David Carson

Thanks for showing me this Neil, Much appreciate it. fantastic work by David Carson

http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/

ok so catchup

Been fairly busy over the last few weeks, finished another carved piece finally and I'm happy with it for the moment so that's a plus. Also recently found another object to carve onto this time a set of drawers I found while out walking really looking forward to carving onto this, the installation idea is slowly but surely coming together.

Also over the past few weeks some of my work was on  show with the Black Cube Collective at the arts complex near Meadowbank in Edinburgh and also for the closing event at old st pauls church near waverly station.

Currnetly working on my pitch for the Scottish album of the year awards art commission 2013.

You Could Tell It Was Telford....

The realisation that I am to be the last resident artist on the AIRetc programme at Telford college in its current guise before merging with Stevenson and Jewel and Esk on Monday 1^st of October to become part of Edinburgh College has added gravitas to the position I currently occupy as artist in residence here at Telford College. This programme of inviting former students to take up residence within the college, producing work, and engaging with the students is extremely important for the artists, the students, and the college as a whole. It helps to build upon the professional practice of the artists selected, allowing them the opportunity and time to pursue various lines of artistic enquiry in their own work and builds connections with staff and students.

Having previously studied at Telford and then returning here to start this residency I can honestly say I feel a connection with the identity of the college as a whole, an Identity that I feel proud to have been a part of despite its change of address and use of fairly odd tag lines for marketing the college, one of which very much becoming a by-phrase for shit (You Can Tell Its Telford…). But I guess that’s it, you could tell it was Telford, somehow “the south campus of Edinburgh College” doesn’t strike me full of inspiration or doesn’t hint at the history behind the college itself. With this in mind I hope that the homogenisation of these three colleges does not negatively impact upon the output of the students or the staff in their abilities to impart their own knowledge and skills. Having studied in several institutions that have merged over the years I am always wary of mergers which seem to be ostensibly and solely done to cut costs and the first things to get cut always seems to be staff and equipment.

I don’t know what the future of the programme will be after the merger but I would hope that the AIRetc residency will continue to exist, it would be a shame in these cutting times to lose something that costs very little if anything but is of great benefit to those that are involved be it the students, the lecturers the invited artists or the institution itself.    

meant to say I like doors..

updates on work live from the studio (let the chips fly)

So...... was going to post all of this in my last post but decided that it would end up too long a post with too many images thrown in so here we go.

Now have been working on another carved piece for the past three weeks, this isn't perhaps a brand new piece but one that I had put away at the end of my masters degree with the intention to continue to work on it after, and now having finally been given the facilities and opportunity to do so I have once again dusted off my carving tools, set square and graphite stick and started work on the piece. This piece comes out of the previous door carving I did for the degree show, but it is part of something bigger its part of an installation idea that I have had stuck in my head for almost a year now and one that I'm only about a third of the way through getting out.

 Anyway the past three weeks I have been writing out the words on the object then finding they don't fit and having to re-scale them and balance them etc etc which has been extremely frustrating at times. Anyway finally finished the laying out last week and began carving the the design onto the piece, which is by far my favourite part as you get to witness the object coming to life, seeing the character of the piece emerge from what was previously line after line of faint pencil marks on a piece of wood. Have again been using my flexicut hand carving tools which are taking a huge amount of punishment but get the job done slowly. Trying to speed up the carving process I borrowed a power carver/ chisel from a good friend of mine and that has sped up the whole process which is excellent but I cant help but feel it has come at the cost of something else. By using the power tool it introduces the machine into the process, which hadnt been there before, when using the hand tools it was a labour, a trial perhaps, which maybe allowed me to appreciate the finished article in a greater depth knowing that it has taken time and effort to bring the piece to a resolved point. I dont know, this bares more thinking about on my part and seems to boil down to what I think is more important the act of doing and making the finished object or the finished object itself and right now I have no idea. Anyway some pics of the work in progress.

