Interior Orbits – Craft as Personal Development: Lecture 5

At the start of this lecture we were discussing what comes up when you put the word ‘Craft’ into Google, so I did it for myself. I found a number of results for local haberdashery shops and stores full of ‘craft’ supplies, the national and independent companies, lots of dictionary definitions, different craft DIY kits for women and children and the Craft Council’s name appeared a number of times. This took me back to when I was looking for a definition of Craft and when I was looking at Grayson Perry’s review on Craft – there isn’t much out there on what craft really is, only the twee facade that it has been given.

Being creative in the world of Craft has been described to be a wonderful way to develop yourself and self-esteem. In 1964 Harold Rosenburg developed the individualistic and slightly selfish theory that in contemporary art, the artist shouldn’t produce work for anyone else’s sake but their own. He explained his theory as self-development, so that the artist could make when they wanted to, how they wanted to and why they wanted to. Unfortunately for me in my current educational situation, Rosenurg’s theory influenced everyday people to judge Art students on doing the bare minimal work, if anything at all, because we just have to work when we want and why we want. I know this isn’t true, as do most of the art student’s I know who work incredibly hard.

Modernism: History

Modernism is an umbrella term for the arts movement that happened in modern art between the 1860’s and the 1970’s that rebelled against the Victorian views of nationalism and cultural absolution. Modernism is very wide, areas of photography, painting and sculpting have all been branded as modernist. Modernism is the philosophy of modern art, it is where everything stopped being literal and started being a lot more abstract.

During the Renaissance period the idea that man, not god, is the measure of all things arrived and it gave humans the confidence to shape their own destiny after seeing themselves to have power. Art was used to promote ideas of trust and freedom, but in this time art was used mostly to reflect religious beliefs. There was no artistic freedom in this time, you couldn’t become an artist unless the academy accepted you. The progressive modernists believed that art shouldn’t be made for the public’s sake but for the artists sake. So Art stopped being good for the public and started being personal to the artist.

The contemporary life in this time was so dreadful that the modernists believed that art shouldn’t reflect the real world, it should just be aesthetic, just art. Artists were then able to express the finer things in life that are purely visual which were completely separate from sociopolitical affairs.

Goals of Modernism:

• Rejection of tradition
• Spiritualistic
• in some cases the look of something became more important than how it works and the function
• modernism encouraged re-examination
• modernism = aesthetic introspection
• aesthetic quality has priority in deciding the function of art

The modernist artists stressed on freedom of expression and were firm supporters of experimentation. They also firmly believed in being true to the materials that are used, as if they are proud to have used those specific materials. For example a chair made out of wood would not have been painted, it simply be varnished to show the grains of the wood to let people see what it is made of.

In 1919 the Bauhaus school was founded by Walter Groupius in Weimar, then the capital city post WWI. The idea of the school was to embrace the 20th century machine culture so that everyday design principles such as furniture and buildings could be produced a much more functional way. During the Bauhaus movement, the artists and designers who worked in the school firmly believed in form following function when an object was being designed. How something works was much more important than how it looks.

http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/08/15/know-your-design-history-the-bauhaus-movement/

The school produced a very disciplined syllabus for its students, where they would learn the importance of the materials and build a relationship with them before being used to produce something with a functional purpose. The school accentuated the idea of basic design and  influenced the use of basic colour theory.

In the lecture we were shown a video about potter Bernard Leach and his thoughts on being a craftsman. In the video he mentioned the clay that he uses as being alive, as if it was a person and not a material. To me, the way he described the clay meant that he thought of it as a person and not a material, which reflects the idea of being true to the materials. He said that pottery is an ancient art which in the modern day gives us a connection with to the past, explaining that the pot is a possessor of virtue and spirit.

Examples of Modernism:

http://totallyhistory.com/the-weeping-woman/

The first few things that come to mind when looking at this piece of work by Picasso is the obvious. I see a woman crying, who is painted in bright, unrealistic, primary colours with both her profile and full frontal face is showing. I personally didn’t instantly think about why she would be crying because in the image you don’t see the reason why. The meaning behind the image and the beauty of the image itself have been completely separated, which was one of the modernistic goals.

http://www.writedesignonline.com/history-culture/bauhaus.htm

Kandinsky tried rather hard to make his images look as aesthetically beautiful as possible but without showing any form of meaning behind the image. The majority of his paintings were just a collection of lines, colours and shapes that look as if they have been thrown onto a page.

http://art-educ4kids.weebly.com/piet-mondrian-colour-and-line.html

I think Mondrian’s work is similar to the work of Kandinsky but much far more minimalist. His work is very basic where it is simply a collection of either vertical or horizontal lines with a slight use of primary colours somewhere in the painting. Mondrian and Kandinsky both firmly believed that if you stripped away all fragments of the material world from Art it would serve as inspiration for the spiritual dimension – this was the birth of Abstraction.

