I have been chosen to work as a group with 4 other fine art students, and one other interactive arts student for this project. I think that this collaborative group will work well because we all have different ideas and views about art. Our location is the John Rylands Library in Deansgate. I was really happy about having the library as a placement as I've visited the library before at the beginning of the course when we went exploring, and I really enjoyed the place as a whole. I thought that the concept of having a really old Neo-Gothic style building that had a really modern attachment on the side was really unusual and raised a lot of questions about the building.
Tuesday 12th March
Artist talk: John Plowman.
Artist talk: John Plowman.
Monday 18th March:
John Rylands trip (unofficial)
Our group decided to go to the John Rylands library to have a look around before Thursday because we thought that we could spend time looking at the exhibitions there, and just get a feel for the place before our official trip on Thursday. We also thought that getting some ideas about the place or ideas that we could start with etc. could get the project started a little so we had some idea of where to start.
Tuesday 19th March:
Shelter workshop:
I attended a workshop that was run by Constance Laisné (designer) and Laura Mansfield (curator) called SHELTER.
At the end of the day we had to have built a shelter big enough for at least one person to fit inside. At the start we where put into groups of 6 or 7 from mixed courses, and we where given 4 dowling sticks, some material, string, blue tac, cellotape, masking tape and scissors.
So to start we all wrote down some of the first ideas that came into our heads, such as building it square so that it would be even, or using the wall as a support. We also raised questions as to whether it would stand on it's own? would it be waterproof? could we move it around easily or would you need to take it down and reassemble? Is it safe? Would it last long? Is it weather proof?
Taking all of this into account, we decided to create an oriental tipi style shelter. We thought that this would be a strong structure and that it would be suitable to do it with the materials that we had. As a group we thought that the tipi idea wouldn't be original because it was the first thing we thought of, although because it's a classic idea, it would be sturdy and it would work. As we started building it, we came across many obstacles such as the material not fitting, the cellotape not sticking to the wall, the sticks being too long, the elastic bands at the top being too tight so they couldn't spread out.
After lunch we where told that we had to exhibit our shelters at 4:30 today, so we had to be done, cleaned up and organized. We had to create teams that would promote, clean the area and help make drinks, and the design the posters to advertise etc. I chose to be a part of the drinks team, along with Rachael Herbert. We decided to buy some fruit juice and some fruit and created these fruit mix drinks.
We used the sparkling bottled water that was already available and mixed it with some fruit juices that we had bought. We added different fruit combinations to each one, orange and lime in one, lemon and lime in another etc. We also had plain juices and waters for people who didn't want the fruit mixes.
Some people in another group made a drinks display for them to go on, and for some fruit which was laid out on chopping boards. The display as a whole looked really good, even though it was built and fully complete within an hour. People came at 4:30 as planned and really enjoyed the exhibition. I was really impressed by the amount of people that came to the exhibition because it was very last minute and at the beginning of the day we had no idea that we would exhibit our shelters.
I was really impressed that we all as a whole managed to prepare a full exhibition, and work in a fast and organised way, to get it all done and looking like a professional exhibition by 4:30. It made me realize that you don't need days of planning and worrying, when you can set one up in under 3 hours when you have the commitment and people available. I loved completing this workshop because it was really fun to work with other people on different courses, it was good how everyone thought of different ideas and ways of doing things, it was also really good how we all pulled together and made it happen, like the marketing group went out with posters and boards and publicized the event.
Thursday 21st March (morning): John Rylands trip (official)
I attended the official trip because I thought that maybe the tour guide would give us some more information about the secrets and the hidden within the library. During the tour we got taken to the non-public areas of the building; including the basement. We got shown all the books that aren't in the public areas, and there are in bookshelves that run through different levels of the floor, and are freestanding. I found it fascinating that all these books where hidden away from the public although they where really beautiful books and would be treasured by the public. It was almost like a hidden treasure cave of information that would never be read again, although it was there physically. We where also told the history of the library, about how and when it was built and the owner.
