Women’s Art Association potential exhibition

We met up with Esyllt George to discuss what we plan on doing with the Women’s Art Association in terms of possible shows and exhibitions with them. We decided to plan one on the theme of empowerment, pride,being ourselves, and reinventing a negative, through a collaboration of our skills with paint, digital, performance, etc. We also discussed perhaps involving the community by organising workshops and outreach events, simultaneously making it like a performance piece.

For these events, we’ve decided to ask around where we’ve been volunteering, such as Arcade and Campfa, and I could potentially ask g39 if we could use their space around February , when we plan our exhibition. In that time, we could all meet together to create a descriptive paragraph to make our theme clearer and perhaps ask others to submit work towards it. We’ll also be making an effort to look into getting funds for the exhibition from several corporations, however it might be a little late for this upcoming exhibition. Esyllt suggested ones like The Cooperate Social Responsibility Fund, the book “Directory of Grants of Making Trusts” in library, Art Project, and to think of organisation that are looking for people to theme with what they’re trying to advertise, as well as think of a target of audience when thinking of making money.

Our next meeting to discuss plans and where we’re at is on Tuesday the 11th, when I can update what’s been decided.

Get Loose Exhibition Opening

The exhibition opening night for our “Get Loose” exhibition turned out really well. We were able to set up on time without any major problems, and any problem we encountered was sorted promptly, such as figuring out what space everyone had and how to display our pieces. The turn-out, however, wasn’t as much as we expected, as we had brought a lot of free food for the exhibition, but didn’t need half of it, which will be taken into account the next time we organise an exhibition. Despite the low number of people, we had a great time and I personally really enjoyed the process and have learned a lot from it.

From displaying my work, the things I should consider next time is what I can do to display my art work better. I was very conscious about not damaging the wall paper, therefore didn’t want to use anything more than blue-tack, but this would never be enough to hold my paintings up. I think location of the exhibition would help with this, and perhaps get a gallery space next time, or anywhere that would let us put nails in the wall, would be great for the pieces I displayed.

I also really liked the location of this exhibition because it already had fruit machines next to the bar downstairs, making my pieces very fitting. I didn’t originally think of how fitting this was until the set-up and is definitely something to keep in mind for any next exhibitions.

My next potential exhibition is with a few other students with the Women’s Art Association. I need to start planning where the location of this will be, and ask g39 perhaps about using their space, as we’re already holding our affordable art sale there next week, the 6th of December.

Stroke Association Volunteering – art therapy workshop no.2

I accompanied Christine in another art therapy session for stroke survivors on Monday, which was really great. The people had remembered my name, and was asking if I was going to stay until Christmas breaks for them, which felt rewarding. I unfortunately will be leaving the volunteering at the Stroke Association after the New Year because I want to manage my time better and focus only on two separate volunteering opportunities, instead of three, and I think Wales in Venice invigilating and G39 invigilating is what I’ll find more useful in what I want to do in the future. However, the skills I’ll be learning and have already gained from working with the survivors are invaluable and will no doubt prove useful in any future work with people and the community.

Megan Winstone and Red Flannel Films Talk at g39

I attended the talk with Winstone who was talking about her upcoming film, the planning for it, her inspirations, and the hurdles she’s faced getting to where she is, as well as Red Flannel Films, whom grew out of the South Wales Women’s Film Group – the first women’s film organisation in Wales established in the early 1980s. 40 years on, Megan Winstone is documenting a series of interviews in ladies’ toilets of nightclubs and pubs. From making new friends to distributing sanitary products to offering a place of refuge, these are spaces of opportunity and togetherness. The parallels in their works were brilliant to see, and how they could collaborate ideas and projects based on projects decades apart.

The hurdles they’ve all faced doing feminist pieces, even from other women in the creative industry, was shocking to hear, but also almost a relief. I gathered that it’s very common to receive criticism making work with that sort of theme, and that it’s alright to feel like it’s not always constructive and that we don’t always have to listen to it if we have enough contextualisation and research to back our work up, and open a dialog with various people about our work. This was very valuable to hear from them, as well as getting to watch their films, which had such a contemporary feel to them, even though the original film was made in the 80s and 90s, proving it still has a place to be spoken about still. I’m currently following Winstone’s project unfold on her Instagram page, where she’s currently documenting her photographs from various nights in Wales’ clubbing and pub scenes, and really look forward to watching the film at g39 when it’s out.

https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/red-flannel-liberating-women-on-film?fbclid=IwAR1D7_DXueCI4PMVcoPVMss3iuBK5FIOpUr42NLgmxQGyk8I3tUR1Vja28c

Get Loose Exhibition – Personal Statement

After looking into sex work last year, I decided to take another route by taking a more playful idea of how we, millennials and other younger generations, have sexualised emojis, especially food emojis. Looking into this, I found that we have always sexualised food, whether it is in art, film or novels, and this is a progression from that.

I first of all looked at using sex work to prove the sexualisation of foods that represented phallic objects, such as bananas and aubergines. However, I did not want to take such a serious route of using anything that could potentially bring any harm or be insensitive, and thought that making a profile as a camera girl would work. I ate a banana live and documented the comments I received, which did conclude that it was turned into a sexual innuendo, which I knew would happen in the environment I chose to do it on. Would I have had a different reaction going live on Instagram, Facebook, etc? In my opinion, not hugely, but the comments would not have been as crude and obviously sexual as I wanted them to be for the purpose of my work.

I developed these ideas into fruit machines, keeping with the playful side of my work. I painted this series inspired by photographs I found online of fruit machines; some had game shows on them, and some were called “Chav It” with a cartoon of a “Chav” on the top, and others were standard fruit machines. This sparked the idea of using my camera girl research for this series by using myself to replace the advertisement or the “Chav” joke on the fruit machine, and even use comments and messages I received by viewers when I went live.

