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Crazy Voyage - The Open College of the Arts

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Crazy Voyage

This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.
 
The first year Fine Art undergraduates at Edinburgh, work in adjacent studios to me, on the other side of the art college’s large sculpture court. In the first week of term, when we post graduates did not much more than stare wildly about us, the first years were set a brief, made a large body of work and exhibited it.
On their first day, they were divided into groups of what seemed to be about 5 or 6 – and given an enormous sheet of white cardboard, maybe 10 feet by 5 or similar. They were then asked to do something to this sheet as a group which referred to the idea of a journey, I suppose to celebrate the fact that they were on the start of their own personal artistic journey. 4 days later the constructions you see illustrating this blog were exhibited in the sculpture court, and many more that I failed to photograph. The students had no time to think about any potential for ‘showcasing’ making skills, they simply had to pursue their ideas as quickly and unselfconsciously as possible and just get the thing made. Through that process you could see them getting an understanding of their materials, and also of developing their ideas in tandem with what they were learning from the making process.
I think many of us post graduates were humbled by their industry and I am sure that the inventiveness that resulted was at least in part due to the adrenalin and buzz that came from working so frenetically.
I find so many of my own students are stymied by their frustration with their own technical skills, and also that they seem to work very slowly, which I suspect again to be partly about self criticism and doubt. I feel that much could potentially be learned from these fearless young people and the wonderfully celebratory output of the project which had been designed carefully to bear no relevance to specific craft or technical skills and has really set the tone for these students for the year to follow their ideas up with enthusiasm, dedication and hard work! That’s not to say that the pieces were shoddily made, they were not at all, it’s just that these skills were not the main driver of the work. The skill was harnessed to the idea. It was certainly a wake up call for me to stop navel gazing and remember just how great making art can be.


Posted by author: Emma Drye

8 thoughts on “Crazy Voyage

  • With “no time to think about any potential for ‘showcasing’ making skills, they simply had to pursue their ideas as quickly and unselfconsciously as possible”.
    One of my most successful experimental videos at Maidstone had to be completed in an afternoon, from a brief we were given at lunchtime – no time for thinking, and only time to edit ‘in camera’. There was no bowing out, it had to be done, because hundreds of students were going to view them within a few hours. We set off in a cloud of dust. It was exhilerating. I loved the fact that there was no time to think properly because the ideas came so quickly.

  • Some of those of us currently doing figure drawing have been discussing why we get some of our best work in the very short poses. I think if we are planning a large project (which might be a two hour life pose, say, in this context) we have more investment in time and effort which we are exposing to risk. If we have to leap into something, and execute it quickly, we are more enligned to accept risk and just go for it. This can be very liberating. Whilst it is a good discipline to do studies etc and be well prepared for a project, I can be very disappointed with the outcome, compared to something I have produced spontaneously.

    • I agree Steve. I’m right-handed and a quick life pose scribbled with my left hand produces surprisingly good results, that don’t look like my work at all 🙂

      • They are both really good points. One thing to think about is the idea that you can ‘leap in’ to a large project in the same way as a small one if you approach it in a way that allows that. Drawing can take quite a bit of mental focus and that can be hard to sustain over a larger piece. Sometimes the change of pace that kicks in with a larger piece can be for as simple a reason as the fact that most people scale up their paper but not their materials / marks. Bryan Eccleshall’s drawings in another blog on this site are teeny but quite labour intensive, but you could draw on an A1 sheet with a lump of scene painters charcoal or the side of a piece of charcoal and cover it very quickly. I think the point about risk is a good one – that often compromises a drawing – I even see students worrying about wasting paper. The point about left handed markmaking is also interesting. In a way this is you using a trick to access a different type of mark, one that you find difficult to do as you fall into familiar patterns with your right hand. As an artist, it’s often a good idea to stretch your markmaking vocabulary so that you can use these kinds of mark at will. There is never a one size fits all answer in art, but for many people, widening your vocabulary is a healthy thing to do.

  • It seems like First year at ECA has moved on since I was there. On one of our first days in what was called ‘Foundation Design’ we were each given a box of matches and told to do something creative with it. The tutor then left and came back at the end of the day to see what we had done. None of us worked in collaboration- perhaps we were told not to or maybe it didn’t occur to us. I spent the day making small fires and photographing them. I doubt that would be allowed in ECA now!

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