This is the John Rylands library which me and my group are based at for Unit X. The library was built in memory of John Rylands by his wife Enriqueta Augustina Rylands, she wanted to build it to give something back to the people in Manchester, as Mr. Rylands became into wealth from the cotton trade in Manchester. The library is a late Victorian Neo-Gothic style library which was opened to the public in 1900. Mrs. Rylands wanted it to resemble the style of a church, and every detail was created and made perfect to her requests. The building has many special features such as dragons, bats, statues of people that where influential to John, the Lancashire rose, and stained glass windows. To begin with, Mrs, Rylands wanted the library to be a public library where people would come and take books out, although she started to collect hundreds of special collection books, which was then where she decided to turn it into a special collection library. Thursday 21st March
Artist talk: Craig Atkinson
Craig Atkinson came in to speak to us about his work and how he has developed as an artist since he had left university. He started off as a painter studying Fine Art in Leeds Metropolitan university, and from there he had tried out lots of different medias such as photography, drawing and bookmaking. He spoke about the different companies that he had worked for, and having a job teaching whilst doing his own work on the side etc. He has varied the way he works from media to having specific jobs and on the side work which I think is really admirable because he has tried loads of different ways and only then will he know what works best for him. Right now he is the owner and creator of cafe royal, which is a publishing company that creates and publishes artists books.
Friday 22nd March
Glossop talk: Michael Howard
We where told about Ludwig Wittgenstein, who was born in Austria in 1889 and was a famous philosopher. He was born into a wealthy family, although he gave his inheritance money to artists his family where friends with. His sister Margret was painted by Gustav Klimt 'Porträt der Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein', The eldest brother Hans, was hailed as a musical prodigy, the third eldest brother studied chemistry, the second eldest brother Kurt was an officer and company director. three of his five brothers committed suicide.
He started his studies in Mechanical engineering at Technische Hochschule in Berlin. From there he became interested in flight, and creating flying objects. He also worked on the design of a propeller with small jet engines on the end of its blades. He worked in Glossop throughout 1908 when he was 19, stayed in the Grouse Inn, and used the fields as testing grounds for his creations. Whilst creating flying machines, he'd create different types of kites that would fly to give him ideas for the mechanical flying machines.
There is an obsession with flying in humans, this could be associated with being god like and powerful? People always dream of flying in their dreams, which is what Wittgenstein did, so he decided to build a flying machine, just like the Wright brothers did in 1903. Samuel Cody built the 'war kite' which is now famously known as the Cody kite or box kite.
We are all going to create kites in memory of the Wittgenstein and his inventions. We're all going to use our own ideas and materials, and hopefully fly them either successfully or unsuccessfully on Thursday.
Monday 8th April:
Kite making presentation by Karl Longbottom. We had a talk from Karl who is a professional kite flyer and maker. He creates unusual kites, such as ones that look like pairs of knickers, and ones that look like they are paintings on canvases, although they are so lightweight they are flyable. He also created one which was commissioned by Blue Peter and made three of them, one for each presenter, and they all flew them on Blue Peters 50th anniversary. He showed us kites from all around the world, and their functions. He told us about kite fighting which mainly happens in Asian countries, people add fiberglass to the glue when making the kites and the aim is to cut the opponents kite wire. Men and women have different styles of kites, men have a more pointed style one and the women have a more plain styled kite but more decorated and they fight against each other. Chinese kites are made out of very fine silk, and is painted with different brightly coloured pictures, they also add whistles and other sound objects to warn dark spirits away at night.
As a group we where inspired by the Asian traditions of kite fighting and decided we wanted to make two kites that would fight against each other. We thought that a cat and a fish would be the best idea because we thought that having an animal would make the kite fighting more realistic because of the animalistic nature. We thought a fish would be appropriate for the opponent because Koi fish are iconic of the Asian culture, and it's a well known story that cats eat fish. So we thought that combining this theory would make it a really good match for fighting kites.
We thought about what materials, styles, shapes and features that we'd want to use and what would be compulsory, (waterproofing etc.)
We came up with the following:
Materital properties:
- Lightweight
- Waterproof
- Colourful?
- Durable
Materials:
- Polythene dust sheet Pro: Lightweight, waterproof Con: No colour.
- Cling Film Pro: Lightweight, waterproof Con: No colour, layers
- Sheer material (voile) Pro: Lightweight, waterproof, colourful, durable.
Structure:
- Dowling (easier to work with, comes in various sizes)
- Bamboo (Asian tradition)
Ideas:
- Cat idea:
- Box kite (complete with face and tail) Using bamboo sticks, and sheer colourful materials.
- Fish idea:
- Wind sock (Support at the mouth, circular disk, and material to make the shape of the fish) Complete with long tail that will make patterns in the wind.
Tuesday 9th April:
Making day!
we had to move to one of our groups flat, but this turned out to be a better idea because she had a sewing machine, which we relied on for our design.
