Assignment 7: Feedback

I’m learning that the more I enjoy what I’m creating, the better my feedback seems to be. In Project 7 there was a lot of opportunity to experiment and play. It’s true that ‘experiment and play’ can sound as if it lacks rigour, but, although I didn’t necessarily process this overtly, I was also observing formal aspects of art such as composition, use of limited colour palettes, etc. In some projects I’ve felt very constrained by the brief and needing to create something specific or complete a process in a certain way, which doesn’t feel like the best way for me to work. With this Project, while some of the exercises were quite prescriptive, there somehow seemed to be more room to breathe, to enjoy my investigations without feeling that I needed to ‘get it right’ by someone else’s standards, whatever I may imagine those might be!

Over the years, something that I’ve learnt about myself is that I don’t respond well to pressure. Really the best way to get work out of me is to leave me alone to get on with it - perhaps a reason why I’m doing distance learning! As soon as anyone starts checking how I’m getting on with my task, wanting interim reports (like writing an essay in 59 word increments!) or reminding me about impending deadlines, my productivity drops away to nothing. The more I feel pressured, the less likely I am to complete. 

Conversely, when I feel that all I’m really doing is playing with ideas and having fun, my productivity increases. Probably most of us will spend more time on something enjoyable than something that feels like hard work. As one visually impaired person talking to another, my Dad brought me up with the expectation that I would have to work 3 times as hard as a sighted person to get to the same place. I’m not sure that this is entirely true, but as a child, I felt it as a grim inevitability, and I don’t think I’ve ever quite shaken it off. It leaves me feeling that if I’ve not virtually buckling under the weight of my workload then I probably haven’t achieved anything of note. Even at the age of 48 I’m still having to forcibly remind myself that work can be enjoyable and I don’t have to keep looking for the hardest route towards what I want to achieve. So many times I’ve had feedback saying my work is more lively and engaging when I’ve let myself work in ways I love rather than producing something labelled (in my mind) as ‘proper art’. I need still to understand that if I’m not enjoying the way I’m creating, probably the viewers won’t be engaged by it either. The more I collage and mix media, sewing on paper, gluing on fabric, drawing on household items and clothes, the more we all enjoy my art. If I don’t get this now then maybe I never will. If I’m not enjoying my art, I need to stop doing what I’m doing and do it in a way that is more fulfilling.

… the above is a longwinded way of saying I got good feedback!

More specifically, yes, I would love to draw outrageously ostentatious glasses for my collage lads. Perhaps I’m still being too literal about the briefs we’re given, but it seemed clear to me that we were being asked to use images that we’d created during the Project 7 exercises. The sunglasses were part of a thumbnail sketch to aid with composition, and I drew the other pair in response to being asked to create an ‘objective’/realistic drawing. The assignment was then to use our images from the exercise in a new image. I think my use of non-ostentatious glasses was therefore right for the assignment, however that doesn’t mean that I can’t create images of more ostentatious accessories in the future - that could be a fun body of work!

Regarding my Critical Review, my tutor has suggested a few improvements, which I think are all good ideas: to include and reflect on how an indexical image has been used in a different way; to include my stone photographs rather than just giving the link; and to number and Harvard reference the images. 

The inclusion of the stone photos is a good idea and easy to implement, and importantly, it doesn’t use up any words! I’m mindful of the 1000 word limit and I’m already running slightly above that, having taken out whole paragraphs and tightened up a lot of phrases. In order to include more perspectives I will have to cut a paragraph or two when I think I’m right at the bare bones of the argument already.  I want to try though, because it’s good to have contrasting approaches. I suppose my version of contrast us the ‘many artists, many viewpoints’ approach. Perhaps I need to make it clearer that I don’t think any indexical image can live up to what is claimed in terms of telling the truth. 

And then we're back to the Harvard referencing. I need to do it with the examples in front of me. A big part of the issue is that in Theology we use a different referencing system and even now, I still read more academic theology than I read academic art. I have had a lot more exposure to the English referencing system than the American (Harvard) one. I will pull up the examples again and try to override my internal script - at the moment I’m probably doing half English and half Harvard and therefore getting it wrong in all respects. Surely it can’t be that difficult - I will get to grips with it.