RESULTS!!!!

WOO results are out! I got a 2:2, or a "lower second class honours" ooo!! SO HAPPY!!! It's what I was expecting so very happy!

Grad Show

And so the assessment is over, the stress is gone and the Grad Show is on! If you are in the South Wales area, get your butts down to Newport City Centre Campus to see the wonderful work on show! 

Friday was the opening night and it was FANTASTIC! So many people, so much great work, and so much wine! The after show soiree was also pretty epic!

Here's a photo of my and my lovely work that I've spent so much time on! So happy it's done and so happy that it all worked out in the end!

Handed In!

It's official...the work is handed in...ARGGHHH!!! Now I have to patiently wait for my assessment on Friday. But it's nice to have the work out of the house and not cluttering up the place. Good times!

FINISHED (pretty much)

So on Friday I went and collected the acrylics and the frames! They all looked FAB! And today, while watching so much TV to keep me sane, I put them all together. Dust and fluff were driving me up the wall but I've managed to get them as clean as I can! Now I forgot to take any photos before I wrapped them up but I'm not unwrapping them now until my assessment! Just gotta polish off my Artist Statement and I shall be complete! For now, here's a pic I took of everything all wrapped up in bubble wrap.

Race For Life

I've just signed up to do the Race For Life in Cwmbran on 26th June! Please sponser me! Even if it's only a pound, every little helps! (And it is in conjunction with Tesco so that phrase is totally allowed!)

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/katesmith1805

Thanks!

Final Images

These are my final images. I'm extremely pleased at how they look and cannot wait to see the finished pieces when they are fully fabricated! All I need to do is refine my Artist statement and then bam done! Hand in is on the 31st May with my assessment on the 3rd June...nervous much! But I'm glad everything is sent to fabricators etc. Got the prints back the other day and am pleased with them so woo!The images themselves are going to be A3 and the map type image is going to be A2. The dots and line will be on two layers of 5mm acrylic within the frame, layered over the print. Very exciting stuff!

Almost done!

The lines are neat!

The dots are neat!

The images are almost there

Kate is less stressed and able to blog! Tomorrow I will be going to a sign makers to get my lines printed onto acrylic/perspex, and also going to Bristol to sort my frames out. GOOD TIMES! I shall post photos up very soon. Well...as soon as everything is sent to print and is definite!

And relax!

Auction!

http://photoartauction.wordpress.com/

As well as some fantastic collaboration art pieces, original memorabilia from artists is up for grabs at this fundraising auction for our end of year publication! Come along and grab yourselves some truly individual, one off items!

The plateau seems to have made way for some progress

So lately I've found myself on a bit of a plateau, unable to focus or find the drive to do any work...which was pants and very worrying! But today I went to the library, got some books out on John Baldessari, sat in the sun and flicked through them and then wrote some ideas down in my notebook. Oh my god my brain has not been this productive in a while I'm telling you! Sun seems to be good for me!

I wrote down my main core ideas again, reminding myself of what I was doing as I find after tutorials etc that my mind is full of new suggestions that pull me away from what I really want to achieve with this project. It's not that the ideas are bad, they just confuse me for a little while! A few little things came to mind to try out and test as I was doing this, so this evening I've been printing the photos I have so far (I've asked my family members for one photo of their family together in a group). I also printed the family maps off and decided to plot the points on pieces of acetate. I placed these over the photographs and quite like how they look. Not sure on the colours or sizes of the dots yet, but I like how it looks so far.

I also had the idea of what would the maps look like with curved lines instead of straight ones? This came about by thinking about boomerangs, as my family seem to move slightly away from the area and back again. I quite like how they look with curved lines, and I think the one on the bottom right of the image below looks a little like a signature.

I'm wondering whether to move away from the pin prick/space idea. As much as I love bringing my love for space into this project, I'm thinking it could be kept more of a research thing. It would also make the fabrication a lot simpler, which I know isn't the best way to look at things, but I really have been worrying about how to present my punctured prints. Getting them into frames wouldn't be a big a problem, but hanging them in front of a window for the natural light to come through would be a bit of a task, seeing as the windows in the space I shall be exhibiting in are huge with no frames or anything to hang work from. I'm sure I could do it, but I've been worrying about it and always thinking "I'll figure it out later". I now have thought about it...and I don't think it would be an easy task at all. I could use light boxes, but for some reason I am very reluctant to do so. I liked the fact the light coming through was natural and wanted to keep it that way.

I'm going to think about this a lot over the coming week, before my all day review seminar next Friday. Hopefully this will get things into perspective for me and hopefully finalise my thoughts!

Now time for some sleep as tomorrow is a big day! Publication meeting, lecture with Martin Parr, and then a Visiting Lecture! I wish it was a free day now I've got some motivation for my work back. But ah well that's what Friday and the weekend are for!

T-Shirt

To help raise money for our course publication which will be made near the end of the uni year, a Tshirt has been designed and we're selling them to YOU the lovely public.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE buy one!! Only £13.50 online! They're pretty awesome! (and if you're in Newport, they're only £10 in store!)