We started by measuring out the material that we would need, and which sides that we would have to sew to create a hollow pocket for the bamboo to fit into. We marked out that it would be 180cm long, and 35cm wide. We did this so one piece of material would cover one side of the box. We then made a 3cm incision on the width, and created a flap for the bamboo to slip through, so the material would stay in place. From here we measured the bamboo sticks to the right measurement and inserted them into the material so the frame would start to form. The same thing was made four times down the middle of the material too, so create the box shape. When we had finished sewing the two pieces of material in the right place, we then slotted all the bamboo sticks were they where supposed to be, which then became an unbalanced frame. We are going to make the frame stable tomorrow after some more research into box kites and how they work.
From here we decided to create the cat face and tail which would be situated on the front and back of the kite. We had to figure out ways to attach it to the box kite, and in the end we just decided to make it large enough to fit on the frame so we could hand stitch it on to the material that was at either side of it.
To put the cats features on it's face we used bondaweb because it holds material together really well and it's stronger and looks better when applied than glue. After this we decided to start working on the fish idea, so we started cutting out scales out of turquoise and pink voile and started piecing it together. We thought that we'd leave it at this point for now because we thought that the cat kite is more important to finish.
Wednesday 10th April:
Last kite making day.
I decided to take the material off, so that we could build the structure, and then place it back on last so we would have more room to maneuver around and to attach the support sticks on properly. So after taking the kite apart we decided to start again and do it properly like we found out. 
We made support sticks that would be situated in an 'X' shape on each end of each material part of the kite, which means there where four supports. We secured them into place with string and glue for extra strength at each corner, and again in the middle where the two sticks met.
After the skeleton was secure, we attached the material on to it again, with all the smaller sticks inside supporting it, which we glued together too.
By this time the kite actually started to look like a kite, and could stand up on it's own and supported itself.
After we had made and completed the structure, we decided that it would be appropriate to create the face for the cat. The shape is specific so the wind could still transfer through it although we still had a face, we decided to use bondaweb and glitter to create the features of the face. We had also made a tail which was just a strip of the black fabric that we had made the kite out of, we thought that it should bend in with the body and face of the kite.
This is the finished version of the kite, it doesn't look as professional and good as we expected it to be, although this was all of our first times of kite building, so I think that considering that we did all the measurements and created a kite without any help from the internet mathematically I think we did really well.
I'm really proud that I've created a kite in a part of a team of productive and hardworking people.
I think that this is an experience that I can really learn from, especially hat there are more to things than they seem, I thought that making a kite wouldn't be too hard, although we found lots of obstacles when creating the kite. This has definitely built up my communication and teamwork skills, with working out all the mathematics, and material placings etc.
This is the fish kite that we decided to make as well as the cat as a fighting kite. We found some plant guiders that where a circular shape and we thought that they would be suitable to create a 'wind sock'. We sewn pockets for the guiders to slip through which attached the material to them, we used three of them, smallest at the front for the mouth, then the wider two at the back for the body. We decorated it using spare material strips so that they would fly in the wind, we also used Indian ink for the decoration of scales and eyes. I think that this worked so much better than the cat kite idea, because it was so much more simpler, and it looks more professional than the cat one. I think that this will fly better too because it's more lightweight and it's got a pole attached to the bottom of the string.Thursday April 11th:
Glossop day!
We thought that flying our cat kite first was important because we made it first and it took us the most time. It flew in the air for a couple of seconds and then it crashed, although we had to run with it and throw it for it to actually fly properly. I think that the main problem was that the cat face was covering one of the air exits, so it wouldn't allow air to pass through it. The problem could have also been caused by the structure of the kite not being strong enough for it to fly.
After a few attempts of trying to fly the cat kite, we gave up and tried to fly the fish kite. Because the fish kite was attached to a piece of strong bamboo, it flew better than it would have with just a piece of string, it was held into position and the structure was strong. This worked extremely well and flew in the wind really smoothly.
The pieces of the material that where attached to the end of the fish made it look really graceful in the wind. I think that if we had made our first kite in the same, more simple way, that would could have achieved the plan and theory of the fighting kites. Although we couldn't fly them both as fighting kites, I think that the fish idea worked really well and I think that the most simple ideas can work best.
After playing with the kites, we remembered that we'd brought some plastic sheeting with us (which we where originally going to use for the cat kite). We decided as a group to see what it would do in the wind if we held it at each corner, or just at one end. We played around with this idea a lot because it made a really nice noise as the wind was travelling through it, and when there where people at each corner, it became a really strong structure and started pulling us towards the wind. In the video, two people are holding a corner
each which let the bottom two corners flow freely, which let the massive gusts of wind travel through it
really quickly which made the plastic sheeting look wave-like. It started creating it's own waves within itself
and I thought that the quality was beautiful.
each which let the bottom two corners flow freely, which let the massive gusts of wind travel through it
really quickly which made the plastic sheeting look wave-like. It started creating it's own waves within itself
and I thought that the quality was beautiful.