References

Adamson, G (2009). The Craft Reader. Oxford: Berg. unknown.

Hildebrand, R. (2009). Bernard Leach – A Potter’s World (Extract). [Online Video]. unknown. Available from: “http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxpcUnquXJI&#8221; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxpcUnquXJI</a&gt;. Last accessed 22nd Nov 2013

Lavender, C. (2000). Modernism–A Working Definition. Available: http://www.library.csi.cuny.edu/dept/history/lavender/moddef.html. Last accessed 21st Nov 2013.

Lekach, M. (2013). Know your design history: the Bauhaus movement.Available: http://99designs.com/designer-blog/2013/08/15/know-your-design-history-the-bauhaus-movement/. Last accessed 22nd Nov 2013.

Sara Lugardo. (2011). Artwork the Weeping Woman by Pablo Picasso.Available: http://www.finearts360.com/index.php/artwork-the-weeping-woman-by-pablo-picasso-1529/. Last accessed 22nd Nov 2013.

Material Culture: Lecture 4

Reading the Material – Material Culture

http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/a_history_of_the_world.aspx

The world we live in is a material one that is full of money and different things that we can either own or touch. Material culture itself has a variety of definitions that depend on who is defining it. Archaeologists explain material culture to be the found artifacts that have been left by past cultures, but more recently material culture has been used to build a picture of how cultures were functioned throughout the years. The archaeologists definition is similar to the definition given by Art Historians who say that material culture is when an object is in its cultural context. People within the social sciences say that material culture is the relationship between the object and the social relations that surround it. So which one is it? The idea of looking at history through artifacts is very new, but also very visual which then makes it easier to understand the artifacts.

French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss believed that programmed into the human brain are opposites. When understanding a word we focus more on it’s opposite than its direct meaning. These opposites can vary dependent on the culture of the mind and what objects are chosen by the brain. In this material world, who you are depends on what you’ve got (being depends on having). The material culture is restricted to what we learn as we don’t know what is instinctive. Contrasting material culture we need to consider the material systems to understand the bigger picture, because as we learned from Visual Culture seeing isn’t enough, we have to look at the context to completely understand.

Material culture also refers to the culture of a material and how that the way we use items shows our values. In the lecture we discussed the use of disposable objects, especially recyclable plastic cups. If you were to buy a coffee in a take-away, paper cup and litter it on the floor then it shows that you don’t care for your local society and the environment around you. But then if you were to take your own mug out for a coffee with you it would make you seem like you care too much and would make yourself look strange and stand out. Buying from Ikea was also mentioned, which completely backed up the argument I made in a previous post about Grayson Perry and the Future of Craft. When you buy from Ikea you have no idea who makes your item, it is mass produced and made just for the money with no passion behind it. If you were to buy from a craft fair, not only would you be supporting your local craftsmen you will also have a more intimate relationship with the object. That’s the definition of material culture that I prefer – it is the relationship between people’s identity and the objects they make, have, use or are associated with.

Craft has been referred to as being skill vs clever ideas, but according to Michael Gladwell, to master a skill an individual has to put in 10,000 hours of training – the 10,000 hour rule. Using creative grammar we can explain the different stages of having a skill. Accretion is when you are practicing the skill to gain some experience, omission is when you are good enough to leave out the rules and then nihilism is when anything goes, you don’t need to play by the rules because you are a tourist in someone else’s discipline. Knowledge and skills can be transferred, especially when being educated. ‘They talk – you listen’ when a student metaphorically opens their brain for the teachers words to fall in.

We live in a multidimensional world, where objects are 3D and images are 2D. The world doesn’t look like a picture but a picture can look like the world. This reflects a different way of working, when you have tacit knowledge and tacit skills. Tacit knowledge is used to solve problems, and tacit skills is thinking outside the box (seeing what is under the surface).

