Takeover
Here is my work displayed at the art centre for the takeover. It was displayed on the ground floor in the ceramics cabinets. I had help from Louise on where to place every sculpture so that it related with Richard Batterham’s work nicely and each sculpture had it’s induvial cabinet and they had their moment.
I had a clay workshop upstairs by the front desk as well which Katy helped me run. None of the kids ended up showing up, but it is okay as we had fun just sitting making clay sculptures and a few people around got involved.
Conclusion
This semester has been a tough one. I struggled with an idea from the beginning and spent most of my time looking at other artists instead of making anything. When I finally found Peter Fischli and David Weiss’ project “suddenly this overview”, clay sculptures of popular events, I liked the idea of working with clay and making scenes from my memories. It was interesting to work with clay as it was my first time really making anything serious from it. I found it hard at first because it kept crumbling and I was gluing a lot of pieces back together. I wanted to mimic the unfinished, messiness of their work to represent my childhood state, so the paint was messy, and the shapes of the clay was not perfect.
This was my first Takeover and I think it went really well. It was amazing seeing everybody’s work come together and the talent everybody possess. I enjoyed being apart of something this big and proud to show my work off. It was interesting to see how different everybody is, Mike’s installation, Pola’s Masks, Katy’s butterflies, Amy’s paintings and Jonas’ film.
For my Project I wanted the sculptures I made to fit and relate well with Richard Batterhams ceramics. Each one was placed with thought and linked with his work. Some sculptures were placed because there were similarities, like “hard at work” with the plant pot was placed with the storage jar covered in roses. “Time in Years” was placed underneath the “Staircase to the library” painting to link the two clocks. “Feeding ducks” and “sail away” were placed with “the goldfish bowl” to link the water animals and boats. I Placed “proud to be Welsh” with the Welsh description of Batterhams work. And “learning Music” was placed to represent the cult following Batterham had from musicians. I thought to place “death is peaceful” and “first obsession” with the obituary cabinet describing his final work before his death. “Future career” was placed with “three ashed bottles” to represent my art and his use of different materials. And then my favourite one was “lost in the woods”, which was placed with “English garden”. I thought this one linked well and had a very similar theme.
I had hoped the clay workshop had more interest, but it was nice to people watch while playing with clay and a few people did take part. I am just happy I took part, and it linked well to my project so people could tell what work mine was. I also managed to talk about my work a little to the tour groups which I was really worried about doing.
Overall, I am going to miss the third years very much and the friends I have made with them, but also looking forward to my second year and starting a new semester and the modules I have chosen. I have realised I want to stick with photography or painting, maybe experimenting with film as it is a medium I am more comfortable with.