After we had all been playing with our creations we started to head back down the hill and back to the coaches. This image I took standing near to the top of the hill looking down towards the road below. I really like this image because it shows the perspective of the hills and how natural they look.
After we had all got down the hills, we had a quick break back in the Grouse Inn and then we headed back at the coaches at 1, we then took off to the town of Glossop itself. We arrived right in the middle of the village, and we where told that we could go and have a look around and grab some lunch before the DADA performance at 2:30.
Me and Rachael decided to have a look around after grabbing some lunch, and we had found the Glossop train station, and some old fashioned chocolate and sweet shops. I really liked Glossop as a place because it felt like a hidden gem within Manchester/Derbyshire, it is a really beautiful and old place, compared to the modern Manchester town center. I really liked how most of the building had been kept to look Gothic style and not been renovated to look modern, like the old style sweet shop was really small and it fitted in with the theme of the shop.
At 2:30 we made our way to the Oakwood pub, where we gathered to watch the DADA performance.
Friday April 12th:
Exhibition day!
We put up our kites and the plastic sheeting that we'd used in the wind in the link gallery space and all together it looked really good. The cat kite was slightly bent to one side from falling from the sky and the sheeting was ripped from us trying to hold it against the wind.
Tuesday April 15th: Tutorials and John Rylands visit
We had our usual Monday morning meeting today at 10:30, where Hazel showed us a video that she had put together from Glossop. We also spoke briefly about how groups where getting on and projects etc. Afterwards I had my group tutorial with people from my interactive arts class, and we were all suggesting ideas for each other and I thought that it was very productive.
I told Hazel my groups starting points about the sculpture idea and she thought that they where good ideas. She also suggested that we should do something connected to the library, like make our own popup library or book shop. I really like this idea because its a different approach to art and I think that it would be good to do kind of like a performance style piece, it's definitely something that I've not done before and I think that i'd enjoy trying this new approach.
After this I went and met with my group and told them the ideas that I had discussed with Hazel, and they seemed to like them. They liked the fact that the 'pop up' idea was really unique and something that they hadn't done or attempted before, we thought that the first thing that we should do was look for some books that we could use for the stall or sculpture since it would be our main material. We then made our way to John Rylands to meet Aaron about ideas and what and where we were thinking of doing the unit X festival. After having a chat with him, I made some sketches, and we asked at the front desk if we could speak to someone about Unit X and they gave us an email address to one of the managers so we could email them our proposal.
Wednesday April 16th: Book searching
We thought that getting out there and finding books as quickly as possible would help us further our project and get us going. We started by searching charity shops in the Northern Quarter and Sophie had knew a book shop that they sold books really cheap, although when we got there, it was closed. I then remembered a book stall that I had seen that when previously being in the town center. We went over and ended up buying a box of books for £20, in the box were over 50 books, so we thought that this was a good price. We then took them back to the studio and sorted them out between all of us, it worked out that we had about 8 books each.
We thought about some ideas for making our own book sculptures to either sell or exhibit.
I have created a picture and artist moodboard, for ideas and inspirations for our pop up library.
- Bruno Schultz’s (cutting out words out of books to rearrange sentences)
- Jaqueline rush lee
- Brian Dettmer
- Cai Guo Quaing (fireworks)
- Su Blackwell
- Cara Barer
Thursday April 17th: Ideas and making day!
We arrived in the studio at 10:30 and we all started working on a book each. We all brainstormed ideas and possibilities first that where doable with the materials that we had brought in. I started by folding the pages of the book in half, and then gluing them down into place, I did this with the whole book including the front cover. It just seemed like a really easy and simple thing to do, and although it was simple, the results were really effective I love how it turned itself into a cylindrical shape as I was creating it, and how the shape is just so different.
Originally I wanted to keep the pages in this smoother edged curved way, although by the time I had completed all 580 pages of the book they all started to get crushed against each other, but overall I think I prefer the effect of how it turned out. I really like how unusual it is, and how you can sort of recognize it as a book but it's not. I was also really surprised about how solid the sculpture was as an object, it's really sturdy considering the pages were really thin.
I love the birds eye view image that I had taken of the sculpture. I like how the pages are not all the same, and how usual although unusual it is as a shape and an overall thing.