Updates from the studio (finally got WIFI access)

So three weeks into my residency at Telford and its going well. Have finally ticked all the box's required for getting my staff card/ Library access and internet access (hence the new post from the studio) so expect more regular updates from the AIRetc studio.

Have met some of the students briefly having been asked to join the other lecturers during one of the taster classes for the new national diploma class which was great, got to walk around and chat with the students helping where asked/ needed. Have to say I was impressed by the work produced by the students and snapped a couple images to post up here. My apologies but for the most part cant remember any of the names of the students these belong to...... anyway here are some of my favourites. In other news I will be posting on another blog directly connected to my residency at Telford so feel free to check it out here:

http://airetc.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/say-hello-wave-goodbye/

AIRetc Residency

Ok so Its been more than a few days since my last post and things have moved on quite quickly in a relatively short period of time.

So a couple months ago I heard about an opportunity to take part in a residency programme at Edinburgh's Telford College (AIRetc) which in a brilliantly circular fashion is where I first embarked upon my "career" as an artist. The residency is open to former students at Telford who have completed one of the various art and design courses available, and provides studio space and facilities to those accepted onto the programme.

 So with this in mind I spent a week completing the application and proposal to take part and posted it off, having not had much luck previously in applying for residencies I didnt give it another thought until a week or so later I was bowled over to receive an email from Alan Holligan one of the lecturers at Telford offering me the residency for the first half of the year (Sep 2012 - Jan 2013).

Needless to say have jumped at the chance and have now moved into the studio with box's of assorted art materials in tow.

This residency programme is a really good opportunity to provide former students new and old with a platform to start off life after college and helping to build up your professional practice. Really looking forward to my time here.

Degree show

So Degree show openings are done and dusted and currently enduring invigilation duties. To say its been an emotional roller coaster so far is a vast understatement. The First of the opening nights for staff and alumni was really quite quiet but did kind of prepare us for the other two. The business view was definitely not all it was hyped up to be unless everybody bypassed our section of the show. Talked to a couple of people but no real interest shown by anyone in either the work or the ideas behind it which left me feeling quite flat for most of the night and next day and in all honesty actually made me question whether or not i should just give up art altogether and get a real job. The friends and family view was perhaps the best of the three openings, was relaxed and confident and for the most part happy. being surrounded by everyone's friends and family was great, meeting new people and actually talking about the work, really picked me back up again.

Anyway specially for Phill the Drill here are some install shots of the show.

Last minute decisions ......

So came in this morning with a firm decision on where my door piece was to be placed... this was thrown to the winds rather quickly. Had a brief chat with Andrew firming up in my own mind that the piece belongs standing accepting of its previous use as a door (regardless of where it is positioned you cant take that fact away). Spoke to Kenny Hunter after this and he pushed me to think more about what was important regarding the piece, whether the writing or the object itself was the most important, which led to about three hours of constant mental struggle! The problem is that I can rationalise both methods of hanging either vertical or horizontal so it really did boil down to what I wanted to promote about the piece.  so here is (I hope) my justification for going with my original decision.

The piece standing up shows on it the physical labour that has been put into it, first the transformation from vertical to horizontal in order to carve then back to vertical for the hang. The struggle with producing the text itself is echoed within the slightly awkward and challenging way of reading (sorry clunky sentence cant quite find the right wording) the text. the endurance perhaps? I dont know. anyway best I could do in the short space of time. more for the viva!

 

Yinka Shonibare

This came up in discussion with Graeme ages ago when I first discussed my plaster discs and their relation to Vinyl records and my plan to produce three different sizes.

Zine Front Page mock up

So yeah the Zine I was planning for the show is running into snags so looks like its going to be abit delayed, got some images wrong before sending them to the printers. Would ideally like to print this myself but just not enough time at the moment. Anyway so here is a rough outline of the front cover which I will probably print up myself for each copy see how it goes though.