Thank You!

http://www.freestyleskatestore.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4_14&products_id=1456

Project tutorial

So this afternoon I had a tutorial about my project to get me going again. It went pretty well and some things were brought up that I hadn't thought of yet and also things that I can advance with. First of all...I NEED to get working! While writing the dissertation, the project was sort of swept under the rug a bit, so now it's time to really get my head down.

I showed my tutor the experiments I've been doing with blurring the family images, and he seemed to agree that this was a good idea, as it takes my personal relation to the work away from it, and makes it more universal. I have also decided that the images I want to use are of the family groupings, so images with partners and their children, making it so the image is clearly a family image, even if it is blurred.

We talked about the pin pricks in the images, and he brought up the point, what if the image only had one hole? What would this do to the work and would it change it any way. So I'm going to experiment with this and see how it looks. He also said that as the image is already blurred, it's giving the viewer the impression that they are already very close to it, so maybe it is inviting them to look through the holes and see what is beyond the image. I'm not sure about this yet, but again, I shall experiment maybe putting something behind the image. This might just be a light, but it could be something physical like a map for example.

We also ended up talking about space again, and about the recent episode of the Wonders of the Universe with Brian Cox, especially the point he made about atoms being mostly empty, so the majority of things in the universe are essentially empty. This struck a chord in my head while I was watching it and it is a bit strange to think about us being 99% empty. (This wasn't really to do with my project, but it is interesting!) Another point we talked about was the term "family" and groupings, and how everything in the universe is held together in groups such as planetary systems, constellations, galaxies, etc. This brought up the point that we always stick with our families, and no other species really does this. We always feel the need to stick together in a family, and I might try to explore this a bit further, incorporating space ideas into it. Maybe posing the question "What is the gravity that holds families together?" (Corny or what!)

Overall a good tutorial...and I really need to get some work done! Busy times await me!

Completed Dissertation!

And the time has come to say that my dissertation is complete!!!!! 8163 words and my brain now hurts! So glad it's completed. All there is left to do with it is to get it printed and bound, and hand it in on Thursday 17th March...then will come epic partying...and then an epic hangover...then back to the project!

I FEEL GOOD!

The Dissertation

So the dissertation is going OK...just got to 4500 words, so realistically about half way through. Structure so far is:

• Kodak (all about the advertising, marketing and how they made it available for the masses)
• Structure of the family album (what used to be put into an album and what is now)
• Digital cameras (how it has changed the way people use a camera)
• The Internet (how facebook has changed the way we share images, especially family photos)

Attempting to write the rest next week...so will probably live in the library for a while. Also have a tutorial so I can see if I'm writing anything of any use!

And whilst procrastinating today, i decided to play with my macro mode on my compact camera...and took a photo of my dissertation...ANYTHING to not do work sometimes!

New idea

In light of being told to keep experimenting, and also to try and get something other than dissertation work done, I have thought of a new thing to try for my project. I was thinking about my assessment and something in particular that one of my lecturers said was that it wasn't the image itself he was looking at, but just the holes in the image and wondering what they were. So I've been thinking about this, and the idea came to me that maybe I should still use the family photos, as I consider this quite important, but blur them so they aren't as recognisable. This way, the family element is still there in the image, but it is more of a background to the constellations. I'm gonna give this a go and see how it looks. This also means that I can increase the size of the images without worrying too much about the quality of the image degrading, as there wont be much of an image to make out anyway.

In other news...dissertation is on it's way now...slowly but surely. I'm up to 4000 words now so technically half way if I aim for the minimum of 8000 words. good times...kind of!

Over and out for the next week or so.....it's not gonna write itself!

Asessment Feedback

So I had my feedback session this afternoon and all is good with my project. It has been suggested I push the whole "space" idea as far as I can, at least in the research side of things. Also need to look into familial migration and socailogical research. So I need to find out what kind of things have impacted the closeness or distance of people. Also look into what has caused us to migrate to cities, rather than the country which apparently used to be the case.

So all in all I need to carry on experimenting and research like crazy! Also need to build in time to reflect on my experiments so I don't get caught up doing things that aren't working for example.

Busy times await!

Artist Statement

Family is an interesting concept if you think about it. You have your blood relatives, who are your direct family, and then you have their spouses who have families of their own. They can differ in size with everyone scattered around the country or congregated in one place. When it comes to my own family, both my parents have three siblings each. Each of those siblings is married with no one having more than four children. Five of my cousins have had children of their own, the highest amount being four again. All the family live relatively close to each other, which after speaking to friends of mine, isn’t actually that common. But what I’m wondering is, why has my family all remained so close to each other. I’ve found that under whatever circumstances, most people always end up back in the area they grew up in, even if they have moved away from it initially. Even my Auntie that doesn’t speak to any of us still lives relatively close.

I have plotted each individual family on their own separate map, plotting the homes that they grew up in, and then their homes with partners and children. I plotted everything over an A – Z Street map of Portsmouth, which shows that the majority of my family are on the same two pages of it. There is only one section of my family who aren’t on this map at all and that is because they live in Southampton, with one of their daughters residing in France with her partner. The reason for them living slightly further afield is because my Uncle used to work in the Prison service and it required them to move around a lot. When he retired, he was living in Southampton and didn’t want to move again.

