PE TASK 2

My first year of university is one I have thoroughly enjoyed. I have gained skills and expanded and develop those skills I came with.

I have particularly enjoyed learning to use the knitting machines and the looms, this is an area I did not have much information about and I feel I have gained skills as well as a passion for construct. Especially in the area of knit, as you see in the picture to the right I feel that I have the basic skills for knit, but I would like to develop further. I feel that this is something that I would like to learn more about in my 2^nd year.

I also feel that I have developed my drawing and development skills, for example, I have learnt that drawing is research and is not just something drawn using a pencil and paper it can be anything from photographs to objects. In terms of development and research I feel this has improved over the year as I have received feedback from tutors on each project I have tried to take this on board and strive to make it better.

One thing I have disliked about this year is that there isn’t a large time scale compared to what I’m used to. But I know that I need to amend myself and work on my time management and be more organised.

Thinking and looking into Art & Design I have found that I love the creativity that surrounds it, the thought of taking an object and thinking about what creativity and whose creative mind created it. Contextualising practice: Historical & cultural has helped me explore and think more about what is my practice and what I think art & design is – made me think about my practice from an angle I have never seen it and never thought about before I came to university.

Looking at artist ‘Sheila Hicks’ who I personally am very inspired by and aspire to be as great as, it makes me think about how I could bring my practice forward. Sheila Hicks is a freelance artist who take’s commissions from people, galleries etc. and creates beautiful pieces on a large scale, but thinking about this, how can I bring my practice forward, could I do this? What do I want to do when I leave university? This is something that will take a lot of thought throughout my remainder of the 2 years.

I have found writing a blog also helpful to reflect on my work, it has helped me to think about what I can improve on my work and what I excel at so when the next project comes up I know my strengths and weakness’ to my advantage. 

PINTEREST

Here is a link to my pinterest were I have collected and stored my research

PINTEREST UNIT X

CONSTRUCTION AT VENUE

Today a 3pm the events team (Me, Camilla, Liam, Hannah and Olivia) met at the Bayhorse ready to construct our event, the first thing we did was put our work up, so me and Camilla got to work putting the 175 word weave in the window and the others put up the t-shirts and and sorted out the projector, everything went along smoothly the weave slipped between the two pains of glass in the window and was secured with fishing wire, the t-shirts were pegged on several washing lines in front of some mirror's. I thought the t-shirt's looked effective even without the video but once the video was projected onto it, it looked amazing! Once everything was put up we layed out the zine posters and I put some in the windows to advertise we were here.

The event was a great success the pub was booming and was very busy and a lot of people were interested and impressed by our work, Hannah and Camilla handed out wine at the event and we also had a DJ, it was a real celebration! I have enjoyed working as group on this project and I think we should all be proud of ourselves for working so hard and it had most definitely paid off!!

POSTER OF ZINE

Today me and Camilla went to Paperchase and purchased some colour sugar paper and brown paper, the idea is to print selected pages of the zine onto it with the website of the zine on them so at the venue they can be handed out to people so they can check us out online when they get home. 

At first we struggled with the printing of them but eventually we were on a role, here are what we produced and what are to be handed out. We used the front cover, page's 10 - 11, 14-15 and 24 of the zine.

PAINT WAR VIDEO

Liam has finished the final paint war video and it's brilliant! it's exactly 175 seconds long which i think is a really fun idea! I think we should all be proud of it! I think the music playing on the video is also a really good effect - gives out the thought of fun and celebration.

PAINT WAR VIDEO

After discussions with management at The Bayhorse we have decided the film will be projected onto the t-shirts that were worn during the video - i think this could look really interesting and effective! 

THE ZINE

Our online zine is now finished! We have all worked so hard together to make and provide the material to go in the zine and I think Amber and James have done an excellent job in designing it! 