References

Clark Howard, B. (2012). Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000-Hour Rule Visualized: Practice Makes Perfect. Available: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/14/malcolm-gladwells-10000-hour-rule-visualized-practice-makes-perfect/. Last accessed 20th Nov 2013.

Colloredo-Mansfeld, R. (20o3). Introduction: Matter Unbound . Journal of Material Culture. 8 (1), 251.

Grayson, P. (unknown). Let the artisans craft our future. In: Glenn Adamson The Craft Reader. Oxford: Berg . p552-553.

Minns, L. (2011). Strauss Binary Opposites. Available: http://www.slideshare.net/laurenminns/strauss-binary-opposites. Last accessed 20th Nov 2013.

 

Visual Culture Task: Formal and Contextual Analysis

‘We Can Do It’ – Rosie the Riveter

http://www.singularitynyc.com/Rosie-information.html

Formal Analysis

The image consists of a woman stood to the left with her arm as the focal point. Her sleeve is rolled up and she is showing her muscle. She is stood to the side with her head turned facing the viewer and her arm is turned very slightly in the direction of the viewer as if it was aimed to be the focal point. The image is just a poster so it is difficult to determine the exact size of the image as there must be lots of different variations of size. The artist used simple lines when drawing her as she is made to look very lifelike with a range of tones – there are no harsh lines. Even though it is a colour drawing it isn’t at all cartoon like because of how realistic the artist has attempted to make her. The text is very bold and simplistic so it can easily be understood as well as it being a straight statement with no hidden meanings – she’s just being encouraging.

Contextual Analysis

J. Howard Miller was commissioned by Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company to produce a series of posters to boost the companies morale and work ethic. The name of the poster is simply ‘We Can Do It!’ but is often confused and mistaken for Rosie the Riveter. Rosie the Riveter is an image that was on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in 1943. Although they are not the same they do look similar, but she is most commonly known as Rosie. When knowing the subject matter of the image, what it was intended to mean and what it means in modern day you’ll understand why those particular colours are used. Blue is often used to symbolise strength and yellow is a very optimistic colour that symbolises warmth and clarity. White is a very calming colour and red stimulates excitement. I understand that in the 1940’s they might not have understood colour psychology but in modern day it reflects what it has recently come to symbolise.

When the poster was originally created it was not intended to influence women into working for the company. The poster was only displayed in the staff office in the company building and was intended to boost the self-confidence or the current work force. At the time it was mostly women because of the war. The poster got forgotten and lost before being rediscovered in the 1980’s where she then became a huge feminist icon. She symbolises strong, independent and hard working woman. It also symbolises that woman are as good and as valuable as men in any workforce. In the image I can see some slight influences from the wartime pin up girls (victory rolls in her hair, red lips) but instead of Rosie showing off her bust or legs she’s showing her hard-working, muscular arm. 

It is difficult for me to put a price on this image as it is a poster that was forgotten about for 30 years so the original is probably nowhere to be found. The poster has now been mas produced to be put in a strong woman’s home to remind her what she is capeable of. When I look at the image I think of what it means to me – I am very proud of our heritage and how the women did so well during the war, filling in for the men who were off fighting. It reminds me that anyone is capable of anything as long as you set your mind to it.

References

Di Consiglio, F. (2013). The re-birth of an icon: she can do it. Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/21381059. Last accessed 18th Nov 2013.

Honigman, B. (2013). The Psychology of Colour in Logo Design (INFOGRAPHIC). Available: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brian-honigman/psychology-color-design-infographic_b_2516608.html. Last accessed 18th Nov 2013.

Humbert, M. (2012). The Power of Propaganda . Available: http://www.designer-daily.com/the-power-of-propaganda-25766. Last accessed 18th Nov 2013.

Sharp, G. (2011). Myth-Making and the “We Can Do It!” Poster.Available: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2011/01/04/myth-making-and-the-we-can-do-it-poster/. Last accessed 18th Nov 2013.

Visual Culture – Lecture 2 & 3

Reading the Visual

Visual culture is everything that we either do visualise or have visualised in each part of our culture. The world we live in is bursting with visual images which define how we use it’s resources. There is a very big difference between seeing something and looking at something. To see something is to subconsciously glance at it in the immediate moment and how we see something is defined by what we know and believe. To look at something is to understand and make meaning of what it is that you are seeing – looking isn’t a noun, it’s the relationship between the noun and us. Looking is a skill that has to be learned which will help us to interpret the meaning and social relationships behind an image or an object. Every day we practice to understand the meaning of the world around us. Meanings are required, you have to look at something to see the meaning.

