Tag: wedding aesthetic

tutorial with Jonathan 8/5/24

What was discussed:

  • Briefly, my anxiety re the research paper.
  • New self-portraits with the bridal/wedding theme and how this theme connects to broader ideas around “work”.
  • Jonathan asked me how I work practically with the different themes. I specified that I am working on one at a time, i.e. I haven’t been creating work around all three themes simultaneously and then presenting it one by one. I prefer to immerse myself in one at a time and then present the work while I’m making it.
  • I mentioned that earlier in the project I was focused a lot on the idea of creating a “saturation” of images and that this was just as or more important than the images themselves, presenting a mass of images. This is still important but the individual images have become more important to me. I want each image to be interesting on its own, not just interesting in the context of presenting them all together.
  • We talked about different ways of presenting the images physically not just online. Jonathan mentioned that I create a lot of rules around my art and I thought it was really interesting that he said this because it’s true and I have been thinking about it a lot lately. I always want to my work to be conceptually rigorous and to have reasons behind the choices I make. But I may need to allow myself to experiment more freely in the early stages and remember that just because I try something it doesn’t mean I have to use it or show it publicly if I don’t like it. I said that when I think about the different ways that I could present the images physically I get a bit frozen because I worry that there is a right and wrong way to do it and I don’t know what the right way is. But of course there is no way that is technically right or wrong I just need to try things and find what makes sense for me.
  • I mentioned that I would love to make an installation in a real office space, like on a big floor of a big building with lots of office cubicles and how I get sort of stuck when I think about ideas that don’t feel possible for me at the moment logistically. We talked about finding ways to realise simpler versions of ideas on a smaller scale (Jonathan mentioned the maquette, a small version of a sculpture before the real thing is made). Like maybe I can’t access an entire office right now but I could do something with one desk or access one desk in an office. We also talked about the option of using an existing space to create a moment or installation (e.g. putting my photos in a real office space) versus the option of putting work into a dislocated setting (e.g. putting objects from an office into the street). Neither is better, just different ways of considering presentation.
  • We talked about the Sermon on the Body book. Jonathan observed my choices – using the 12 point Times New Roman font, the most basic/simple font option, very minimal. The rudimentary decorative style – creating rough holes in the paper with scissors, the size of the tape that is used to stick down the ribbons, the ribbons being visible on the back of the page as well if they are tied through/around the paper, the use of plastic and a binder.

Next steps:

  • I’m going to print some photos onto paper and just see how they look and how it feels and play with them in some way and not worry about the outcome being right or wrong.
  • I’m going to go back to my study statement and reflect on where I’m up to, if I’m doing what I thought I’d be doing at this point or am I not, what have I discovered.
  • I’m going to keep making self-portraits and pushing myself in terms of the composition of each image.
  • I’m going to keep making pages for Sermon on the Body and allow myself to enjoy this process.
  • I’m going to keep reading about things that I’m interested in and trust that I will be able to come up with a topic for the research paper as a result of doing that.

new self-portraits

I made some new self-portraits last night and this morning, experimenting with the bridal/wedding aesthetic. Here are some examples:

Things that worked well:

  • I finally bought a handheld bluetooth remote thing to use with my phone to take photos, I don’t know why I put this off for so long. I think because I like to use the bare minimum when it comes to equipment/tech so I was just being stubborn about it, idk. But using this made things a lot easier and quicker.
  • Using a wedding veil as a prop gave good results aesthetically.
  • It was refreshing doing something different to usual, new theme, new clothes, new props.
  • Usually I listen to music when I’m taking photos. This time I didn’t and I preferred it. I think I was able to focus more and things seemed to flow better and it felt more productive.

Challenges:

  • The wedding veil was hard to work with, though I like the way it looks. It’s long, it kept sliding around and I was often half tripping over it. Also being covered in it made me hot really quickly from the synthetic which I didn’t expect because it’s so light but it felt very bad on my skin.
  • Realised a simple thing which is that I need to make sure I drink more water while I’m working, the tiring-ness of making photos/videos tends to kind of creep up on me and then I’ll suddenly feel faint and dehydrated.
  • Making self-portraits is a lot harder when I have my period, there’s just more to think about, plus the intense pain and fatigue and increased anxiety. I don’t feel as much like moving my body around and doing things that rely on physical action, so I usually try to plan my longer shoots around this. I wasn’t able to do that on this occasion and it felt particularly precarious doing a shoot that involved all white clothes and underwear. Really need to try and avoid this next time. It’s frustrating to have to think about this.

Sermon on the Body 

I’m making Sermon on the Body into a physical book/object. My visual references are: office supplies, hotel stationary, DIY wedding aesthetics, diary-keeping, scrapbooking, solitude, dreaminess, fantasy, being a girl. I’m typing each of the 365 poems (or each stanza of the 365 stanza poem) onto a single page each, decorating each page and then using a ring binder folder to fasten them together. I’m using the same font and font size (Times New Roman, 12) that I used when I originally wrote the poem/s. I will also decorate the front and back covers of the folder. I want to create a book that is big and heavy and delicate, so that it feels like a bible. I don’t want it to feel polished or sophisticated but I want it to feel precious.

class 15/02/24

In class we were joined by former students of the course who studied during the first iteration of this MA at CSM. We talked about the “found”. When we did the exercise in making something from the “found”, I made this:

This exercise was well timed for me because I don’t often make physical objects but am planning to soon. It was nice to have to do something with limited time and no preparation, just working intuitively. I have a big plastic tub full of “things” I want to make art with – paper, ribbon, lace, stickers, old wedding veils, bits of plastic etc. I took a few things from there to make this object. It is inspired by the idea of a wedding invitation. The text “I feel thoroughly organised to approach the wedding of the earth and the core” is taken from my poem Sermon on the Body, which has informed much of my MA project. The image of Mary is something I painted years ago that has been lying around. I never knew what to do with it but couldn’t get rid of it. It felt good to finally do something with it. Wedding aesthetics fascinate me and are going to be relevant to an upcoming phase of my project, so I thought I would delve into that in this exercise to kind of break the ice. I’m interested at the moment in “tackiness” – demonstrated here with the crude use of sticky tape, fake pearl stickers, crumpled plastic and polyester ribbon and lace. I’m also interested in things that are kind of makeshift and scrapbook-esque. I’m planning to make a physical book version of Sermon on the Body and the aesthetic of the “wedding invitation” I made during class is in the realm of the aesthetic I’m planning for the book.