This was the second sculpture that I had made today, and I was really proud of how this one turned out too. When I started it I just thought that folding the page around in a curl shape would be interesting, so I carried on with the other pages, but i made the curls more wide as I did it, which created this amazing fan effect. The curves in the pages are really nice almost like waves. I decided to leave it like this and not do the rest of the book because I think that It looks good as a stand alone piece, and I don't think that the curls would have been as good as these if i'd have carried on.
The last sculpture of the day was one that I decided to be a bit different with. I thought that I'd take a different approach and start tearing the pages out of a book, and make them into little cylindrical shapes and glue them together. After a while it started to look like a city scape from when it was sitting on the table, but when I held it up I really liked the honeycomb effect of it, I liked how it only captured some of the place that I was pointing it at.
Friday April 18th: Ideas
Today I carried on with the city scape sculpture for a couple of hours, until we had a call from Aaron telling us that we will have successfully gained a space to exhibit our work in John Rylands Library, providing that we go for a meeting and show them our proposals. This was really good news although there was some mis-communication and John Rylands Library thought that we where basing our project on something Architectural for the festival. We brain stormed some ideas relating to Architecture and we thought about Manchester as a city, how Mrs. Rylands built the library to give something back to the people of Manchester etc. We came up with a few ideas:
1. Making a city scape (like my model) but on a larger or a mini version and recreating Manchester's city center map. (Large or small space..)
2. Making 3D rain drops out of book pages, which represents Manchester as it is known for the rain, and have them hanging down. Raining literature, spreading knowledge? (small, narrow space)
3. Sculpture in the style of the ones already existing in the library made out of book pages (Large tall space)
4. Pop up library as a separate exhibition (somewhere else in the library)
5. The domino effect: Books lined up and half fallen down, with a video showing on top of it showing the full domino effect.
Monday April 22nd: Meet up
We met up again today to discuss ideas and to see if we had received the email that we are long awaiting for. It turns out that we still hadn't received an email yet off John Rylands Library, so we decided to email them again, in case they hadn't received the last email. I thought that i'd try and make a book sculpture that was relevant to the theme of the book in some way, so I searched through the books and found the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I thought of some ideas of what I could do to the book, but I thought that stitching all of the pages together so you couldn't get into it to read it would have been the most appropriate because the theme of the book is about codes and not being able to find something. I really liked this idea because of the relation of the theme of the book to what i'd done to it.
We carried on making some more book sculptures and then decided to call it a day as we don't have a space, our ideas will be limited because we have no idea what space we will have (John Rylands or not) the size and shape of the space, rules and regulations etc.
Tuesday April 23rd: Study day
We decided to leave today dedicated to writing our contextualizing practice essays today because John Rylands still haven't emailed back, so we will give them till Wednesday the 24th, then we will make a decision on plans, as the event is closing in on us and we are going to run out of time. I have now finished my essay, which gives me more time to think and plan more about unit X.
Friday April 26th:
Tutorial
We met up with our group tutor, and we explained our situation with John Rylands, and that we do actually have ideas it's just we can't further them without knowing where, what space and size the space was. She was very understanding and explained that this unit was marked from our blog, so as long as we write in it and explain our ideas and problems on there then we will still get a good mark.
So with that in mind, we stopped worrying so much about the exhibition space, because from now we'd start looking for other gallery spaces or such as to display our work. We thought that the domino idea would be good for our piece now because it would be relevant to the mis-communication and the problems that we have faced with trying to find a space.
An hour later John Rylands had emailed one of the people in my group saying that we had a meeting with them on Wednesday to discuss ideas and spaces etc. This is really good news and hopefully now we can just get on with our exhibition and creating the sculptures, and hopefully make the festival worth all of the work.
Monday April 29th:
Book Searching
We originally went book searching on Saturday the 27th April, but the stall wasn't open so we came again today to see if they where open, after some thought about some of the ideas that we where thinking of creating, we thought about buying 2 boxes of books this time instead of just the one. We thought it would be better to have too many books than not enough, especially with the exhibition closing in on us fast, and we wouldn't have time to go and get more half way through making an idea.
I thought that it was really good preparation for the exhibition, and getting the books before we know what we're doing is well thought out because we won't have to come up to the market again once we've started, and to have our material before we create our sculpture shows we're organized.