Our Online Zine

CREATING THE FINAL WEAVE (175 WORDS)

Today we (Camilla & I) finished the paper weave- it is constructed of strips of paper and acetate with my picture edits of Manchester, plain pink card (to represent logo), written and typed up words. It also has wire running through it which when secure we molded and moved to make the weave have shape and movement. we also had the mirror's to represent reflection. 

We have decide to name the weave '175 words' which represents the 175 words collected of students and tutors round the art building.

This piece will hang in the window of our chosen venue 'The Bayhorse' in the northern quarter so it is mounted on foam board so it is secure.

Finished Piece

Overall I am Very pleased and proud of this piece as we have worked hard on it and I believe that it has paid off.

PROMOTIONAL POSTER

Today I created this poster to promote and invite people along to our event, Me and Hannah then put them up around the art school, hopefully people will be interested and attend!

THE EMERGENCE

Today Camilla, Hannah and Amber created 'The Emergence' - the idea behind it is that us a students are ready to emerge out of university and into the world. The fabric was created and designed by amber with paint and Hannah had modelled the emergence of a butterfly. 

The inspiration behind this is of Stanislav Odyagailo and his 'to catch a wind' project which I initially looked at when starting this project looking a wind speed.

TREE WRAPPING EVENT

Today we wrapped the tree's on the roof garden, after the first half an hour of trying to wrap the fabric over the tree's we gave up with that idea, the wind was to strong and the fabric could have done with being slightly bigger - on the plus because it was so windy we were able to wrap fabric around the trunk and bind the fabric into the bottom of the tree and let the wind do its magic!

PAINT WAR!

Today we held the paint war! we had 10 volunteer's (a little less than we wanted be we made the most of what we had!) we took them to a secret location (a piece of wasteland), we also gave hem all a plain white t-shirt to walk to the venue in. We used powder paints used in the Holi festival to fight with, everyone had a lot of fun and we filmed and took a lot of photographs of the war, Liam will edit the video and the final video will be projected at the venue on our event night. 

Liam, Olivia and Hannah also made picket board's for the volunteer's to hold up - they are revolting against the dullness of Manchester and splashing colour on it. 

I think the paint fight was a great success and i look forward to seeing the final video! 

VENUE

After visiting the Bayhorse Pub everyone in the group is satisfied that it is a good location for us to exhibit our work, their will also be another group from revolt exhibiting there so I think it would be a good idea to talk to the other group about who, when and where things in the Bayhorse are being put up. 

TRIAL CONSTRUCTION OF WEAVE

As a way of using the '175 words' collected from people in and around the art school, myself and Camilla have decided to collaborate and create a paper weave. We first trialed this on a small A2 scale, cutting strips of bright pink paper (to represent the colour of the logo in the new art school design), photographs that i edited (from the previous post), the written words collected in the art school, and some of the words typed up on thin strips, we weaved this all together - entwining the aspects of the art school together. we also added small mirrors once weaved, we did this to represent not only the outer structure of the new art building, but we as students are often asked to reflect on ourselves and our work. 

We intend to develop this on a larger scale - also add wire to make movement in the piece - to represent the struggle people had to come up with just one word to represent their thoughts on the new art building.

Later that day I trialed the weave again at home, this time i made it looser - pulling parts up to make it move, I also used papers with more colour which i don't think looked as successful as the previous trail.

We also need to think about how to make the weave secure- we don't want to pick it up and it fall apart, if we also use wire we need to think about what kind of wire will be strong enough and what colour.

TREE WRAPPING

Taking inspiration from Christo & Jeanne Claude, Myself, Amber and Camilla have decided to collaborate and make our own 'Tree Wrappings', we have chose and have permission to wrap the small newly planted tree's on the new art school roof garden (links in with the colour that students add to the art school). 

Today we went to Abakarn's fabric store in the Northern Quarter to buy the fabric, we chose a light chiffon fabric (easier for the wind to lift) in 3 colours; bright pink, bright green and bright orange - they reminded me of highlighter pen colours. 

We intend to wrap the tree's on Thursday 9th May and have arranged for a technician to supervise and help us, Olivia will also be taking pictures.