I also played with wax and oil paint for my camera girl research, which surprisingly came out well, therefore I thought that including these alongside my painting series was important to show the development of my work as “research paintings”. They include photographs of Medusa and a photograph of me the night I went live as a camera girl.

Artes Mundi – sgwrs Cymraeg

Cefais i siawns i gyfarfod efo pobl eraill o’r ysgol gelf i siarad am Artes Mundi, gan gynnwys Gweni Llwyd sydd yn gweithio iddyn nhw ar y funud. Roedd y cyfle o gallu siarad am y gwaith dwry’r gyfrwng Cymraeg yn rhoi profiad hollol wahanol i mi o’r arddangosfa oherwydd oedd barn pawb yn wahanol iawn ac o safbwynt diwylliant Cymraeg.

Y rhan oni’n gweld y mwyaf defnyddiol oedd siarad efo Gweni yn y diwedd am sut cafodd hi waith yn Artes Mundi a sut i edrych allan am gyflaeoedd yn yr Amgueddfa, yn enwedig i bobl sy’n gallu siarad Cymraeg, a cyflaeoedd eraill ar draws Caerdydd hefyd. Fel esiampl, mae yna gyfle i goruchwylio yn Sain Ffagan i siaradwyr Cymraeg, ac y byddaf yn edrych i fewn i hwn pan fyddai’n llai brysur.

Final Fruit Machine Painting

I’ve now began my final painting that I’ll be exhibiting at the end of this month, which will be a close-up of a fruit machine, but with emojis instead of fruits, in-keeping with the theme of the series. I’m hoping this close-up will enable me to add more detail to the painting and make it look more obviously like a fruit machine rather than a collage of emojis, and sketched out a quick plan of what I planned on painting.

I originally thought that making a closer version of a fruit machine might make the painting process a little quicker, but it’s taking just as long as the original ones. The amount of detail I plan to put into them is the reason behind this.

I then decided to keep with the original emojis, and paint them as they were, which contrasts with the background being very painterly because the emojis are bright and cartoon-like.

I found that they still took a long time to paint, but I can see a difference in my painting quality since the first one a few weeks ago a lot clearer now, and I’m very excited about showing this piece at the Get Loose exhibition I’ll be holding this week (29/11/18). I personally think they all look great together as a trio and will hopefully find a successful way to show them all off at the exhibition, as I’m still sketching out plans for the curation. All I have left to do is frame all of the paintings and exhibit them.

They were all accepted well at the exhibition by my peers and looked great in the space of a conservative club, where there were already fruit machines. I didn’t think of the significance of this until I was setting up, but I was really glad that I could make the link to the place I was exhibiting. This will in turn help me figure out why I’ll be exhibiting in other places in the future and bring the importance of it into the context and research of my work, something I didn’t necessarily think of doing before. The importance of the work being displayed in the Cathays Conservative Club was that I could then see the paintings where a fruit machine is traditionally placed, which is in the environment of men. The “gamble” of my machines were if the phrases used by people who messaged or commented to either my Tinder profile or on MyFreeCams. The idea was that the correct use of emojis to create the “best” sentence, or the “best” comments” might win the person’s time. On Tinder, I was really intrigued by how this is often played as game to win a “booty call”, just by the right use of emojis. The turning of a fruit machine wheel, replaced by emojis, reflect this game.

Stroke Association Volunteering – art therapy workshop

Today I had the fantastic opportunity to volunteer at a Stroke Association therapy day. I’ve been interested in finding out if I would like to go down this kind of career path of helping people using art, and I thought this would be a great opportunity to get a feel of what would be expected of me in an art workshop. I found it beneficial either way because the morning consisted of talking to the survivors, and some were stroke survivor artists who had interesting stories and art to share, as well as physio therapy which was fun to take part in and help out with.

The afternoon was then the art therapy workshop, and I got to help Christine who runs it. Christine is a landscape artist and often collects funds for charities around Christmas by making Christmas cards, and that is what the survivors were busy doing today. I helped by sketching out ideas for them, showed them how to shade using acrylic paint, and offered any help they needed. I found it extremely rewarding seeing how happy they were with their card designs, especially the people who’d never painted before in their lives. They were really surprised by themselves and this positive reaction to being able to do something as a stroke survivor instead of being told they can’t do it must help them a lot.

I’ve been asked to attend every session on a Monday afternoon, which I’m pleased and excited to attend.

G39 Invigilating 14/11

I’m Invigilating at G39 as a part of my professional development module, and did a full day today for the first time. It was a fairly quiet day, but I had the chance to chat to other artists who visited to ask about using the space for their work and performance, and learned a lot about the process of pitching a project to galleries and how to do it here at G39. I also spoke to the artist Glyn Roberts who’s work involves categories like 20th century art to the moving image and music from the classical to the contemporary. He started his career in radio at the BBC as a sound engineer before moving on to television at S4C. Here, he expanded his portfolio of skills to include: instigating ideas, storyboarding, copywriting, producing, filming, directing and above all delivering through all aspects of post production. Chatting to him in Welsh, my first language, was also nice because I don’t often get to outside of Welsh groups at university.

I’m really looking forward to getting involved with G39 more often, and I’ll hopefully will be Invigilating again soon, or perhaps even get involved in some other way.

Art Auction Paintings

I chose to paint for the pieces I’ll be submitting towards the auction because I wanted to make something that someone would consider putting up in their homes. I chose the theme of the mountains up in North Wales for these paintings because they are aesthetically pleasing to look at, as well as being rich in Wales’ history, culture, and mythology, which is perhaps why someone would choose to buy them.

Drawing plans;

Drawing plan

Drawing plan

Drawing plan

Finished paintings;