Tuesday April 30th:
Idea finalizing and prototypes
Today we had another chat with Aaron about our ideas as our meeting with John Rylands is tomorrow to talk about spaces and ideas. He gave us some more ideas, possibilities, and introduced the idea of having a glass display cabinet to display our work inside, as most of the exhibited work and books that is in the library are all in glass cabinets. We really liked this idea and thought that some of our ideas might be do-able using the glass cabinet, instead of hanging things from the ceiling etc. He also mentioned just simply stacking the books and having candles burning at the top of the pile so the wax drips down them, although we don't think that John Rylands would be happy as it is a large fire hazard, and someone would have to permanently watch it.
The main idea we want to pitch is the rain drop idea but with the alternative of book pages instead, as if they were pouring out of the top, because this is more possible if displayed in the cabinet. We are going to tell them the main few ideas although some are more relevant to the library and our research. We have done some sketches and prototypes to pitch to the library tomorrow so hopefully we'll gain an appropriate space and exhibit one of our ideas.
Wednesday May 1st:
D-Day:
Today we met with Jacqueline who is the event manager of the John Rylands library, and we were very shocked that she said that we could virtually have any space that we wanted. She showed us some of the most appropriate spaces for us to display our work, and we chose a space which is at the top of a staircase to the first floor. The space is accessible for everyone, as there is a lift, so everyone can see and enjoy the exhibition, we thought that wheelchair access was important because we want everyone to see it and it wouldn't be fair at all if their wasn't. This was a big advantage, and the ceiling is over 10ft high, so we'd have virtually as much height space as we wanted, and the space in itself is really wide so again this gave us more ideas to make our piece larger because we didn't have many limitations.
We explained to her our main idea which she seemed to be really enthusiastic about, which made us more confident about the idea ourselves. She decided that she really liked the book page idea, with them seeming like they're pouring out of the top of the cabinet and spilling over. I'm really glad that she chose this idea because it was the main one we wanted to focus on and we as a group were more excited about that idea.
Thursday May 2nd:
Sparking Ideas...
Today we met up with Aaron again to talk about how we would build the display case for our work, how many books we'd need all together, what materials we'd need etc. We spent a few hours working out how big that we wanted the cabinet to be, and also what type of wood we could use. We worked out all of the measurements
and we decided that if we got the wood for the display case as soon as possible then it would be easier to get it sorted and finished. We decided that we wanted the display case to be about 2 meters high and about a meter wide, because we didn't really have much of a height restriction, we decided to make it big because I think that it'll make our work look more like a center piece as it'll be displayed at the top of a staircase.
We searched around a few places getting prices for the sizes of wood that we needed, and we decided to get the wood from B&Q because it was easiest to get and it worked out cheap as we all paid some money each.
Aaron had bought the wood and built the display case over the weekend, which was a surprise to the group as we thought that we were going to build it on Monday as it was a bank holiday, and we'd have Aaron's friend's workshop to build it in. Although he built it over the weekend, it saved us so much time and we appreciate his help so much, we are now much further than we ever thought we'd be by now.Tuesday May 7th:
Assemble
Because Aaron had built the frame in his friends workshop, we had to walk down to the workshop in Castlefield to pick it up. He had built it so it was 2.3 meters high, and 1.1 x 1.1 meters wide, this is amazing because this means our sculpture that will be inside will be huge and I think that it will make more of an impact on the audience.Once we had brought it back to our studio, we reassembled it back together so we could see what it actually looked like and then we could picture the sculpture inside it. We were really impressed by what Aaron had made in such a short amount of time, and it is built so much better than it would have been if it was just our group building it because he's experienced. In the afternoon Aaron and Angus decided to go to Wilkinsons to buy some paint and rollers so we could paint the display case so it would look like it imitated the display cases that already exist in the library.
When Angus got back with the paint, Me and Aine decided that we'd paint the display case so Angus could go and have some lunch. The paint colour was called Nutmeg Spice, and at first we thought that it was a bit too light although after the paint had dried it had dried darker and I think that it looks more professional and relevant now that it's darker. After the second coat we thought that we'd leave it to dry for the rest of the day so that it would dry properly so we could start making the actual sculpture for the inside tomorrow.
Wednesday May 8th:
Decisions
Today we figured out how we would display the pages as if they where pouring out of the top of the display case without it looking too obvious that we've hung it. We wanted this to look like it was naturally pouring out of the top so we wanted the effect to look as good as possible. We tried some materials such as cotton and string but it was too noticeable against the book pages, so we bought some fishing wire to see how that would work because it's clear and very thin, so unless you get really close to it, it's practically unnoticeable.
