Category: What You Have To Do.

Looking at the brief, the objectives and learning outcomes; these are the ‘hit points’ i.e What you have to do for the assignment I think.

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‘What You Have To Do’. 2

‘Research the theme of scrapbook, art journal, memory album, mini book, and think about the event you want to record. …. You must show a wide range of primary research in a range of materials.’

Eldon, D. (1997) “The Journey Is The Destination”. London, Booth Clibborn Editions. A posthumous collection of Scrap/sketch books by Dan Eldon – war photographer, stoned to death in Somalia 1993 aged 22, edited by his mother. Dan’s mother writes about how some pages have dark papers pasted on top of previous entries which are scratched or torn away. This seems to connect with the palimpsest idea that has intrigued me from the vocabulary mind-mapping research I began with.

Technical Book vocabulary research. Studying bindings and signatures. The joy of Ephemera’s Vintage Garden Youtube channel!.

Wasserman, K. (2007). “The Book As Art”. New York, Princeton Architectural Press. Essays relating to the book as art – esp. from feminist/women’s perspective plus images and interpretation referencing the collection of books in the National Collection of Women in the arts.

Studying Krystyna Wasserman, M.L. Van Nice, Kazuko Watanabe.
Studying essays by Johanna Drucker & K. Wasserman and book examples by Julie Chen and Brenda Watson.

  • Watson. Comment Attirer Les Oiseaux
  • Chen. Bon Bon Mots
  • Nice. Swiss Army Book
  • Watanabe. The Diary of A sparrow.

Also, following on from the textile workshops, and knowing that I want to develop pieces begun here further, I have been thinking about my late Grandma and her experience as a WI sewing instructor…… this has led to reading about the history of Denman College.
https://www.denman.org.uk/

Meech, S. (2009) Connecting Art To Stitch. London, Anova Books Company Ltd. Analyses and explores the relationship between fine art methodologies and textile techniques.

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‘What You Have To Do’ 1.

‘Create a comprehensive mind map or tangible evidence that you have explored a range of ideas connected with your subject theme. You should explore a comprehensive range of possibilities and limitations in response to the project brief.’

This is potentially a huge ‘question’; mind mapping will I hope, help to narrow a focus and a personal hook for my explorations. I have begun with mind mapping from a simple vocabulary based search for meanings and ideas.

Scraping around for layers of meaning. (scrapping).

While I’ve been thinking about all these words and drawing and cutting and sticking and collage-ing my mind maps, the TV has been on. Most inspiring and quite pertinent to developing a subject/event for my brief, has been Grayson Perry’s series of programmes about rites of passage.

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/grayson-perry-rites-of-passage/episode-guide/

I have already done digital scrap-books of my wedding and honeymoon – I don’t want to re-do these, and as a mature student on this course, it seems that many of ‘the events’ that others are talking about in terms of doing this brief, are ones, that for me, are passed and gone. I have strong feelings about ‘end of life’ processes and feel quite interested in basing my project in the context of ‘ars moriendi’ ….. a sort of expression of my desires for how I might wish the ‘end’ to be resolved. I thank Grayson Perry for this little bit of inspiration.

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‘Scrap That’.

From a collection of briefs; for my project, I have decided to select the ‘Scrap That’ brief. It directs us to doing research about Scrap-booking and Artists’ Books while working towards producing a book documenting ‘an important event in your life (real or imaginary)’. While the project is developing across the 6 week ‘exploratory phase’ of the Foundation Course, we will engage in a series of workshops – this experience should be reflected in the investigations, experiments and outcomes of the project.