In the power point we were shown both a male and female toilet sign, a sign so recognisable that we all know why it is used and what it means even when it is out of context. I’m pretty sure that most people in our culture will see this image and know what it is instantly because it is seen by everyone at least once a day. This might be different in other cultures where they can see it is a man and a woman but not know what the sign is for because they might not have public lavatories. We were also shown in the power point the Big Brother logo. I and other people in my group immediately knew that it was the logo for the popular reality TV show where as some people thought it was just a picture of an eye. I personally think that this is because culture isn’t just where you are from, it is who and what you have grown up to know, understand and be familiar with. So because I was brought up in a culture to watch popular TV, I understood.

Different visual images can be used to serve specific purposes. For example when walking through your nearest shopping mall you will see over-sized ‘SALE’ signs in the shop windows that use used to persuade you into the shop to buy their products. I can admit that it has worked on me and i have bought stuff I didn’t need just because it was a bargain. Images can also be used to incite the emotional response of the viewer, like an image of a wedding scene could make you feel joyful and happy for the couple, or an image of someone crying could make you feel bleak and upset yourself. As an example we were shown in the lecture an image of an employee at the World Trade Center falling to his death during the terror attack. Whenever I see an image from this devastation  or anything similar  I subconsciously remind myself of how I felt at the time of it happening, or if i do not recall the event I imagine how I would have felt. This always makes me feel very emotional and has even made me cry once or twice. Our culture is full of images with a range of different meanings.

The rise of Visual Culture

Visual culture is also what people know and think about art which is why it can sometimes be associated with art history. Culture refers to different texts and symbolic artifacts and what’s normal that has been encoded around you. Every aspect of visual culture will give you a message but the message is dependent on where it came from, for example the message from a TV show or a film will be different to getting the message from an image or an object.

SENDER     —–>     MESSAGE     —->     RECEIVER     —–>     FEEDBACK

ENCODES     —–>     MEDIUM     —–>     DECODES     —->     FEEDBACK

Every message has a sender and a receiver. The sender is the person who initially tells the message and the receiver is the person who is being told the message. The medium refers to the means of communication (film, tv, news, radio, etc). The sender converts the message into a code (encodes) for it to be translated by the receiver (decodes) for it then to be understood (feedback). The feedback is the most important factor as it proves that the message was understood successfully. The mass media does this on a much larger scale. So the magazines and TV shows are the senders and we, the readers/viewers, are the receivers. But the feedback for these messages from the mass media is very slow. If the communication is effective it will be shared and agreed.

A lot of the visual culture is made up of semiotics and these signs are made up of a signifier and a signified. What is seen (the image or word) is the signifier and what is looked at (the meaning) is the signified. The signifier is used to symbolise the signified. Different signifiers often mean the same thing so they refer back to the signified, for example there are many different words for ‘Hello’ in different languages, but all of them mean hello. But one signifier (one word) can have multiple meanings (multiple signifieds), for instance the word ‘cool’ can mean either refer to the temperature or being fashionable.

What I have gained from these lectures is the understanding of how to really understand something. I now know that looking is not just seeing, which is something that I had never really thought about. It makes a lot of sense to me as I am someone with quite a short attention span so for me to really look at something it takes a lot more effort than just glance at it. I have also adopted the understanding on how messages are sent and understood. At the time of summarising my notes I found it quite difficult to produce an opinion on what I was reading, but then when you get into it and start to understand it all becomes a lot easier – the more I understand the more I will have an opinion.

Bibliography

Sturken, M and Cartwright, L (2000). Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture. Oxford: OUP. p25-31.

Task: Timeline – My life

In the first lecture we were instructed to write a timeline on either our own life or on the history of Craft. I chose to write one on my own life as I thought it would be a fairly easy task, but I was clearly mistaken. I have always thought and been told by my parents that I have a pretty decent memory about my childhood, but when it came to sitting down and recalling every important moment that I thought I should include it became incredibly difficult. It seemed like I was under pressure to remember every important milestone in my life and I couldn’t remember very many at all. I had to flick back through old photo albums to try and remember.