We tried some experiments with the fishing wire and it worked really well, Aaron developed a way of stitching the page so they would stay in their position. It was to thread the wire up through the page, down through another hole and then back up the first hole that you made, this creates a hold in the wire and the book pages manage to stay in place when stitched.
We cut the wire 2.5m long so that it would have enough extra for the stitching and so that we could tie it at the top to secure it into place. After this, Aaron drilled some holes into the top of the cabinet so that we could hang the strings, starting from the middle which had lots of holes because more strings would need to be attached, and they were fewer on the outside of it because fewer would need to be hung because of the shape of the sculpture.
Thursday May 9th:
Preperation
Today we started creating loads more of the paper strings for the sculpture, so we could make sure that we definitely had enough to hang in the exhibition. We created some that were really full of pages for the middle of the sculpture, and some that were really sparse for the over spill part of it, and some that were in between the two for the middle, so it looked like it was gradually pouring over the edge and spilling. We also painted over the knocks of the cabinet, and made sure that the drilled holes at the top of the cabinet were sanded down and re painted so it made it look more professional.
I am really happy with the progress of the sculpture right now, it seems like we are nearly finished and we only started building it under a week ago. I never thought that we'd be this far ahead now, so this is a massive bonus, i've never achieved anything like this in such a small amount of building time, although i think this time it's worked so well so far because we had loads of time to plan everything in advance with how we were going to build and make parts.
Friday May 10th:
Finishing off and take down day.
We decided to take the sculpture and the cabinet apart today so that we were prepared in advance for Monday. When we had taken it all apart we wrapped the cabinet's separate pieces in plastic sheeting just in case it started raining on the day, and it would protect it against minor knocks etc.
Once the cabinet was taken apart we started sorting out all of the strings of the sculpture as they tangle easily. We decided to place a sheet of newspaper between each string because this would avoid them all tangling together and it would make it easier on Monday when we have a time limit to put up the sculpture. We also put them in bags separating the sparse from the full, which again was really good preparation because it will save more time on the day. I think that we did really well in preparing for the exhibition when no one in our group had displayed their work in a public place before.
Monday May 13th:
Setting up day!
Today we met up at 8am to collect all of the pieces of the sculpture and tools so that we could piece it all back together at John Rylands. We had ordered a minibus to arrive outside the university at half past 8 so that we could get to John Rylands at 9am which would give us until 12am to get the sculpture up and finished, which was when the library was open to the public. We waited until 8:45 and it never turned up, we then flagged down and rang numerous taxi companies to take us there and none would take us within the next half an hour. We then decided that me, Aine and Angus would take the frame and the larger important items with us by walking there, and Aaron and Alex would take a taxi up there with just the bags and smaller items. We eventually got to the library at 9:30 which was when we started re-building the sculpture, we unwrapped all of the pieces from the plastic sheeting and we then started with the frame. All the pieces of timber where clearly marked with numbers of which piece fits were, so it didn't take long to reassemble at all. I checked that the structure was safe and stable and then put it into the place where the exhibition was going to be. After we had assembled the cabinet we decided to have some lunch and have a break because the morning was hectic and stressful. After that we came back more determined to finish so we opened up all of the plastic bags with the strings in so that they were all in piles of dense, medium and sparse. This made it easier to create the 'spill' as we knew which strings went were in the sculpture. We started preparing the strings with needles already on them so it was easier to put them up as Aaron could put them through the holes at the top easily and quickly so we saved more time.
I though that the sculpture started to come together really well as we were building it because the pages were slightly movable on the strings so we could move them to practically the shape we wanted them to be. It was a really nice atmosphere as the sculpture was evolving because everyone had worked hard towards creating it and we were all a part of it so to me that was really satisfying, coming together as a group and being proud of what we had made. At this point I was so happy with the way the sculpture was appearing and I couldn't have imagined how good it was going to look. I am so impressed that it turned out this way so far.
This is the image of the sculpture when it was nearly finished. We decided to put some books on the base of the sculpture like we would when it was finished, just so we could see what it would look like if we had left it like it was. The sculpture looked incomplete and it didn't look as full as we wanted it to look, so we decided that we would carry on adding more strings to the sculpture as we still had another hour till the library opened to the public. At this point the sculpture really started to come together, and it started to look like an actual art piece rather than the individual pieces that we had been making in the last few days. I really liked the way that it started looking like I had pictured it in my head, and I think that is always the best part in a project when what you imagine actually works. We started putting the finishing touches on such as the loose books on the base, and around the sculpture, we also started bending some of the book pages on the strings because some of the pages started to look flat, so we thought that creasing them slightly might make it more realistic as if they've stopped falling in mid air.