The arrangements of both current and past houses have begun to look like constellations of stars, and being that I have a very amateur passion for astronomy, this was clearly no accident. I found out from interviewing family members that one of my granddads was also interested in space. I distinctly remember a large poster of his, showing the surface of the moon with the seas and craters and I used to love looking at it as a child. Another thing that I remember was two prints given to my brother by a friend of my Dads. These prints, although not original, were signed by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin and I remember wanting them instead of my brother. The prints have luckily been kept, but unfortunately none of my family knows where the moon poster is

This work explores my family, bringing together locations of family homes and family photographs. It has been created through my love of home, and my bewilderment at how we all live so close. I find it strange that my family has ended up in one small area, but I think it is down the closeness of everyone mentally, as well as the size of houses and the familiarity of the area.

After the review...

So Wednesday we had a review day, which was extremely helpful, even though I was nervous as hell! But I took in my tracing paper maps I've been working on, which consist of coloured dots for peoples houses and lines between them indicating that families path of houses as it were. Lecturers seemed to like it and understood what I was getting at, but unsure of exactly what I was going to do next. One lecturer said they almost looked like constellations, which really made me excited as I LOVE space! It completely fascinates me and I love to just think about it and how uncomprehendingly big it is! So I started to think about this and quite a few ideas have popped into my head as to what I can do next now. I'm in the process of scanning in my tracing paper "constellations" and have been playing with putting them on top of existing family photographs, although I'm not sure about the results (I would have put an image on here but it's not letting me for some reason).

Another idea that has come to me has been to pierce holes through existing negatives of the family and try to print them. I have no idea how this will turn out but it's worth a try, and the results could be interesting. It also means using the darkrooms which I havent done in a long time but I may as well use them while I have the chance.

The third idea I have is to create these constellations on black paper by piercing them with a pin and putting them in a lightbox (or a window for now just to test) and see what it looks like. If this works then making an entire "night sky" of my families house paths could look really good.

I'm really glad my lecturer mentioned the space thing as now I can involve a real passion of mine into my work. Not that photography isn't a passion, but space is just...woah!

Third interview and email response!

Third interview with my mums sister done today. Meant to get one done with my nan as well today but she was out. Will do it later this week. But the interview went well, going with much the same trends as I mentioned in my last post. These being meeting in the Working Men's Club, and then moving outside the area and back again.

And the email response was from my Uncle (on Dad's side) in Southampton who I don't see a lot. Found out some good stuff from him also, including how he ended up in Southampton instead of in the Leigh Park/Havant/Portsmouth area, and also that my cousin now lives in France with her partner and young baby. Turns out that not everyone met in the working men's club either! My uncle was working in Currys, and my auntie began working as a Saturday girl and his workmates bet him that he wouldn't ask her out, and he did.

Have emailed another auntie on my dads side, and will email my other uncle as soon as I find out his email address from my auntie. Then it's just my nan to interview and I'm done on the interview front.

Visually, I'm still working on my map with the dots, considering using different layers of tracing paper or acetate for the individual families within the whole family. I'll experiment and see what happens. Getting a huge pin board tomorrow as well so should be able to work better with the map being on that.

That's all for today!

Second Interview

Second interview went well this afternoon. Finding a few trends already, even though this is only the second interview! For example my parents met in the Working Mens Club in Leigh Park, and so did my aunt and uncle. After telling this to my mum, she then told me my other aunt and uncle on this side of the family also met there.

Also found out that my uncle's parents met in much the same way as the aunt and uncle that we don't speak to anymore did, with his dad being in the navy, being stationed in portsmouth and then met his partner (my uncles mum) while there. Funny how being in a naval area makes people meet in extremely similar ways like that. And also where the Working Mens Club is, is at the end of the road my mum and her sisters grew up in, hence why most of them met their spouses there I suppose.

Another thing cropping up is people moving away into the portsmouth area because the rents are cheap, and then when people decide to have children, then moving back into the Leigh Park area for the bigger houses.

Funny how people follow the same paths in life, no matter how different they are.

Family Mapping

Here are a few photos of my "family map" as it stands. I've done it all today and had much fun with sticky dots! The coloured dots are:

• Red - Mums side of the family
• Green - Dads side of the family
• Blue - Mum and Dads separate birth homes and family homes
• Yellow - Mum and Dads houses together and my family houses (ie. our current house and also my brother and fiances house)

The areas shown here are Leigh Park (where most of the dots are), Waterlooville, Cosham, Gosport, Portsmouth and Southsea. I shall be getting colour photocopies of the street map I've been using soon to make the same thing with the map underneath, however I'm liking the "blank map" at the moment.

I will start to draw some lines between all these dots soon to link people together such as each of the separate families within my whole family, which house people grew up in etc. Let the spiders web begin!

I'm also going to look for a large pin board to put this on as I think it'll be a nice idea to link it all with threads of varying colours instead of drawn on lines which could end up looking messy. But I will experiment with drawn on ones untill then.