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.