30 Day Challenge; A Transformative Project

After my last post I have chosen the route I would like to take in terms of development and I have chosen to complete a 30 day yoga challenge.  I have chosen this as I started do yoga when I was a teenager as I was picked on at school.  Doing yoga every morning used to really help to calm me down and make me feel happier. Now many many years later I find that although I walk aa lot, have a vegan diet (for 30 years) and am not too unhealthy.  I do have quite a hectic life which has caused me some stress and I think that this would actually counteract some of this and I think I can make this into a project using film, photography and text.

Yoga Pose

I think to complete this project I have to use in the manner of Sophie Calle.  Calle uses rules for each of her art pieces that she follows strictly as stated here; 

'SOPHIE CALLE: The rules of the game are always very strict. In Take Care of Yourself I asked the participants to answer professionally, to analyze a breakup letter that I had received from a man. The parameters were fixed. For example, I wanted the grammarian to speak about grammar—I wanted to play with the dryness of professional vocabulary. I didn’t want the women expressing sentiment for me. Except maybe my mother . . .' (Neri 07/03/09)

My project rules will be as follows:

To complete at least 10 minutes of Yoga every day
Aim to increase the time over the four weeks to at least 30 minutes
To document each day through a diary
To engage in Guerilla yoga at least three times (more of this later)
To use photos and film to document the process
To complete a portfolio of these documents

I will use basic wheel of yoga foundations, I will not do cat yoga, llama yoga, hot yoga etc!

Wheel of Yoga

I will use a diary and will post pages here and keep documenting progress and further research here.  I am hoping this project will create a daily discipline and will be creative as a artistic transformational project ....

References

Neri L. (7th March 2009) Interview Magazine, Sophie Calle [Online] Available From: https://www.interviewmagazine.com/art/sophie-calle (Accessed 09/04/19)

Welcome to the New Term- Object Lesson & 20 Ideas

The new term has begun and I aim to create a project that I actually get to finish this time!!! We started in class with 20 ideas in 20 minutes....



I also created in my second lesson through the Object Lesson on Milanote this board...my object was a spiky blue ball!



As you can see this one inspired me to look at the mountains of Peru, the images of Casper David Friedrich and ideas of the sublime and transformation.

I reflected on both my ideas pieces and both included an idea of transformation or causing change. In my first piece 20 ideas there was the idea of a 30 day challenge and recording this or something similar and the idea of chance/fate/free will and consequences. I think all these ideas may come together to begin something. Therefore I will begin by researching these ideas ....

Carl Jung was a swiss psychologist (1875-1961) who was interested in symbols, dreams and myths and how they entered our unconscious. he believed that by analysing our dreams we would understand ourselves better and our own motivations. He thought that there was a series of archetypes that could be interpreted





'Jung looked at areas of the mind that constitute the psyche, and the way in which they influenced one another. He distinguished the persona, or the image of ourselves that we present to the world, from our shadow, which may be comprised of hidden anxieties and repressed thoughts. Jung also noted the relationship between our personal unconscious, which contains an individual's personal memories and ideas, and a collective unconscious, a set of memories and ideas that is shared amongst all of humanity. Shared concepts, which Jung described as archetypes, permeate the collective unconscious and emerge as themes and characters in our dreams and surface in our culture - in myths, books, films and paintings, for example.' (psychologistsworld.com: 2019)

What is interesting and useful about this is perhaps using this idea to really use my own dreams and find my own archetypes and make photographs of these. 

Many have thought that dreams could somehow be captured take this image by Commandant Darget taken of his wife's forehead whilst she was sleeping using a photographic plate - he really thought that he had captured her dream state through the image.

Photographie du Reve L'Aigle by Commandant Darget

Dreams are unconscious and random and only some dreams are lucid - which means that that you may be able to control the dream while you sleep.  Here again we are between the elements of chance and the elements of control over life, fate and consequences.

Just as an end point to this post I also looked up 30 day challenges and similar like this one 'embracing the simple' and I will look further into this as I do think that this has all the right elements for a project that I can clearly document and us.  I will develop this idea further in my next post with a small practice run!

References

Psychologists World (2019) Carl Jung: Archetypes and Analytical Psychology [Online] Available From: https://www.psychologistworld.com/cognitive/carl-jung-analytical-psychology (Accessed 7th April 2019)

Gabbatiss J. (17/01/17) The Man who tried to Photograph Thoughts and Dreams [Online] Available From: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170116-the-man-who-tried-to-photograph-thoughts-and-dreams (Accessed 7th April 2019)

Cohut M (14/09/18) Medical News Today: Controlling the Stories of Sleep [Online] Available from:  https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/323077.php (Accessed 7th April 2019)

Tiplea C. (23/05/16) Embracing The Simple Blog: Fifteen 30 Day Challenges [Online] Available From: http://embracingsimpleblog.com/fifteen-30-day-challenge-ideas-will-change-life/ (Accessed 7th April 219

Reflection

As I could not complete the actual rendering of the altar pieces I will have to find a way next term to work on a more continuous project that is more timely.  I still want to continue working on the altar pieces but these will have to be done over a longer period of time.

