Free Wrting

FREE WRITING

What is Vision?

To think of vision with regard to landscape, how we see, what we see and why we see the way we do, there are many factors that inform our vision of it. To understand this we have to look at the historical perspective of traditional landscape and the role it has played in the contemporary landscape of photography as it is portrayed today.

The factors we take into consideration are political, social, domestic and personal. The landscape interventions that have taken place over centuries, have disturbed our view. The landscape of today is nothing like it once was.

Our ancestors would have had a completely different view of the landscape. It would have been a more rugged, untouched and unspoilt landscape. Nature would have had most of the control over it.

Today we see very little of how nature intended it to be. Today we see a man made landscape, anothers' idea of how they thought it should look.

But intervention began several millenniums ago. Man made his mark as a sign of occupation and control. Land would have been fought over or allocated to the different tribes or clans of the earth. Granted these early civilised peoples would have had respect for their land and abide by the laws of nature. But it still remains that intervention took place.

Stone circles, drawings, writing are all interventions.

Reading my free writing now, I can see a concept, can I work on this? How can I photograph this concept. find stone circles, find writings, find the areas where people once lived? Where can I go? Are there any such areas in this vicinity where I live? I have to read and research.

Symposium

The University set up a Symposium today where previous Graduates returned to give talks on their experiences of writing dissertations.

This was a good idea and I gained some valuable tips.

• Find a subject that interests you
• Find your voice and make it heard
• Always read and research as much as possible
• Don't be afraid to voice your opinion but always have a plausible argument
• Write small chunks i.e 500 words a week
• Whenever you come across a quote that you like or a piece of writing to paraphrase, keep a note book
• One book will lead to another. 
• Keep lists of anything interesting

All this advice is common sense, but it is surprising how sometimes common sense can get lost when your mind is in the midst of stress and panic!

I sat in for the first half and listened to three speakers. They had given me food for thought.

Cardiff National Museum

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/cardiff

I took the train up to Cardiff yesterday to visit the Art Galleries at the National Museum. I have been in desperate need of inspiration. My projects haven't been going very well. I have been feeling a lack of enthusiasm and motivation. This has happened before during the first year of the foundation degree. But as this is my third and final year, my despondency has been getting me down quite a lot, and depression had begun to set in. My confidence has been waning and my interest in anything, practically non existent.

However I am hoping very much that I have taken a step towards a recovery, and that I can push myself to focus on my work. 

My concept for the Photographic Project is a connection to the land of my ancestral home here in Wales. So far, my picture making just hasn't been working. It has been too controlled, and with little imagination. 

I specifically wanted to view the Impressionists at the Gallery yesterday. Not for any particular reason other than I do love the works of Cezanne, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir and Van Gough. I discovered a female Impressionist whom I had not heard of before. Her name was Berthe Morisot.  

"http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/shop/?id=441

Woman and Child in a Meadow at Bougival

http://www.museumwales.ac.uk/en/shop/?id=435

La Parisienne (Blue Lady) Renoir 

Vincent Van Gough Rain Auvers 1890

"Wheat fields under angry skies, and I deliberately tried to express sadness and extreme loneliness in them" quote from Vincent Van Gough

All of these are paintings that I could survey for hours. I looked closely at the brushstrokes for the first time, noticing how depth of feeling can be gained from the light and dark shades of the brush and the hard and soft strokes applied. The colours are delightful and a joy to behold. Even though Van Gough painted Rain Auvers not long before his death, and he states that he wanted to convey his depth of depression and sadness, I still find a quiet stillness in the colours and they do not make me feel sad or lonely or depressed. It is only the black crows in the middle of the painting that to me convey that sense of foreboding. To my eyes, the rain makes me feel alive. If I could use my imagination and creativity like this when I am feeling sad and lonely I would be very happy indeed! But maybe it was the fact that I have been feeling a little depressed that   Van Gough's painting touched me in a positive way.

But back to the purpose of my trip to Cardiff. Inspiration. Everything I saw was an inspiration to me. All art makes me feel privileged and in awe of the skills and genius of the artists. But it was one artist in particular who inspired me most yesterday. That was the work of Mary Lloyd Jones.

Website http://www.marylloydjones.co.uk/

She writes that "My aim is that my work should reflect my identity, my relationship with the land, an awareness of history, and the treasure of our literary and oral traditions. I search for devices that will enable me to create multilayered works.This has led to my involvement with the beginnings of language, early man made marks and the Ogham and Bardic Alphabets."

