Silver 2020
Hammer-wielder
I’ve been hammering away at pieces of silver for the last few months, inexpertly crafting bits and pieces for myself and loved ones. I’ve cut & soldered & beaten & ground & polished and even as a beginner it has been possible to create a few things of beauty.
I can’t help but contrast the joy with which these were received with reactions to my attempts to be creative using software – I recently downloaded Sketchbook to create working drawings for digital projects and uploaded first plays with it to much hilarity from others but we all know if it’s not online then you aren’t making anything and then I also downloaded Blender again to revisit my cackhanded efforts at making 3D models and I have sat impatiently through the video tutorials for beginners and my raggedrobinfey.fbx still doesn’t look like I want it to but you can’t just pick up a hammer and a blowtorch and see what happens.
I prefer picking up materials that I can experiment with – clay, plaster, paint, metal, fabric – without the barrier of having to learn what every fecking button on a laptop can do. But maybe I have just forgotten the past fifty years or more of familiarity with clay, plaster, paint, metal, fabric and all the tools that go with using them and if I want to make the VR/AR/MR pieces that currently sit inside my head, without waiting for a magic pot of money to pay someone to do what I want done then I need to learn how to use Sketchbook and Blender and Unity and put the resulting messes up and not worry what people will say about my initial attempts. It is exciting to play with new software, just not as easy as throwing a flame and beating with a hammer.
Another year over
Here is my greatest achievement, my small tribe:
Birthday presents
It was my birthday recently.
I got flowers
and fizz
and a pelvic floor stimulator…
Yay! All exciting.
I did laugh at the perfect timing of the arrival of the pelvic floor strengther from Innovo. I had signed up when I saw Innovo were looking for leaky product testers on Gransnet, so it wasn’t a surprise when it landed on my doorstep. As someone who has given birth the ‘traditional’ way five times (first time with forceps and the other times with pushing) but still hasn’t got round to performing pelvic floor exercises regularly (even though I swore every birth I would ‘this time’) I fired off an application to Gransnet with a plea about what it would mean to me to try out the Innovo. Mostly along the lines of “It would be nice to not stand contorted on my doorstep because my pelvic floor relaxes as soon as I put the key in the front door rather than waiting for me to get to the toilet.”
I have intermittently attempted through exercise to rectify the effects of five bouts of childbirth but am both forgetful and lazy. Reading up on the Innovo I remembered that somewhere at the bottom of the bathroom cupboard there is an egg shaped Thing that I bought after 4th or 5th child’s arrival that claimed to do the same ie exercise one’s pelvic floor. I can’t remember what it is called but you ‘wear’ it internally and can increase its weight by putting in heavier and heavier weights, starting with 15 grammes and working up. Needless to say I only used it once or twice even though allegedly it could be ‘worn’ while going about daily life; I was put off when I sneezed and It shot across the bathroom floor, and I thought it might scare/embarrass the family if mummy laid an egg in front of them so packed it away.
So, back to birthday 2017 and the Innovo arrived. I looked at it for a week, partly as it looked a bit daunting but mainly because you have to find enough time to stand or lie still for 30 minutes to use it and I assumed that I would have to also be sober to work out where it all went so wine-drinking evenings were out. I finally made myself take an hour to read the instructions, bite the bullet and assemble it, which didn’t take long and mostly involved placing sticky pads on either the A or B spaces marked on the fabric wraps, then working out where to stick each leg wrap. You have to line the very sticky pads up on your thighs (one false move and you could inadvertently wax yourself, plus there’s some velcro lurking on it, which is also irritating nb take off dressing gown first) and make contact in the right places to stimulate the right muscles. Then switch it on. This is when it flashed an error message at me that I could not find in the handbook. Bugger.
I rubbed to make sure everything was stuck to me, no joy; took each wrap off, made sure the sticky pads were pressed on the contacts, put them back on, made sure the leads were connected, then at last did what I should’ve done first – pushed the lead into the handheld device properly. Chocks away!
