Mishmash

Currently (apart from the new series of channel 4's Utopia) I am obsessed with the idea of combination. Mostly this rears its ugly head in the form of papers I write for my degree at Wolverhampton University that focus on Applied Arts and interdisciplinarity but anything that seeks out a kind of cultural mishmash is something I am drawn towards.

The "digital taxidermy" by some magic internet person referring to themselves as quebectango or the beautiful paintings/stylistic abominations by Cesar Santos are artworks that have recently made their way into my internet reading allowing me to make this kind of observation.

In a world where nothing seems original (simply because nothing develops without context) combinations seem attractive to me, and the more honest and blatent, the better.

Artistically Challenged

http://instagram.com/actheseries
http://actheseries.com/

Just keeping these links here for myself, somebody made a comedy series for instagram based on the New York art scene <3

http://www.imaginaryfriendstheatre.com/p/no-hopers.html

Also this film sounds cool. I'm enjoying work based on the post-university slump at the moment but I'm not sure if it's because I'm trying to morbidly peer into the future or because I have watched a lot of people leave education fresh and ready to take on the world, and show up a few months later depressed and poor and it's good to see that disparity recognised.

Here's a picture of some of the Jamaica-based batik wall hangings from Kemball School in Blurton, Stoke-On-Trent where I have been helping out the Cultural Sisters this week. Even though my semester is over at university, I still really enjoy helping out there every week and it's great to have direction and a sense of purpose.

Quick look back at assessments

 These pictures are from my assessment last week where I created a small installation on my desk space looking at family history, genetic inheritance and the after-effects of domestic violence.

I made a series of chess pieces made from moulds I inherited from my grandfather who passed away in 2011. This gave me the opportunity to explore what it is to be made from the same genetic mould as a man who was violent and abusive towards my father's family when my dad was growing up. 

My grandfather was a strange contradiction in that he both made ornaments for his family and threw ornaments at his family. Each pawn I made was altered uniquely to show how the violence has affected each member of my family in different ways, and several of the chess pieces move away from the chess board in an attempt to escape from repeating the same cycle of violence.

I rarely post pictures of my own work these days, but I'm actually really proud of this and I think its some of the best, most genuine stuff I've done so far. I finally feel like I know what direction my degree work is headed.

Meanwhile in other exhibition news... Chapters

Here is some quick shots I managed to steal from the Chapters Exhibition organised by my class at uni. While I've been squirrelling away on my work placement, seven of my colleagues organised a literature-inspired project at St Peters collegiate Church in Wolverhampton. The work was entirely 3D based using traditional skills in ceramics and glass to build expressive pieces of work.

(I appologise to Beth Abberly and Lucy Kerrane for taking such blurry photos of your fabulous work I was trying to make them look smokey and monolithic respectively but my camera was all ...soooo imma just go ahead and blur everything you terrible picture-taker)

A Brief Spell invigilating the Bang! exhibition in Spode

Here's a picture of the camp we set up upstairs at Spode while invigilating the Bang! Art exhibition. Bang! was intended to showcase artwork by people who either lived in or studied at Stoke-On-Trent. Most of the work was paper-based 2D artwork, with photography and painting although there were some exceptions. 

The work was creatively exhibited in the ever-decaying Spode Factory Site, often using the large space available well. As a notoriously decaying city, the location is perhaps meant to inspire a sense of innovation and restoration through creativity.

Publicizing needs improvement, as a lot of people I have spoken to have no idea that there is an exhibition on at all. Posters throughout the city or a wider distribution of the Zines created would have at least encouraged some curiosity as contacting local media such as radio stations and newspapers. I can't even say exactly how long it will be on for or what days, but last I heard, there were plans in the making of opening the exhibition at weekends when people would be available to invigilate it.

However, I think that the project is a positive, inventive and ambitious outreach and an impressive feat to organise something of this size unaided by any larger sponsoring bodies as of yet. Funding for Bang! is crowd-sourced on the internet through Sponsume, which will hopefully continue to have a bright future in the post-industrialised towns throughout England.

Donate your scrap wood for a great cause!

No time for fannying about, I have a massive backlog of photos and writing I wanted to post but have not had the time or energy to go ahead with so I'll start with something simple but important and hopefully be able to catch up on the rest of it over the next few days now all my deadlines are out of sight.

Here is a plant pot my dad made from recycled shipping pallets, that also functions as a wheelbarrow should one desire. My dad often has pallets donated to his workshop in his garage which he then re-fashions into wooden plant pots and furniture and sells on to raise money for the Neuro Muscular Centre at Winsford.

My dad has a rare genetic disease called late-onset FSH Muscular Dystrophy which means that his muscle tissue painfully depletes itself, starting at the top of his body and working its way down so that eventually he won't be able to make these things anymore.

The NMC provides specialist physiotherapy which dramatically improves my dad's quality of life and makes it easier for him to move while reducing the number of spasms that cause muscle depletion. I think it is beautiful how he has managed to creatively re-purpose his life and so I would like to ask if anybody has any scrap wood lying around, please get in touch and send it in this direction.

