life, reminding me that I too, am finite. I can not beat it. I will die. As my anguish and despair intensify, I can not control my inaction; an existential crisis of sorts. This does nothing but encourage my frustration and paranoia. “I’ll never be good enough” I cry. “It’s all pointless” I weep. Tears fall, eyes swell, my vision blurs. Uncontrollable sobbing replaces my indignant cries of inadequacy. This continues, as it will always. Absence of sound and thought create echoes in the caverns of my mind, what was once there is gone, forgotten. Distraught, I have no choice but to accept my fate. I am human, doomed to live and die alone. What am I if I can not express or articulate myself? I know the answer all too well, it is insufferable and it consumes me every second I am alive. It sits there uneasily, awkwardly, like an unwanted guest within my consciousness. The answer whispers to me loud and violent. I am nothing. An insignificant entity. If I possess no words, have no actions, own no instument to communicate- then I am defeated! The final blow knocks me to the ground, I seek comfort in the foetal position but it is too late. I have lost. The blank canvas reigns over me once again. It remains untouched and immeasurable, whilst I obediently fall into the abyss. Exhausted, I give in to the calm, the empty...the nothingness.

Fairhurst, Fear and F**k Me I Think I've Started a Business...(Kind Of)

Fairhurst's image, When I Woke up in the Morning, the Feeling Was Still There, is a screenprint in three-colours. The particular print I have added relates to a series of four large colour photographic panels. (1992), titled Man With Dream Colours.


Copyright: The Estate of Angus Fairhurst

The photographic part of the image is in black and white with the canvas a blank white except a square of yellow has been printed on it's surface, it has been deliberately misaligned. Fairhurst often used to play around with themes of mis-alignment and removal. Here's an example of one of his works, a collection of magazine pages with the body and text removed...Ten Pages Of a Magazine, Body and Text Removed



Fairhurst commented on the image of the man with canvas...: 'I wanted to play on the mis-alignment of the hard form and the notion of feeling, both physical and emotional, which is something you cannot be so sure about' (quoted in Contemporary British Art in Print 1995, p.46). As made obvious, this work relates to my own, I've been struggling to find much more information on these particular prints, especially explaining the reasons Fairhurst decided to produce them. My search however will continue.

In other blank canvas news...David and I set out to the library a few days ago to take some more pictures of myself avec canvas. I wanted to show the canvas in another environment, one which manufactures another of my fears...SILENCE! So the library it was. I often find the library intimidating yet magnetising, the quietness freaks me out yet the books call to me! I suppose this is how I feel about the canvas too. I'm afraid of it, yet I want to explore it...perhaps I'll overcome it?

It was a new experience, I've never posed with a canvas prior to the last "photoshoot" which was at my home (a safety net perhaps?!). So bringing this experience into the external world was a little nerve-wracking...I was very aware of people watching us, me...I'm not sure it was embarassment either. We took a few images outside the library, as I wanted to highlight the environment. There were quite a few people miling around and I became very aware of their noticing us. So, I laughed and kept laughing so I could disguise my fear, also hid my face with the canvas a lot to begin with. David seemed far more at ease, camera in hand, shooting away. I kept thinking "let's get this over with quickly, this is weird...I need a coffee!". Still, I let the fear carry me and once I'd asked permission to take pictures in the library we wandered to find a place that had enough natural light - we weren't able to use flash photography and couldn't control the light like we had been able to at home. I took us over to the biography section, not for any artistic reason - it just seemed to have enough light, but also seemed to hide us away from people...after a few pictures I felt braver and decided we needed to be somewhere with even more light so we moved to the front. I was conscious of being in the way and this was made worse by the fact that someone upon seeing us, changed their route to the photocopier as we were blocking their direct route. I felt a bit out of place. Perhaps it was my fear of libraries? Well, silence. Although, I noticed this wasn't quite as bad when I had someone with me.

After I felt I had enough images, we retreated to the coffee shop, I remember feeling dizzy: part-adrenalin, part-lack of breakfast! So my coffee (well, mocha) was one of the best coffees I'd had in a long time! David took a few more pictures of me with the canvas and I reverted back to being silly, posing and pretending I was on a date with it...it does make me realise that I rely heavily on laughter and amusement. I've also come to the conclusion that without other people I start fearing absolutely everything, I lose the ability to do things on my own! I also need to enjoy myself and treat art as entertainment rather than something that needs doing. Perhaps this is the mistake I've made in the past. I want so much to feel like an artist again that I'm forgetting to enjoy it.