Almost disasters and helping out.

Probably should have posted all this yesterday but been quite a busy week. Have been really enjoying all the conversations that I've been having with various other MFA students these have mainly centred around the hanging of work and the flow of the viewer through the room. Really think the strongest room of the show is going to be C9 where Iain Sutherland and Kim Wilson are really complimentary work really excited to see it when Kims peat constructions are completed and out of the shuttering. Helped Sander put   together his billboard the other day and hang it today, looks really good glad it came together in the end despite some close calls really carries across his strong aesthetic.

Start of the Hang

So thanks to Graeme's tutorial yesterday we decided to just put one up, and then another, and then another.... so yeah here it is the start of the final degree show hang! Think the frustration of not having physically put any of the pieces on the wall was what was really getting me all stressed. The formation is growing really organically, instead of trying to hard to get a really tight configuration I have h=been relaying on my eye to balance colour and information content as well as size, also distance between pieces varies quite alot but gives the pieces space to breathe and either be taken in as part of the larger whole or as individuals.

Last Minute tutorials

So managed to have a last minute tutorial with Graeme Todd today, this for me helped resolve hanging issues which has been a struggle over the past few days as my original ideas on configuration (having everything hanging in one random block) I shelved after doing a trial run over the weekend and deciding that it just didn't bring anything to the work and that with the amount of information on display it made for a very confusing aesthetic so after various discussions with others I thought I had settled upon a line of plaster discs hung in loose groups of mixed sizes. This would create the sense of reading something written which is an important part of this work. In discussions with William Mokrynski one of my fellow MFA's he brought up the idea of snippets of information heard while tuning the radio etc, which I was immediately drawn to.

Anyway back to the tutorial.. Graeme was quite insistent on giving the loose grouping another try and Im pleased to say It pulled me back on track, the problem originally had been the floor and not giving enough breathing space to the individual pieces which was desperately needed as due to the information contained on them and the float mounts they need that extra room around them to stop them melding into one large confusing mass.


anyway some pics of various trials...  

Publication

So long time no blog (again). Anyway thought id share a little image I put together for inclusion in our exhibition publication LL Brown which I have been on the committee for this year . Its a re-hash of an older print I did to be sold through the Royal Scottish Academy's culture label website, has been altered to fit with my current disc format. The background colour will be gold with black over printed, like this image enough that I am thinking of making a limited screen print edition on a larger scale so more on that later. Now back to sorting out the order for the degree show hang which (fingers crossed) shall be done by Thursday!

Aberdeen Artists

So my piece was accepted to Aberdeen artists which was great to hear, good show this year a really young and vibrant feel to it. Nice to see.

Meetings, meetings and more meetings...

So another Friday another meeting, organising a show isnt as easy as you would think lots of discussion needed to iron things out. Sitting around the table today discussing what people are considering putting into the show it was hard to believe everything will fit (litterally) into the space available, but then maybe this is something to wait and consider during the actual hang.

In other news my final shipment of magnets arrived this week, really pleased with them great solution to wall mounting my pieces, so spent most of today while not in meetings down in the wood workshop cutting and shaping thirty odd mdf discs of varying diameters to fit behind my plaster discs. Feels good to be moving into the final stages of preparing work. Also myself and Sander Schoonbeek have been discussing the possibility of collaborating on a small print which I think we are both up for, we have been discussing this ever since our project space together in october 2011. This will likely be a conglomoration of imagery from our own practices Sanders interest in old and ruined cars playing with my own interest in the inbetween nature of vacant industrial spaces as well as sections of text which is also prevalent in my own work.

Framed submission

So framed up one of my finished plaster discs (7" size) and submitted it to Aberdeen artists annual exhibition this morning. fingers crossed.

Degree show committees

So haven't been blogging as much recently mainly been busy banging out plaster discs at a rate of about ten a day then printing them up which takes longer and costs infinitely more!

