The final entry as a degree student 6th June 2013

It has been over five months since the last catch up and as I wanted to keep my ideas a little closer to my chest this last semester.  My thoughts and concepts were to capture the audience in a segment of my thoughts and memories utilising the degree space as an installation.  I wanted to use sound and motion within my final piece along with sculpture and light and some of the ideas based around the last successful semester's work.

The dissertation took me on a journey and away from my work for a while which I knew it would, but regardless I carried on making, casting, cutting, painting and planning ready for the assembly when the degree show set up began.  I really loved researching and writing my dissertation, I found it challenging but enjoyed it all.  Research always bothered me and all I wanted to do was create, but I found I had to drag myself away from my books to get creative which is something I had never encountered before. However it all proved to be worth it in the end, and when the dissertation was handed in then a sigh of relief filled my whole being, only for a short fragment of time as now I realised it was time to get cracking with the installation ideas. 

The sounds I use are all my own doing as I like to experiment with my own voice rather than use anyone else. I did however use a colleagues voice on some background chanting (Sue Riemer). The sound piece that accompanies my installation is an important part of my work, it is a key fundamental foundation for the room to work. I wanted to narrate the written narrative around the subject of behaviour whilst at the same time capture and portray events that I remembered as a child in the background. By keeping these events and elements low key, implicit and ambiguously in the background it only hinted to the viewers that are paying attention. 

I created a new set of fret worked pieces that were to hang on the walls, these are far more complex than they first appear. they need careful planning and consideration as once the voids are cut away from the sheets of wood then the piece becomes really fragile and under extreme pressure to bend, warp and snap. I made four sections of these which incorporated some poetry I had written about myself and the possible impressions people had of me and why I was like that, or more to the point; what behaviour made me like that. Peoples behaviour when I was young is what made me who I am today and I would imagine more or less everyone is the same, we respond to our surroundings and how we are treated. From this point on I wanted to work with materials that were also responding to actions of others and see how they changed. By using plaster which is powder mixed with water to make a solid, resin which is two liquids resin and catalyst making a solid and black lighting and ultraviolet chroma in paints to make light. each one of these items started off as something else and they were changed due to the addition of something else, they are behaving to the introduction of another element, but this changes the natural state from which they started; ergo the metaphor for me.

By bringing all these elements together and also mixing some of the opposing elements this gave me some unusual results. I used the casts of my face to introduce myself into the piece, these pieces however are broken and have segments missing, none of the faces have ears as the words that were heard should never have been, the eyes are not whole as the happenings should never have been seen and the lips are all sealed as the deeds could not be spoken about and no one could know.

All in all the piece worked better that I had anticipated and seemed to draw attention on the opening of the degree exhibition. Visitors have been and come back just to have another look at all the work in there. We have also had some marvellous comments that just make it all worth it, the question is what happens next? ! well we will just have to wait and see....!

(The following images are from the degree show and have been taken by various people including Chris Lillywhite, Ben Hallett, Karen Weston and myself Barrie Hughes). 

 My work is the blue work by the way....