Enough rambling...here are some of the images:






















So um...also, I'm selling some work soon. Also have the opportunity to sell through The Perfect Pad. By chance, I enquired about exhibiting work in the shop as I thought my work would look quite good in there and it turns out they have a gallery upstairs. I'm now thinking of possibly exhibiting my work there. The only thing is, I can only exhibit if I'm looking to sell...and it's 40% commission.

I've got all the details of the guy who owns it, he seemed to like the images I had of the table. So, I'm going to draw up my design specification professionally, produce two tables at the same time instead of one (not exactly mass production, but sort of...) and see if any other similar shops/businesses might also be interested.

I'm also waiting to hear back from my other "client", god, it still feels weird referring to him as a client! Madness. So um, yeah...I'm in business, kind of.

( ......... )

While researching blankness/silence/nothingness, I came across this blog entry by author, Thaisa Frank. It's entitled Speaking of Silence
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It offers advice for writers but can be adapted for artists. As I also write, I found it extremely helpful.

Thaisa explains that the unfamiliar is a good route to expanding your practice and suggests that silence, does not hinder an artist but can actually increase productivity, leading you to new material. Her insight has given me a new way of approaching the concepts that I fear.

"...even if you aren't that interested in readers, experiencing the world without language it's crucial to discovering your most original work"

This could also be related to the viewer of an art work. Language that does not need to be written, or visual language, can often express more. An audience will respond emotively to what they see or alternately, don't see. During my exhibition, I spoke with several viewers, some of whom expressed that my coffee table did not require a written statement. It was evident to these particular viewers what I, as an artist wanted to express. I created this piece through challenging my practice by experimenting with the unknown (sculpture/3D work/furniture design). I am hoping to take this on board with any future work. I feel that Thaisa's comment relates to my current research - my own fear of the unknown needs to be challenged!

No matter what anyone says, there's a part of writing that you can't talk or think about. You're either writing or not writing. And, if you are writing, it's either going well, not going well--or at some point in between.

I have adapted Thaisa's paragraph on silence:

When the art flows, you don't care that you don't know how to talk or think about it: You move easily between intuition and practical work, thought and imagination. Creativity expresses what it means. Images create a subtext. And when you step back from the work to view it, there's a kind of rightness to it. You feel like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat--no one, not even you --can see the hat's false lining.

It's when the art isn't going well that you want to get to the heart of what's not working. You mull over it. Or return to some past work. Attack it at different angles. Or try to remember other moments when you felt stuck, and created something that worked. Often you mimic old strategies--without results. Sometimes, no matter what you do, the art withers on the vine. And sometimes, without quite knowing why, it comes back to life. You may have theories about why these things happen: But since art making is partly an unconscious act, you will never unravel the mystery completely. This is why each new piece of work often feels like the first, no matter how much art you have created.

There are a variety of ways to coax creativity back into motion--all valid, and I may share some of my own ideas later. But often the only solution is to do nothing at all. In homage to this solution, I present a small paragraph of silence. It dedicated to the elusive Edward Tolliver, as well as all artists who reach a point in their work where the only solution is to create nothing. Most of us stare at the blank canvas: Few of us bother to read into them.

The Paragraph of Silence:

















I think this piece of writing is particularly helpful. At least, it has been for me.
Whenever I lapse back into the fear and panic of a new canvas I will come back to this paragragh. (I have decided that my fear may lie in the language "blank" so will refer to the blank canvas as "new". Whether or not this helps or just projects my feelings of panic from the word "blank" into the word "new" we shall see)...I also intend to look at a blank/new canvas (it's actually quite difficult to stick to "new"!) and try to create some work from it, not adding to the canvas but creating work inspired by it's concept.

Panic and Nothingness

I forgot to write this up from Thuuuuursday 21st.

For one of my projects I'm concentrating on blankness or nothingness. The scary blank canvas! When I was explaining this to everyone in the sessions, our tutor made a point that when I use the word "blank" I say it with negative connotations...which I do. I panic!

We put ourselves into images when we view them and acquire stimulus from different objects/concepts. I'm going to try and detach this pnaic and fear I have when thinking about blankness. It was also pointed out to me that silence might be interesting to explore, as it is another form of blankness! The scary thing is...I am actually terrified of silence, which I'm sure comes as no surprise for those of you who know me! I hate silence, I feel so incredibly uncomfortable surrounded by it. No such thing as a comfortable silence for me! So I'm going to look at nothingness, which sounds impossible! Ha! No doubt I shall be revisiting philosophy once again for this one!

I'm hoping to also investigate what might happen if I take my book sculptures into an art setting. Maybe the context my practice will change? Or maybe not?! Apparently the main idea behind action research is learning to accept not knowing!

I'm intending to research and re-explore the work of Rauschenberg and De Kooning. Also going to look at Ulrich (representations in visual objects/stimulus). Best get on with it then...