Anyway do thought I'd do a wee update on the committee stuff that I'm doing for the degree show. So part of the publication team which has meant endless time in meetings with Tom Nolan who is laying out our publication for us and organising the printing etc. This has been a great process being involved from the start means more is invested than simply supplying a very standard blurb to the college for them to then print up a generic catalogue also being a printmaker it is an opportunity to develope a relationship and understanding with the publishing and commercial print market which will help with the production of my zine for the degree show! Anyway so have also found myself helping out with the practical side of other committees most recently the PR and advertising committee by printing up tote bags to raise funds for the show.

Mid process shot of bag printing

Anyway much and more to tell but not enough time just now safe to say we are all busy as hell with various committees and meetings as well as our own individual works.

Tutorial blues

Had a brief tutorial with Kenny Hunter on Friday, went ok was left feeling slightly confused as after arranging the tutorial/ chat I realised I had no idea what I wanted to discuss really, which as myself and Kenny haven't really ever had an in- depth discussion of my work or where it comes from meant the discussion was a little forced. Anyway wanted another point of view as the only person tutor wise I have had any contact with over the past year has been Graham Todd which while being greatly beneficial and interesting it is always nice to get another perspective.

From the whole discussion Kenny seemed more interested in the carved door than my plaster prints which is nice though led to me questioning the relevance of this new work and whether it really is an organic continuation of the door piece though he did mention that there definitely was a connection between the two pieces, whether this was a bad or a good thing in his opinion was not apparent. Anyway we discussed turning the door into more of a sculptural object having it displayed mounted on supports in the room rather than wall mounted as I had originally thought. All in all it was an ok meeting though more questions than answers.

blowing hot air

Having spent most of the past month and especially the last week making objects and putting together images it has got me to thinking about my practice again what it is that I actually do and why I do it. As im aware my fascination with found objects and imagery is the driving force behind the making of the work, I cant help but ignore what is maybe the hardest part of the work and that is without doubt the "making" choosing to produce works on plaster is really labour intensive and makes me jealous of people who can just make anything a work no matter the effort involved in production etc. Why do I feel that I would be short changing people (not least myself) if  I didn't put as much physical effort into the making as I do the thought? Thinking more along this line the production of work as in the physical making and producing of "artefacts" is possibly more important to my practice than anything else, putting my efforts into making objects to me invests them with a certain fragility or personality and history that would be lacking if I didnt go through all the process involved in the making personally right from the the mould making to the casting and cleaning to the printing and image composition.

The more I make these objects and prints the more I am slipping back into being an image maker and producer of "things" which feels good but in a way seems to undermine the past year or so of research writing and talking. Maybe that is being a bit harsh?

Discography

Some mid process 7" plaster discs. Just waiting for text to be added then finished.... For now.

New paper editions

Sorry about the quality, unfortunately scanning a piece never does it justice. Anyway just for your delectation here they are.

7" single orange, 3 colour screen print on paper edition of 25

7" single black, 3 colour screen print on paper edition of 25

disc me sideways

New printed disk today. Was in early on Monday to book out time on the print beds as its getting into crazy season with regards to print time so myself and sander were waiting patiently at half eight on Monday morning to sign up for an almost full weeks printing time. Anyway so after printing up a small edition of 16 of the previous paper pieces I trial'd a new design on the plaster, so far have had several people comment on it which is nice but always puts me on edge, no idea why just always has and always will. dont feel there is enough work in it myself but we shall see what happens. anyway TA DA......

Completed printed plaster disk

second stage of plaster disk

as always sorry for the crappy images, taken with my phone as per.

carved disk

So after casting up a large plaster master for making a new rubber mould i couldnt resist carving into it instead of letting it dry up and become useless so here is the results, quite happy with it though been a while since i did any real carving and there for some of the lettering is abit out but a good start, more to come i think. Size is based on a 10" record with a depth of about 1.5" or there abouts.