This was the very sentiment that I have been searching for. My connection with the land of Wales is to do with the culture, language and the history of my own ancestors through many centuries. Ancestors who have lived on the land, worked with the land and intervened on the land.

It is a beginning but if I can work on my Visual Journal and find my identity within these parameters, then I might just find the imagination to portray them photographically. There is time. I have already researched some historical background of Wales, and I have several objects that I could use to convey my thoughts and ideas. 

The language is an important factor, as is my sense of belonging to the land. The Castle at Llansteffan that I see every morning from my window when I wake up, has some significance that I am yet to fathom. But it is part of the past. It is part of me. It stands for something because when I look upon it, I feel something, I see the lives that once lived there, I hear the music of its walls and the spectacle of it is every changing, with each day and each change in the weather. 

Whether this makes sense or not, I don't know. But I can use it to find what I am looking for. I feel more motivated. I feel more alive. I feel now that maybe, just maybe, I have a line of thought.

http://www.marylloydjones.co.uk/gallery/2.html 

Special Places

The variety of the landscape is a continual surprise.

First Crit...

The Crits at Swansea are very different to the ones we had at Plymouth. For me these are tough. The whole group gathers together, and those whose work is being Critiqued, have to put prints up on the wall. The lecturers then discuss the work and ask questions. I did not cope very well with the pressure and stress of the situation.

In Plymouth we had small group crits where we all discussed our own work first, and then had a group discussion about how we could improve, make suggestions etc. Obviously the lecturer sitting with the group would give a critique as well as join in with the general discussion. I found this style of critique was much less stressful and personally more useful.

I found that although I do like to see the other students work, but it isn't a situation where most students speak freely about their work.

Yesterday it was my turn to put my images on the wall. From the outset I felt vulnerable. Sadly my nerves got the better of me and when the lecturers asked me questions about my work, my mind went completely blank. Embarrassing. The lecturers gave constructive criticism. Being at a new University for my third year has been much more difficult than I had anticipated. One suggestion that I do recall, is that it may be a good idea to find letters, or a personal object, to accompany my images to focus my attention on memory, if that's the way I'm going to move forward with the project.

Now that the first 3000 words of the Dissertation have been handed in, I can focus more on my picture making process. Tomorrow I intend to go on a journey to find inspiration. My work is about memory and space ... maybe the punctum ... I'm not sure. But returning to the place of my childhood, will, I know, help me to create something. Whether that something will be an improvement on the images I have already, I can not surmise, but the picture making process is all about failures to reach success. From nothing will come something.

These were the images I put on the wall...

Connection with Ancestral Home

Critique 

Old fashioned... Formalist.... Post Modern .... thousands of similar images found on Stock Photo Libraries.....need clearer concept .... if memory .... need personal items/objects to accompany images ....suggestion that I look at the work called "Fate"  (at the moment that's all I remember)

Retrieving Art College Blog

I've been unable to find this blog
http://penelope-george.blogspot.co.uk/ 
anywhere on my blog account/settings. 
I'm adding a post here so that I can explore previous entries if I need too. 

I may as well add my second year degree blog too as this may have some useful information on.
http://penelope-davies.blogspot.co.uk/

Saturday Morning Meander

Dawn Rising

I have been awake since 4am. When the birds began to sing, I decided that as I was awake, I should go out and greet the dawn with them.

I took my medium format 6x6 cameras with me and hoped to shoot some early morning light. The venture was not as I'd hoped. As soon as I got outside it began to rain, and then I accidentally exposed one of my films, sheer stupidity on my part, but I still have one film to develop.

The colours were sublime and ethereal, but whether I have captured that light I will have to wait and see.

I am still unsure of my project, I keep changing my mind and cant seem to settle on a theme or a concept. One minute I'm thinking seascape and its meaning to me, then I think of memory and how the land and I are connected by memory, then I think that it is the light and the colours that inspire me to photograph the land and sea, so maybe I should stick with that. But the images I have shot so far have not really been what I'm looking for. But saying this, I dont know exactly what it is I'm searching to convey in my images.

This is not like me. I am usually more definite about my idea. Yes, its true that at the beginning of every project I do go through a time of uncertainty, but we are now in November and I'm not enjoying the process as much as I have in the past. I love making pictures and I could do this all day, but usually I also enjoy the theory, the history and the ideas. But I seem to be stuck in some no mans land. I feel as though I have no idea what I'm doing in any of the projects.