European Social Fund Community Grants

Recently as part of my work placement, I attended a brief workshop about applying for grants from the European Union for community projects and I think the information ought to be more readily available, so I'm going to post slides from the presentation and a couple of notes I made, and hide the rest of the post behind a page break in case you are super not interested because even though it's useful knowledge to have as an artist, it's not particularly exciting or even attractively designed.

Anti-Stigma print workshop

 As part of the anti-stigma health consultation, where the Health Improvement Team in Stoke Council have commissioned The Cultural Sisters to find out about what the good people of Stoke-on-Trent think will be the best way to reduce stigma against mental health.

In the first session, we discussed what participants thought about what mental health means to them, how they defined stigma and what were the best ways of approaching these issues.

In the second session, we focussed ideas and made individual printing plates of the messages they wanted to spread out about mental health stigma.

Springtime at the National Memorial Arboretum

Some gorgeous masking-tape resist fabric wall hangings as part of a drop-in workshop at the National Memorial Arboretum. Feel like my workshop-helping skills have improved massively since I first started. I'm a lot more confident in knowing where people need assistance and stepping back when people need space to do their own thing. The bee in the middle is one of my favourites <3

How to get your university student office to listen to you

I'm not sure if that's legible enough, but it appears that my university has finally accepted that I was unable to complete my assignments or apply for mitigating circumstances two years ago.

I still can't get my head around the idea of a bureaucratic system working in my favour. It has been a bit like pounding my face against a brick wall getting my university to accept that you don't have to be in hospital to be ill. Pretty sure this would have never happened without the support from my lecturers and counsellors and I can't believe how lucky I am.

Seems a bit of a none-event but it basically means that my grades won't be penalised by University of Wolverhampton due to mental health problems, which has been a lot harder to establish than what one would initially suspect.


Support ranged from:

• being laughed at in my face for suggesting this was unfair and trying to fight against it (student union, you guys needed to step up there) 
• my lecturers telling me that it was totally unfair and that I needed to fight against it
• the student office telling me that my lecturers were greatly misinformed and needed to be re-educated on this topic
• counsellors and doctors both looking very doubtful as to whether or not I would succeed but assisting me regardless (still had to pay Doctors £25 though)
• my lecturers telling me that the student office was incorrect on this matter and that I would need to talk to a specific person in the student office who seemed to acknowledge that it was indeed unfair
• finally being able to hand in my evidence to the correct person in the student office
• ten minutes later, recieving the above email stating "Hi Jessica your mitigation has been accepted for 2011/12. So the modules you are now taking will be classed as a first sit."

Because succeeding in this avenue appears to be quite unusual, I have taken the time here to provide some brief pointers as to how I did it:

1. Getting proof.

I needed a letter from a doctor to testify that I did have mental health problems between 2011/2012. Therefore it is important to seek out help for any suspected mental health problems, if nothing else to get somebody else to believe that you have them. I also needed a letter from a university counsellor to testify that I was unable to navigate the mitigating circumstances policy system at my university, so even if you don't find it helpful, counselling is also useful for providing official documentation that you are having problems.

2. Improving health

I had to take a year out to improve my health, and without it and the support of family and friends, I would have never been able to work as hard as I have this year had I not. Because of this, I was able to regularly establish my presence within the studio for my course, and this meant that my lecturers could acknowledge that my circumstances were now radically different and being penalised for this was unfair.

3. Getting lecturers on your side.

I was fortunate to hit upon a really good research topic for an assignment which received a very high grade which made the university policy of giving me an automatic D for re-sitting seem extra silly. This gave a higher profile among staff in my department, who went on to give me really great support which led to me being able to speak to the right people in the student office who would be able to listen to my account and see that the standard university policy wasn't adequate for covering my circumstances.

If all of this seems very convoluted and circumstantial, that's because it is.

On the one hand, I am thrilled that sense has finally prevailed, but on the other, I think about the students who won't have the fortune or support I recieved. There are people in subjects with bigger class sizes who won't get noticed, people who have yet to be diagnosed, people who don't get as good grades, people who don't have the resources to take leaves of absences to get better and all of this greatly bothers me.

Winning a battle is not the same as winning a war. I don't know how else I can change things.

CADRE Lecture with Warren Niedich.

Merry April Fools Day dear world.

Next week's Cadre lecture at Wolverhampton is Warren Niedich. Decided to forego using the advertising from the university since it turned out to be kinda misleading last time so I thought I'd go in with an open mind. They did provide a link to this pdf which looks like pretty heavy-going stuff, so I think lecture might be some good brain-exercise.

Hopefully I can provide a better written account this time.

Appetite Stoke

Appetite Stoke have released a video highlighting their project to help engage the good people of Stoke-On-Trent with the Arts. The growing Arts community in my home town is something I'm both excited and in awe of.

