I have been pretty awful at keeping the blog up to date recently, so I am going to try and have another go. Unfortunately, this will be there is a chunk of what I was doing missing but can be found in my sketchbooks. I will give a quick run down on whats currently been taking place.

Previously, I was interested in nature, specifically the structures of the plants and how they could be represented in a 3D formation and possibly taken as inspiration for some sort of enclosure. It then progressed into intervening with the natural landscapes by using the natural resources around me to make sculptures, wrapping trees with materials and mapping my walks through the natural landscape with interventions at different markers and creating "rules" and walking/working in a systematic way, i.e. every 30 steps i will pick up a natural object, mark on map, cast it and then replace it.

However, on one walk in the forests, I felt very unsafe, as I walked into some sort of weird make shift campsite and random dogs would run out with no owner. At this point, I thought that I should abandon working in heavily wooded areas unless I was in company.

I reflected on what I was actually interested in doing, in a safe way. The conclusion was actually instead of intervening with the landscape, I was interested in:

- Mapping the landscape. 

- The rules of the walk that I had put in place and had to stick to, because it kept me focused on what I actually needed to do.

- Walking - the action.

- Boundaries.

- Contrasting natural and urban environments.

- Ways of mapping a space 3 dimensionally.

- Spatial awareness.

Artists I was looking at:

- Andy Goldsworthy

- Chris Drury

- Richard Long

- Walter De Marie

MICROSCOPE

I took these photographs via a microscopic, they are cell structures of onion skin, rotting wood, broken cells in a leaf and the cotton plant.

Nigel Peake

I have been doing a lot of drawings from photos and life but have been simplifying the formations of their structures as I think it will give me an insight into constructing a sculpture/installation/enclosure based on it. Looked at Nigel Peake's drawings, as he is one of my favourites and looks at the formations of nature, like crop fields but draws them in simplified shapes.

Fractals in Nature

Each floret is peaked and is an identical but smaller version of the whole thing and this makes the spirals easy to see unlike an ordinary cauliflower, where the centre point is where the florets are smallest and are organised in spirals in both directions beginning from this point. Like the idea of there being a set pattern, possibly an idea to develop within my process of working.

Wakehurst Seed Exhibition

Have been drawing a lot recently, focusing on the structures of plants and looking at the patterns from the photographs I took from Kew gardens. Went to see this and has prompted me to get the microscope out!

Shed - Patrick Nadeau

I saw this in a magazine over summer and it really inspired me with working with plants, whether as a material or taking the structures of them. Patrick Nadeau is an architect and uses vegetation as a primary material within his spaces/structures. This piece is an installation for a garden which is more conceptual than functional.

I am really interested in the idea of making some sort of sanctuary or enclosure for a final idea but dont want to jump the gun and really want to research and understand what I am doing. Last year I felt that I lost touch with making and materials and got very dishearten and lost. I have thought about the last time I really felt excited and enthusiastic about what I was making and that was the last semester of year 1 (4) when I was using the natural materials around me and creating hidden dens in different woods and forests around Sussex, Essex and London and documenting them. I want to get back to MAKING!!!

Neukom Vivarium

Neukom Vivarium by Mark Dion


This piece is an 80 ft long greenhouse containing a 60 ft long nurse log, which is a living installation. The tree is contained in a climate controlled 'incubator' and when viewed magnifying glasses are given out to view the decomposition and the life regenerating from the tree. I really like this idea of having an ever changing ecosystem growing away within the greenhouse and it never being the same from day to day.

Wakehurst Place

- Tunnels of live plants woven together which you could walk through.

- Combining the idea of inside and outside.

- Natural resources to create structures. 

I am still doing research into the formations of plants and cell structures through drawing and photographs, however my goal is to start building and making this coming week, and experimenting with materials. Currently I feel a bit out of touch with creating sculptures and installations, so I need to start thinking about materials and what would be good to work with. Ideally I would like to make enclosures, so the quantity of material is extremely important. Using natural materials such as wood or collected branches would keep a nice flow with the drawing research and the development into making.

This structure was at Kew gardens and to me resembled the framework of a cell of a plant, something I want to do further research into. I also liked the idea of blending the boundaries between inside and outside space.

Cactus

 

Kew gardens had a cacti green house, which I think was by far the most interesting for me, as the plants had amazing geometric formations and could visualize them as sculptures or buildings.The amount of varied textures was abundant. Strangely they looked really tactile but covered with spikes and thorns. Nevertheless something to think about.

KEW

Focusing on plant structures, shapes and formations. Want to steer clear of making "pretty flower" sketches.