Camille Leherpeur, Recklessness-Altarpiece

I will look further into more modern altarpieces such as this one above and see if there are further experiments I can make to explore these ideas....

Taking a Walk...

I was taking a walk to the pub on Friday night to meet friends and as I live in town I had deliberately taken a route to avoid all street life that I might be accosted by as otherwise I often find myself relieved of money and cigarettes prior to reaching my destination.  I was nearly there when a very intense man appeared in front of and asked my if I knew if Jesus had died to save me...

I was rather late for my appointment as he insisted on speaking to me about hell and how sinful my life was and if I had been to hell I also would be there preaching too - in the end he gave me a leaflet and a bible as even though I said I had read it I don't think he believed me and insisted I take it - here it is below - The English Standard Version

I wouldn't normally tell this story here however I had to arrive at a pub carrying a bible and leaflets about Jesus and apologize to my friends for being late as usual...I thought perhaps though it is interesting that this man feels a profound need to preach the word of God and I wondered if he had perhaps glimpsed hell and that was why he was standing there.  I know this is a digression but I it did make me think further about my Mary Magdalene project - in my next posts I will show you the development and sketches I have made in preparations for my photographs...

Process: Using Polymer Clear Casting Resin

I have been experimenting with Clear casting resin to cast my final photographs in so that they are encased essentially in a clear glasslike box. 

The resin is very toxic and in my flat has is actually quite overpowering - so this is issue number one! However I will come to further issues later.  Here is the process I used to test the resin.

To begin I laid out all the equipment which includes the casting resin, the hardening agent, measuring jug and mixer, syringe, moulds, gloves and newspaper as this stuff is very sticky and powerful. I did this under the extractor fan in my kitchen as the fumes are very powerful and windows all wide open!

Polyester casting resin 

Hardner and measuring jug

Two ashtrays I was using as moulds as I intended to create little paperweights using round photographs.  I vaselined the inside of these so that I could demould the resin once it had hardened 

I added 250ml of the casting resin then 5ml of hardener using the syringe I then mixed this thoroughly to to add to the mould. 

I added some of the resin to the mould until it was about one third full and then added the image on top. 

I then added the rest of the mixture on top of the photograph

I then waited 24 hours while the resin set.

the good part of this is that the vaseline worked and the demoulding was very easy.  The resin set well and the mixture was the correct measurements. The toxic fumes however were quite strong and next time I would not do this in my house!  The finished result looked like this: 

These are okay - if a little rough around the edges - I would say though that doing this with larger images would be problematic.  They need sanding down and they are not as crystal clear as I would like. Plastic moulds may also have worked better and been smoother. With this in mind I will continue with my images however I think that they would need to be mounted on panel boards as final pieces as this would work much better at this stage. 

Sketchpad 5.1: A Chill Wind Blows...

Please enjoy my final work - I thought it wasn't too bad as a first effort...

A Chill Wind Blows...by Zoe Van-de-Velde

As you can see it encompasses both the Japanese Poem Painting and the Caspar David friedrich landscape/figure.  The poem is my own and expresses pain for lost things.  The brushwork can certainly be improved - difficult to control with the mouse but can be done - and I am going to continue to try out this method and see if I can improve on this image and make further images on this theme.  A most relaxing and enjoyable experience...

Software Testing & Creation: Sketchpad 5.1

I have been trying out Sketchpad 5.1 for online testing - this is a drawing/painting sketchpad you can use to create digital artwork. Sketchpad 5.1 - click here to go to site.

As drawing and painting are not my best skill I wanted to see how I would get on digitally and I chose this software as it has layers - many pen/pencil/paintbrush options and has differing brush sizes and you can upload images and work with them.  The interface looks like this when you go onto the 'drawing board'

I had an idea that I would like to make something like a Japanese Poem Painting - a bit like this:

One of Eight Views of Xiao and Xiang Rivers 1788 Part of a set. Tani Bunchō 谷文晁 (Japanese, 1763-1841) Japan, Edo period (1615-1868)

So I began by just playing with the brushes and making marks to see what happened: 

As you can see i made right mess!  But a fun and interesting mess that led me to understand how the tools worked and how I could try something of my own _ I went with the idea of a poem painting and an image came to mind from Casper David Friedrich

Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818). 94.8 × 74.8 cm, Kunsthalle Hamburg.

Friedrichs images often show the backs of figures in the landscape and there are quite a few that use mountains, see and trees and these images always move me whenever I see them.  I often think of mountains when I want to release tension and anxiety - I imagine the cold and so fresh air and just looking at these monuments in the landscape so beautiful. In my next post you will see me creation...