The latest image of 'The Bristol'

Here is the latest image of 'The Bristol' - a lot of work this week and feeling quite hopeful now that I will finish as I have done most of the complicated and detailed parts except for the clutch and some lettering to be done on the plates. I still think that three weeks are needed but to make the other degree work manageable it really needs to be finished in two weeks - not sure if that is possible but will keep going.

The Bristol, Feb 10th, 2014

As part of my formative assessment at uni I needed to write 500 words about my practice and what is driving this work - I thought it could be useful to add this to my blog

My studio practice has developed out of  a desire to question the need for perfection in art and life. Last year I read a quote by Henri Moore suggesting that ‘great art is not perfect’ and set me on the path to try and find out just how perfect I needed to be.

In my art I am a perfectionist, I am stubborn and determined but this makes me very worried about the results and this is because I see art as a metaphor for life - a life where I am trying to make sense of my world and how others see me. When I am drawing with my sewing machine I will change the colours for just two stitches - but are those two perfecting stitches making my work sterile as Longhurst suggests (On Perfection, an artists symposium)? Instead, should I embrace chance happenings, accidents and imperfections which might open up a new way of thinking?

I know I need to make a piece of work that I feel pushes my creative abilities, one that proves I can produce work of a high standard but equally it must help me to understand the need for perfection I like to draw with my sewing machine and there are a few artists who have inspired this choice of medium and method. Firstly, Naseem Darbey, a textile based artist who makes 2D and 3D instillations out of thread by direct observation, i.e, no preliminary sketches on the fabric. My first drawings on calico were made in this manner - I was unable to correct any mistakes, they became part of the work. This was enjoyable and helped me to relax - I am scared of drawing on paper but  thread, fabric and my sewing machine could work. From the early drawings I moved on to making 3D sculptures from thread and dissolvable fabric and whilst this was an exciting technique I realised that both their form (car components) and grey colour was too obvious and that a greater statement could be made if made the pieces more feminine through colour and obvious threads/ textiles, because I was now making a subversive statement: it was not only was a question of perfection, it was also about gender and hierarchies of practice.

There was now just one obvious choice - the most masculine of images - a car engine. Inspired by Anne Wilson who makes complicated and detailed drawing from thread - black lace as a metaphor for exploring the worlds integrated and entangled networks in her topology studies - I was going to use weak threads obsessively and compulsively locked together to make a full sized technical  drawing of a car engine. I also need the work to about more than embroidery - embroidery would suggests perfection and beauty: I want my work to question these qualities and also recognise the conflict between and female and male identity. In an endeavour to do this I have gone for a full scale engine as inspired by Amanda McCavour’s large scale instillations which question the impermanence of the physical world.

To help answer the questions of gender I have looked at Rosemary  Trockel, a leading German artist whose work has included knitted paintings of swasticas and playboy bunnies. I plan to read further ‘The Subversive Stitch -  Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine’ (Rosika Partker).

My engine must be completed so that the final stage can push my question to it’s full potential - what will happen to my meticulously drawn engine when the structure it is built on is removed?

Here are some images of the artists work as discussed above 

Naseem Darbey
If your Heart is not Nailed to Cliffe Hall,2010

Naseem Darbey
From the same residency at Cliffe Castle Museum

Anne Wilson
'Topologies' 2010

Anne Wilson

Amanda McCavour
'Living Room'

Whilst adding these images to my blog I came across this new piece of work by Amanda McCavour. This thread drawing was completed during an artist residency program in Dawson City, Yukon through the Klondikre Institute of Art and Culture: McCavour stayed for 6 weeks in  a Canadian gold rush town. 

Amanda McCavour

During the residency McCavour translated a heavy iron steam pump into thread rendering it delicate and ghostly. This was as a response to the 'phantom view" of the pumps documented in the corresponding manuals which translated the steam pumps into transparent parts to enable an understanding of their construction.