It is a bit weird but definitely not painful. Thirty minutes of intermittent pulsation that you are meant to feel in your pelvic floor, and is not stimulating at all in a pervy way, maybe more like a very strong TENS machine or is this what Slendertone felt like in the 1970s? Tips: I have no idea what it would feel like to peel off hairy thighs as I have obvs such ladlylike ones but it could be a bit ouch. Do also make sure it has been in a warm room or you might gasp as the sticky pads first make contact with your skin. I have been using mine for a week or two now so not expecting results yet, but it is reminding me to think about exercise between sessions, and I will be persevering, and cranking up the volume as I get used to the sensation of 180 contractions per 30 minutes! Can’t wait to see how it goes – according to the website results start to be noticeable in four weeks, then, after twelve weeks, fingers crossed my legs soon won’t need to be.
so I filled in the form and clicked send and now I am wondering why on earth I thought there was any point
Playing with glass
Today I got to play with glass and make things – not stained glass (did it once, made a panel, didn’t like all the splinters) or blown glass ( got offered an apprenticeship once by a flirty glass blower on the Isle of Wight) or melting glass panels. Instead I got to play with a rather unusual and wonderful glass paste that you can roll out like royal icing and cut into. It was at UWE’s Centre For Fine Print Research Make:Shift:Do 2017 – open doors day and it was fascinating to wander round and see how 3D print and AI/Machine Learning are now part of their research, alongside more tradional activities like cyanotype printing and artist book-making.
So, today I was lured down to Bower Ashton by the description of the glass paste workshop – “Shape and print into glass with normal household items at room temperature.” Sounded intriguing and it was. Even more delightful was that the drop-in workshop was run by Susanne Klein, who I first met working at HPlabs Bristol, and who has given talks about her research to Bristol Girl Geek Dinners.
Turns out, it was Susanne who basically invented the glass paste we were going to use – it’s a mix of ground glass, water and a powdered material that burns away in the kiln, and only has to heat to 800 degrees. Susanne showed me how to mix the three ingredients then knead and roll out the paste – just like making icing!
I picked a few simple shapes and pressed into them with some basic tools, had a go at freehand shapes then chose one of Susanne’s pre-made linocuts to play with, impressing it into the paste with a rolling pin then cutting round it. I tidied up the edges and sprinkled coloured frit (powdered glass) onto the white paste – I could have made coloured paste, just like icing, it depends what colour glass powder you mix. Now all I have to do is wait and see how they come out the kiln. My head is full of other ideas I could try out – theoretically I could do the making at home and then firing elsewhere, as long as was careful about breathing in glass dust or spreading it around the house.
Here’s a couple of the freehand pieces, a moon and a feather.
I couldn’t get the paste to hold a fingerprint impression so I focused on playing with dents and putting frit and glass chips in them to see what they’ll look like after the kiln.
Had to make a feather. I don’t have photos of all the pieces I made; can’t wait to see how they come out though.
I did also enjoy wandering around where I studied Fine Art, trying to see what was still there, what has shifted location and what has disappeared (bronze-casting and welding have gone). It got me thinking about the response from tutors to a few of us who were exploring photography and computers and incorporating them in our work and how it was definitely not encouraged (1989-92). Things have changed.
Looking back to move forwards
I need to practice sharing my creative ideas in a way that makes it easy for others to understand, not just end products but the processes that lead me there. I tend to shy away from this, assuming that if people were really bothered to know then they would just ask, but unfortunately to be an artist means having to explain your art not just produce it, especially if you want to engage with funders. My games projects are as important to me as my past work in what we used to call ‘interactive art’ so I need to show where themes run through the work I have done.
I am writing a new outline of Shadowmaker; what it could look like and feel like and behave like if I could develop it in the direction I always wanted, as a VR project. I am revisiting past projects and drawing out the threads that show themes and interests and aesthetics that are about me and my work so I can write more confidently putting myself as Artist in the middle of a body of work that pulls together ideas and actions, thoughts and deeds. Applying for funding is a competitive process and that always puts me off, so reminding myself of past work that I am still pleased to have produced or been involved with is a good way to get into the right mood of:
I am brilliant, give me cash.
The funding form I am filling in wants examples of my track record as a maker of interactive work, so I am revisiting old lists of work and before I fire up all my old hard-drives and multiple back-ups I’m googling myself to see what documentation is online. It is an interesting way to remind myself of Things that I have done, and what Things might constitute Relevant Artistic Practice. It’s also easy to get distracted by internet rabbit-holes of things I’ve forgotten that may be a tiny bit relevant.