I really enjoyed this class, all the former students spoke so articulately about their work and seemed to have very defined and passionate interests. They invited us to consider how our own work might relate to the “found”. These are my thoughts on that:

  • I find tiny little moments in time.
  • I find versions of myself.
  • I find overlooked details.
  • I find symmetry, synchronicity, repetition.
  • I use “found” things in relation to technology. I use the tech that I already have, that is already built in to my everyday devices, my phone and laptop, rather than purchasing extra equipment to make photos and videos. I use a tripod that I found in my mum’s garage, or I just prop my phone/laptop up on books or something until I get the right angle/height.
  • I repurpose my own work to create new iterations of it – I write poems and use the text years later to create new kinds of artwork.
  • This is less relevant currently as I’m not focused on it, but when I used to write plays regularly, I was mostly drawn to writing adaptations of existing texts. I loved taking a classic text and repurposing it, re-contextualising it, reimagining it and delivering it to a new audience.
  • I have a collection of things, as mentioned above, that are mostly found or secondhand – plastic and cardboard from delivered packages, wedding veils from second-hand stores, complimentary stationary taken from hotel rooms etc.

creating a world, plans, thinking about a timeline

As I’ve already stated, I will use multiple forms to realise my project. I want to create a world for the project that inhabits physical and online spaces in various ways over time, not just within one outcome.

Here are some rough notes on the elements of my project. I’m drafting this in preparation for my study statement, it will be kind of messy and not necessarily make a lot of sense right now, I just need to get my ideas out.

  • A series of self-portraits titled She Has a Body of Work. These are currently being created and I will continue creating them throughout the whole MA. They are being presented and will continue to be presented in various overlapping contexts including online on OnlyFans, the interim show and later within a larger scale physical installation. This work plays with an office/corporate/white-collar aesthetic and explores ideas around performing the self in the context of work, commodifying the self, money, exploitation, autonomy, selling art and selling the body.
  • Interim show. I think I’ll use the interim show as an opportunity to play with an idea I have that relates to my interest in generic corporate aesthetics. I’m intrigued by the art and decor used in office buildings and foyers. It’s an aesthetic that is also seen in hotels, another type of space that I love and love to work with. I love the bland prints and canvas or framed photos on the walls in these spaces. Sometimes there will be something in the generic motivational/inspirational quote genre. I’ll write in more detail about this another time but my idea at the moment is to present a few of my self-portraits in a way that connotes “corporate foyer-art”.
  • After the interim show, I will spend some time thinking about weddings. I think I mentioned in an earlier post that my interest in generic corporate aesthetics is linked to my interest in generic wedding aesthetics. I have been wanting to make something related to weddings for a while and it keeps coming back to me. I thought at first that it was something I should put aside for an entirely separate project but now I can see the connection. Marriage is very connected to work. Marriage is viewed as a success, in the way that a lucrative or stable career is viewed as a success. Marriage is “hard work”. Weddings have highly recognisable aesthetics and symbols. Some things I think about in relation to both work and weddings/marriage are: money, gender, performance, safety, fantasy, the labour of the body, contracts, social expectations, autonomy, freedom, the seeking of meaning and fulfilment. Again, this is something I’ll write about later in more detail in terms of the concepts. I view this as like a little offshoot within Work. In terms of an outcome for this element, I can imagine creating a small scale installation of images and objects and maybe a video piece that could be part of an installation and/or viewed online. But I can’t articulate more about that right now.
  • Sermon on the body. I mentioned in this post the poem I wrote a few years ago titled Sermon on the body. This poem has inspired the self-portraits I’m taking. I would like to make a physical book of the poem. I view this as a kind of functional sculptural object. I imagine the physical version will be an object that is incorporated into an installation. I’m inspired by the designs of corporate documents and promotional material, so this will probably be my starting point in experimenting with the design for this object.
  • Larger scale installation. I would like the entire project to culminate in an installation that incorporates parts of the whole world of the project.
  • Documenting the work on Instagram. This is something that is already taking place and that will continue for the rest of the project. I like using Instagram and have never been able to use it in an “authentic” way, I like using it in a performative way. I’ve never used it to share my “real” life in a candid sense. Although the “realest” part of my life (or most important part) is my art/work, so seeing as I use it to share my art/work, maybe I’m actually using it in a way that’s quite authentic. Anyway, I’m using Instagram to document the work and kind of “perform” the work as it unfolds. I view this documentation as an element of the work in itself. I’m sharing parts of the work, for example some of my self-portraits, and using Instagram to promote my OnlyFans. I’lll also be sharing other images and videos I make that complement the ideas and aesthetics that I’m working with. It will be a visual encapsulation of the entire piece up until the end of the course as well as a promotional tool. Self-promotion is an idea I’m interested in in relation to work, selling the self and selling art, so utilising social media within this project feels natural and inevitable.