Healthy Sex Forever Report

 

 

Nearly time for the Healthy Sex Forever deadline. Managed to get 112 participants in the end and this week, I helped Mel out with compiling the report. Images above are a couple of pages I helped out with. Looking forward to moving onto the next project now.

Wh@t T#e F*?K Zine-making

Images gathered from a previous Sexual Health Creative Consultation completed by The Cultural Sisters and re-arranged by my own fair hand into lovely Zine pages. This project was about communicating with men who have sex with men about risky sexual behaviours (called Wh@t T#e F*?K, seriously surprised that Stoke council let that one fly but kudos that they did).

Yesterday I helped collate some of the research-gathered into collages which will be photocopied and used as pages to make a zine. Each page covers a question asked, and each question has a small relevant image or symbol associated with it so a brick wall, to represent barriers and cogs to represent what further work needs to be done. This is an awesome example of how community-related artwork can be beautiful and I'm really proud to have any association with this project.

Super Thrilling General Update

Got part-way through making a tool when the people commissioning the project phoned up and asked us to delay the project. The world could always use more fancy paper hearts in it though so I'm sure they'll get used some other time.

Also here's the near-completed Anti-Stigma Canvas with pocketses!

I've been doing shorter hours this week so I can try to catch up on my work for university. I have a research project about typography and material qualities and that has lead me down the path of éctriture and finding out about Helene Cixous.

Tonight University of Wolverhampton has a visiting Lecturer called Geoffrey Mann. According to the email I received "Mann will focus on a new series of work that explores the concept of the 'objectile' examining how an artefact can occupy an in-between state by means of an event. The talk will also discuss the current trend of utilizing new technologies in the world of the hand-made and highlight the possible pitfalls of 'going digital'"

This all sounds right up my alley so I'm looking forward to this.

 

7 Handy Websites for Surviving as an Artist

In the spirit of Waving Not Drowning, instead of describing how cool it was I've decided to make a post which links to all of the networks mentioned on Saturday, for my own reference as well as signposting for anybody else.

http://www.tpwestmidlands.org.uk/

Turning Point West Midlands

Never really entirely understood what Turning Point West Midlands was fully about until yesterday. They are a network for artists in the west midlands, and run several projects as a part of this including:

• New Art West Midlands which is an open exhibition for recent graduates in the West Midlands
• a small number of partner residencies
• an Artist Development Program which aims to broaden the amount of opportunities available
• a limited number of writing bursaries for arts graduates intending to write about art
• potentially upcoming business suite which I am super interested in

http://www.artquest.org.uk/

Artquest

This website has numerous opportunities as well as a dandy email newsletter for keeping you in the know.

http://www.a-n.co.uk/

A-N (Artists Newsletter)

Another goldmine of information, newtork and advice, this has been recommended to me before by friends so I feel a bit silly for being so slow on the bandwagon. Definitely worth subscribing to.

http://www.artscouncil.org.uk/

Arts Council

Super obvious, not fond of all the pink they use on the website but still another bastion of support. They also have a jobs email and a newsletter, but make sure your settings are set to weekly and not daily because it can become a bit annoying.

http://www.voluntaryarts.org/

http://www.voluntaryarts.org/basic-page/england/

Voluntary Arts

Another good way of making connections and potentially finding charities who might have funding for arts projects.

http://www.artistslotterysyndicate.co.uk/

Artists Lottery Syndicate

http://elephanttrust.org.uk/

The Elephant Trust

Charity dedicated to raising appreciation and awareness of the arts in the UK.

And I guess I'll finish on the question posed by Anna Francis in Signpost (with my own emphasis): 

What didn't they tell you at artschool?

Quick-Fire Round

Not enough time or pictures to warrant individual posts buuut:

• Anti-Stigma consultation tool is all sewn together and looking rather grand if I say so myself. Had to re-learn how to use a sewing machine but I managed okay.
• Firehand pieces escaped the kiln looking great. It's been agreed that the entire hand should undergo a re-firing, and so the next stage of process is to go back down to the Spode factory and start wrapping everything up for boxing and transportation to Wolverhampton
• I learned how to use a pompom-making device and made a large blue pompom quickly and efficiently
• I finished writing a rather dry sector report on Arts for Health for my uni module, hurrah

Healthy Sex Forever

Today at the Cultural Sisters Studio, Mel and I recorded data from the 'Healthy Sex Forever' creative consultation. There were at least 50 over-50 year old participants so it was a good morning's work and some of the responses were beautiful and fantastic.

Healthy Sex Forever was a consultation designed to find out whether sexual health services in Stoke-On-Trent were meeting the needs of its 50 years plus population. If by any slim chance you are reading this, over 50 years old and living in the Stoke-On-Trent area you can also complete this anonymous survey via this little link here.

20% of all HIV cases occurring within the UK are adults between the ages of 50 and 90 years, and 80% of this age bracket reporting to be sexually active it's more important than ever to help provide the right information so it was a really nice project to be contributing to.

On my way back to the station I spotted this lovely bit of artwork which rounded up a very poignant morning.