I found a bunch of academic papers & references and reminders of conference presentations, and a reference to the first computer-based interactive piece I worked on (Media, Myth & Mania) and then stumbled across a podcast from March 2011: Mobile is Pervasive (part2), a recording of a roundtable conversation at the Pervasive Media Studio. It’s a bit of a diversion from what I was looking for but a nice reminder of what I used to get up to; paid to create conversations with interesting people aka R&D. This one is Proff.Jon Dovey & Me & a bunch of BBC Natural History Unit people, talking about what was then quite ground-breaking research into Design Dimensions for creating mobile/locative/pervasive media and how it might be relevant to the BBC archive. We refer to the about-to-go-live Pervasive Media Cookbook which is still a useful online resource if you want to find out more about developing an interactive experience.
nb Wordles get a mention. This refers to wordclouds we generated about immersive/mobile/pervasive experiences from audience descriptions, to show what words were being used most frequently. This was all part of our research into the then-developing language around pervasive media.
Listening to this podcast, I can recognise a couple of voices and names that are now quite familiar; pretty sure I hear Rebecca Bangay (who is now experimenting with 360film & VR) and we mention Jackie Calderwood, who was an early experimenter with pervasive technologies, creating experimental experiences in rural settings.
But time to close this rabbit hole and get back to writing a new portrait of I, the Artist, as an older woman…
From log to legs ~ a rural woodworking weekend
I kicked off my autumn with a rather enjoyable weekend of wooden stool-making in rural Cornwall with Turning Hare Woodcraft. It was two days of using hand tools and being mostly off-grid and focusing on pieces of wood and how to shape them into something useful and lovely. I was incredibly lucky to win my place in a competition so didn’t feel at all guilty about abandoning normal family life for a weekend and heading south to have creative fun.
As someone who mostly spends their time on a laptop and online it was very satisfying to be using my dormant craft skills to make something very tangible. There were no written instructions, just gentle expert guidance from Bob and Steve, taking us through the processes verbally and with hands-on demonstration.
Saturday started with an intro from Bob & Steve on what we were going to attempt, and then it was all hands on deck splitting an ash log to make enough long sections that were to become the legs of our stool. We all went for three legged – me because I reasoned a three legged stool would be easier to make level – sat on a saw horse each and got cracking with the draw knives; big sharp blades that you pull towards you to shave off strips of the wood. It’s incredibly satisfying once you get into the rhythm of it, and I was amazed that I spent two days working with my indoor-hands but had no resulting blisters.
We learnt how to use axes, froes, draw knives, spoke shaves, planes and cabinet scrapers. The only non-hand tool we used was a battery powered drill because that was the only way to make holes in the slab of oak for the stool seat – the brace and bit just could not do it. Working with different types of wood makes you realise why some timber was used to build ships and big houses, and some was used to make furniture and small kitchen implements.
After two days of creating piles of woodshavings I am now the proud owner of a stool with ash legs and a flat oak seat that can double as a side table; it fits a laptop or a cup of coffee or my feet or my backside. My stool looks like the hick country cousin of an Ercol table my mum had but I am proud of all its wonkiness and imperfections as I made it pretty much on my own – with small moments of hands-on help from the lovely Bob & Steve when I couldn’t get started with a tool properly.
I can’t even begin to tell you how much I recommend a weekend of woodshaving and how it slows down thoughts as you focus on just what is in front of you; working in fresh air under cover from Cornish drizzle and being fed delicious lunches with proper cake. If you need a break from working indoors or want to learn or rediscover crafting skills then check out Turning Hare’s courses for next year. It’s in a lovely setting with views over farmland and moor, there’s a shepherd’s hut if you want somewhere to sleep onsite, and a handy bijou compost toilet (which didn’t smell at all!).
It was also great to meet like-minded people who enjoy spending a weekend discovering old ways of making furniture without nails or screws and learning about the history of bodgers and chairmakers in England. I am not sure I have the time to create my own set of dining furniture but there was some talk about a garden bench course next year…
Diving for sweets
Searching my laptop for files to delete I came across this home movie from #4’s birthday, dated 2008. Here’s one little glimpse of him as birthday boy on the day he became a teenager. He turns 21 in less than a month and is “not bothered” about celebrating. I’d like to celebrate him and his presence in our lives. And look at how cute they all were!
(not) accepting mediocrity
I was trying to write a post about about acepting my own Mediocrity, about coming to the realisation that perhaps I am just not very good at the things I either think I am good at or want to be good at. Even as I wrote it I knew that these feelings usually blow over and I stop feeling like the most useless Parent/Artist/Writer/everything and I get back out there and attempt to be Very Good at something. So I wrote a loooong post just before setting off to be Away-without-laptop for a long weekend and the interwebmachine would not let me publish it. My self-indulgent whining is lost to the ether, luckily. My slightly superstitious side thinks that someone is watching over me and not letting me slump.
“Come on Dr. F, you can do it!”