The External Project is now looming up on me. I had intended to exhibit my work next year and make that my submission for assessment. But now I'm not sure about that either. Do I want to go through all that again? Wouldn't it be more useful to work for a client in some other capacity? I am new here and know very few people, so that's also a problem. I'm not very good at going "out there" and promoting myself. I think at the moment with all the stress and upheaval of the past few months, that I am not in the right place mentally to be able to cope with everything I need to do. I am lacking inspiration. I have no money to travel to see exhibitions of the Great Painters and Photographers and this is also hindering my study. At least it feels like it to me. I would like to visit Galleries in London but it just is not possible at this time. Even Cardiff is out of reach at the moment.

I feel like giving up.  I know I wont and I know I cant because this is important to me. Learning is important to me. I just have to find a way to overcome all these obstacles. I have to try and clear my head of all these negatives and turn them into positives.

Another worry is the Dissertation. We have a3,000 word deadline on Nov 16th. So far I have written zilch. I keep changing my mind about that too. I researched women in landscape photography for a couple of weeks but in all honesty it bored me. The work I found was fantastic, but reading theory on feminism which is, I found inevitable if looking at women in art or in society, is not one that appeals to me. I believe in equality etc but I am not a staunch feminist; I felt that I had read it all before and that my interest just wasn't sufficient to write an 8,000 Dissertation. I couldn't fathom how I would condense the idea either which was another stumbling block.

I feel as though I'm chasing my tail now. What am I going to write about? What interests me? What do I want to find out or discover? Stumped.

Rinko Kawauchi

ILLUMINANCE

Image courtesy of telegraph.co.uk

Notes from ILLUMINANCE by Rinko Kawauchi and David Chandler

Rinko Kawauchi's images depict an internal movement of the single image. She captures a mobility that is contrary to the idea of photography which is normally a static moment of time. They are delicate images where double exposure has been used to achieve a sense of movement. The light is ethereal and gives the impression of a  life that notices every nuance of nature and every fleeting moment of time.

From The Mobile Image by Parveen Adams

"Kawauchis work produces the movement of division within the image."(pg 63)

"... light itself becomes the object of representation - reflection, refraction, flare, focus and shadow. The images play with the repertoire of light" (pg64)

Lecture - Psychoanalysis

This was a very interesting lecture, but it took a lot of concentration to understand the theory. However Tamara gave a good example to help explain it.

She began by telling us that while she was chatting with a group of friends about the recent death of a well known singer in Argentina, her three year old daughter had come into the room and asked "Mummy, why are you crying?" Tamara explained to her daughter that a singer whom she had been very fond of, had died. She told her daughter that one particular song made her happy whenever she heard  it, and that it brought back happy memories of her own childhood. Her daughter had been satisfied with the answer and left the room.

Then a few weeks later while Tamara was out with all her three children, they had become loud, moany and generally difficult to handle. So she thought "I know what I'll do, I'll sing my favourite song that always makes me feel happy so if I am happy then my children will also be happy." She began to sing. Her three year old daughter turned to her and said "Mummy, who has died?" Tamara realised in that instant that something had happened. The song, which to her had conveyed great joy and happiness, had had the extreme opposite effect on her daughter. Tamara associated the song with happiness, but her daughter associated the song with crying and death.


Jacques Lacan (1901 - 1981) said "The unconscious is structured like a language" 

This is an example of SUBJECTIVITY.  It relates to how a subject can have different meanings to different people. There is an association with a person and what that person represents. The association is split between consciousness and the unconscious. The association is relative to what the person has learned through language.

Jacqes Lacan returned to the fundamental concepts of Freud although this made him very unpopular. But his idea was that the subject is an effect of language, and as such is articulated outside himself. What we envy is the Loving Gaze, that the subject outside ourselves desires. He said "Man's desire is the desire of the Other."

The example given in the lecture was that a baby, when he/she is born, has absolutely no control over who looks at him/her. The baby is dressed as his/her mother or guardian wants him to be dressed. The baby has no control over what he eats, when he has a bath etc. To explain further the meaning of "man's desire is the desire of the other," we have to understand that it is the mother or guardian who will impose her desires on the baby, and will dress the baby in a way that is pleasing to the mother.

Anther example would be that there are two brothers. The first brother appears by the second brother to be favoured by the mother. The second brother feels that he gets no attention, and cannot do anything right. In order for the second brother to gain the attention that he seeks, he will deliberately try to find a way to get the first brother into trouble. What this second brother really wants is his mother to look upon him with the "Loving Gaze" that he feels is denied him. He wants to be loved in the same way has his first brother.

This is obviously only a small part of the theory of Psychoanalysis, but this lecture was very clearly articulated and helped me to understand the concept of the "loving gaze." 

Theorists of Psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, Paul Sartre, Jacques Lacan.