Up For Arts

On Saturday 30Th January i went to 'Up For Arts' day hosted by BBC Radio Merseyside. It was a really fun and was all hands on. I had a go at wood turning and made myself a very snazzy egg,

learnt the a great way of making ceramic pots and tiles,

and had a go at doing some origami jewellery.

Learning new skills is a fulfilling experience. Especially when you find a skill you love which for me was making the origami jewellery. I am definitely going to experiment with other ways i can use this skill in my work. For example i am thinking for some of my collages i can use these beads with poems and hidden messages on them, which is where my work was heading. It will be fun to see what word on the bead will display once it has been made as well having a relaxing session of work!

Mark Lechky Lecture At The Cornerstone 14/01/10

Mark Lechky is an entertaining lecturer. He had me engaged from the start. One of the things he was discussing was how he thought art is no longer engaging with the physical object. He explained how he thinks walking round a gallery with paintings and objects is a thing of the past. His argument for this was once something is digital you can copy it, paste it change it and make it with little cost compared with having to spend for example, to make a painting will come with the cost of the paints, canvas, brushes e.c.t. Once something is digital for example, stop start animation will involve a camera, the pictures you take cost nothing, to load them up to your computer and arrange them will cost nothing and then posting your video on YouTube or a website will cost nothing yet the exposure is still there. It brings up the question that is exposure for an artist over the Internet greater than exposure in a gallery? To make it far in the art world you may not even have to leave the house!

This made me start to think about how far is digital media going to go and how fast it is growing. In my work i tend to go towards traditional techniques, such as sowing by hand, printmaking and knitting but am going to start using more digital processes as a change. I am excited to see where this will take me with my project to date. I will always love traditional techniques but for some processes this could make my project develop faster which is a great skill to have when your working to a deadline.