Timeline

1993: – October 19th = Born      – December = 1st Christmas

1994: – April = 1st tooth      – September = 1st Steps

1995: – March = Trip to Provence with the family – 1st Holiday

1996: – September = Started Merry Go Round Preschool – Met Tilly (Oldest friend)      – December = First “school” performance – Played an Owl in Snow White

1997: – February = Started Horse Riding      – April = 1st horse – Barney      – October = got tricycle for Birthday      – December = Got lost in retail Village in Swindon

1998: – March = Eva Died      – September = Started Charleton C of E Primary School      – October = Got Heidi      – November = Pulled first Pint behind the bar

1999: – January = Parents closed the pub      – May = Dad’s 40th Birthday party      – August = Total Eclipse at Grandma’s House      – December = Millenium New Years Eve Party – sang Auld Lang Syne in the street with the whole village

2000: – March = 1st horse show – won rosette for “Prettiest Pony” on Dolly      – October = Halloween Birthday party

2001: – February = My own first pet – Buttons the Rabbit      – July = surprise trip to france

2002: – March = Parents split      – June = Dad took us to Alton Towers      – December = NYE in Le Mans

2003: – May = Provence for Bumpy’s 70th and Auntie’s 50th      – August = Corfu with Dad and Alex      – December = First lead in school play – played Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream

2004: – July = France Holiday – Met Laura Bayliss!      – December = First gig – MUSE

2005: – March = Jimmy Eat World      – May = Year 6 SATs      – September = Started Kingsbridge Community College      – October = Got my ears pierced first time      – December = Noise and Confusion Music Festival

2006: – Jan = Parents got back together      – June = First kiss     – July = Paris for Challenge Week      – August = California!      – November = MUSE in Birmingham

2007: – April = Kings of Leon      – June = MUSE at Wembley Stadium      – July = Saintes Challenge week – Hadley      – August = France with Lissy      – October = McFly and started work at the Start Bay Inn      – November = Enter Shikari      – December = Clothes Show with school

2008: – January = Jimmy Eat World and 30 Seconds to Mars      – May = Pendulum and year 9 SATs      – June = Foo Fighters at Wembley Stadium and Radiohead in Victoria Park      – July = Jack Johnson, London Challenge week and Fortress of Rock      – October = You Me At Six (MET JOSH!)      – November = Pendulum

2009: – March = You Me At Six      – May = French GCSE      – June = First after school detention      – July = Oxford      – August = holiday to France when Becky worked at camp      -September = Joe Brooks (MET HIM!)      – October = 16th Birthday      – December = Paramore with You Me At Six

2010: – January = Met Jedward      – March = Snatchfest      – May = Pendulum and GCSEs      – June = Prom      – July = Deaf Havana      – September = Ivy Live and Bring Me The Horizon      – October = Zara      – November = Paramore      – December = You Me At Six

2011: – January = Snow Day!      – March = Becky’s 21st and got my first car (Cody)      – May = Started driving lessons      – July = Nass Festival      – October = 18th Birthday, Les Miserables, You Me At Six, The Cat Empire and passed my driving test      – November = Katy B and Incubus

2012: – February = California and met Tom      – March = You Me At Six twice      – May = Finished A Levels      – June = 6th Form Prom      – July = Bayliss stayed      – August = Boooooomtown, A Level results, started going out with Tom and started my Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at Plymouth College of Art      – September = Moved into 18 Mount Street and saw Joe Brooks      – October = First tattoo and first time in a Gay club – November = Hadley and Juliet died      – December = Started work at Domino’s Mutley and You Me At Six at Wembley – met Jasmine

2013: – February = Stray From The Path      – March = Stopped work at Domino’s      – April = Beer Festival      – May = first clubbing in London and finished FD at PCA      – September = AMSTERDAM, moved into Deptford Place, started BA Textiles and started working for Domino’s Plympton      – October = Thorpe Park

What I found the most interesting when writing my timeline is how dominated my teenage years were by music and different concerts. It was easy for me to remember them as I have saved all my tickets. Obviously as you get older your life becomes more interesting and you seem to do a lot more so it was easier to write the recent years. Sometimes I felt like there was too much to fit in. For me the most difficult part was how personal to make it. There are a lot of personal things I have included but then there are also  a lot that I haven’t mentioned. So what is too personal? When do you go too far? If I were to do this exercise again I would try to find milestones of my life that are also important to me and not just the concerts I have attended, although at the time it was all I really cared about.