The Grand Finale: 21 Newspapers

Finally, the Second Year is over! And this is the result of my efforts…

Despite the lack of data-collecting information on this here website, I have in fact been slaving away for hours on end, analysing and translating the front pages of my Guardian newspaper collection. What once was a rather impressive collection of 39 newspapers (including supplements), was sadly reduced to a measly 21 after a nasty shredding incident…

The remaining survivors have been documented in a variety of different way, this being the most in-depth of them all. Each folder contains approximately 4 pages of information, ranging from how many stories are mentioned and how many lines of text there are, to the barcode number and its location on the page. Each factor was a personal consideration, and was chosen purely to satisfy my need to document the seemingly irrelevant.

My conceptual display intrigues, it would seem:

In my eyes, a great success. I cannot wait for next year to continue this work into my degree show. Who knows what I’ll be deconstructing and analysing next!

Collaborative Artwork

As part of a quick collaborative project, Hollie Fawcett and I mashed our styles and current studio practice together and created these framed images. Below are the 6 scans of the framed works:

Hollie’s work involves old family photographs mainly from her childhood. She also incorporates a repetitive note of photocopying. Interestingly, I work mainly with original copies of newspapers, whereas she works with duplicates. We thought this contrast was something that should be highlighted, and this is done so through the use of framing – you frame something precious, something important. You certainly don’t frame a photocopy, least of all one made with images from a newspaper (almost certainly a throw-away object).
This combination of personal importance and mass-produced information was definitely a successful collaboration. Despite the ease of making such work, the subjects of the distinctly seperate practices gelled well together.

I always…

… talk myself out of making work. I think too much about an idea, instead of just getting involved! The number of ideas I’ve had over the past few months would amass to an enormous amount of work, if only I’d let it.

It’s quite sad, really. This specific train of thought actually led me to believe that the idea below (page number 17 from the sketchbook) would allow me to not only bring my parallel themes together, but also let me live out my ideas – if only in miniature.

Ways of Seeing…

… and displaying. I spend an awful lot of time thinking about how things should be displayed, how they should be viewed, and how I always think that my way is the best (and most importantly right) way of doing things. Is that arrogant of me?

Statistics and such

The beginnings of a very lengthy and tedious task, and yet one which I enjoy far more than any person should.

Another move around

I find it difficult to sit still for too long. I like to switch my studio space around rather a lot. It makes it seem more exciting and interesting – especially from an outsider’s point of view. I like to see change in the studio – it gives the illusion of progress.

And so it begins. Again.

I knew it wouldn’t last long. After shunning my newspaper collection, and swearing on everything in sight that ‘they’ would no longer rule my life, it would seem that no matter what I do, I can’t seem to let go of my newspapers. They’re more than a pile of old news now. They’re personifications of something more precious; something important and delicate.

I tried shredding, ignoring, giving them away, nothing helped. Despite my best intentions, I still had two separate ‘themes’ in my work. Decision time was, and will always be too close for comfort.

Pages 3, 4 and 5…

This is perhaps when it dawned on me that my true calling was analysis, although it took me a few more months to realise this fully. I may have taken the scenic route to get where I needed to be, but I got there in the end.
Subsequent sketchbook pages frequently delve between two separate ideas, both of which I enjoyed and desperately tried to bring together throughout the year.

Page 2:

In the beginning…

This is how I keep track of my thoughts. There is no other way for me to remember anything, other than writing it down. Even in a book I have difficulties. If only I could write everything I think on the back of my hand, my life would be so much easier…

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