This is the finished final piece. We've decided to call it 'Lost in Literature' because John Rylands has so many books and so much information that for one person to try and take it all in it could feel overwhelming and feel like they are being flooded in books. This is the type of idea that we wanted to get across because when we were thinking of ideas to display in John Rylands we had too many ideas and didn't know which one to choose so this is relative to us as artists as well as the audience.
We wanted to have the book pages spread out more on the floor so it really looked like it was flooding with books although we thought that spreading the pages and books out too far would cause a trip hazard for the audience so we thought that we should just have them near the cabinet.
This image I took of the middle of the sculpture, and I really like the way that we've captured the floating and the curves of books falling. Even with the flash on my camera you can barely see the string that is holding the book pages up. This was a really good choice in material and i'm so glad that we used it because it gives us the effect we wanted in our work and it couldn't have gone better.
I like how some of the pages are crumpled because I think that this adds to the more natural effect of them falling, and if the pages were pristine and perfect then I don't think that the sculpture would have the same affect on it's audience.
We had loads of positive feedback from the public as they were walking past saying that it's a different take on literature and books, and people were taking photographs and taking the unit x leaflets that we had put out for the public to take. Just the people complimenting the sculpture made me really happy because the public has never complimented work that I had taken part in before and this again was a massive achievement for me.
I am really proud of myself that I took part in this exhibition because of the work produced, the friends I made and the experience I learnt. I think overall that unit x is a really good project because it brings other courses together, and it gives you a taste of reality, for when we will host our own exhibitions outside of the usual university gallery space. I am really proud of myself that I have exhibited work that I took part in creating in a listed building which is really popular, this is an amazing experience that I can refer to when applying to show my work in other buildings.
I don't think that the exhibition could have gone better at all because we used the right materials and had so much planning time for the sculpture, that we couldn't go wrong. I am so shocked yet pleased about how quickly the sculpture evolved, and how the exhibition went up, I think that this is a really big achievement for me and I plan to create more work like this.
At the beginning of unit x, some of my group didn't show up so me, Aine and Angus who showed up for everything, decided that the other three people could take part but we were the ones that came up with the ideas and that took credit for it. We worked through people not turning up, and just us three sticking together as a mini group really worked because to me, I've made two new friends that I probably wouldn't have made if it wasn't for this project. I will definitely work with these two people again because it was a really fun experience working with both of them.
Within unit x, we had a few problems with getting John Rylands to get back to us, and we spent nearly three weeks emailing them and waiting for a reply. It was only when Aaron had rang up two days on the run that we eventually got a reply from them. I think that the communication was a bit of an issue with our project because of this, but otherwise the communication between our mini group was brilliant. We all took each others numbers, and we created a group on Facebook which is a website that we all use, we all spoke in the group and it was brilliant to post information on without emails not sending or people not answering their phones.
Unit x as a whole I think is a really good idea, although I think that the Glossop trip should have been right at the beginning of the year because I think that it would help people get to know each other and interact, whereas it was in the middle of unit x, so for me it threw me off as we were building kites and it was fun and then we had the actual project to do afterwards.
I don't think that the exhibition could have gone better at all because we used the right materials and had so much planning time for the sculpture, that we couldn't go wrong. I am so shocked yet pleased about how quickly the sculpture evolved, and how the exhibition went up, I think that this is a really big achievement for me and I plan to create more work like this.
At the beginning of unit x, some of my group didn't show up so me, Aine and Angus who showed up for everything, decided that the other three people could take part but we were the ones that came up with the ideas and that took credit for it. We worked through people not turning up, and just us three sticking together as a mini group really worked because to me, I've made two new friends that I probably wouldn't have made if it wasn't for this project. I will definitely work with these two people again because it was a really fun experience working with both of them.
Within unit x, we had a few problems with getting John Rylands to get back to us, and we spent nearly three weeks emailing them and waiting for a reply. It was only when Aaron had rang up two days on the run that we eventually got a reply from them. I think that the communication was a bit of an issue with our project because of this, but otherwise the communication between our mini group was brilliant. We all took each others numbers, and we created a group on Facebook which is a website that we all use, we all spoke in the group and it was brilliant to post information on without emails not sending or people not answering their phones.
Unit x as a whole I think is a really good idea, although I think that the Glossop trip should have been right at the beginning of the year because I think that it would help people get to know each other and interact, whereas it was in the middle of unit x, so for me it threw me off as we were building kites and it was fun and then we had the actual project to do afterwards.
