croK. Career Connect meeting, Culture box, The other Mother Project and Witch portraits

 Met with Clair from Career connect re setting up croK. see notes under croK. page

Confirmed a teams meet with Jennifer from the Other Mother Project for Friday 2nd. Really looking forward to talking with her. 

Went to the culture box exhibition and met Chloe Asker (research fellow/psychology university of Sussex) from the project who also has an interest in the witch and it's impact on the female experience.  We've connected via instagram and talked about some reading and podcasts that we'd both been working with.

This is an exhibition that was forwarded to me by my mentor Katey, as we'd been talking about art and the community. It focuses on creative activity boxes used during covid in care homes where people live with dementia.

These are commissioned pieces by Hat Porter for the project - they're really tactile, connected by magnets that can be moved and replaced. They're weighted and stuffed differently and feature quotes from the project.

 

 

Exhibition space.

Acknowleged the news coverage of this exhibition by North Staffs News, thinking when we have our exhibitions we can tap into this and Babababoon for coverage. 

I received this through the newsletter from North Staffs News.  Katey Goodwin had recommended. I'm thinking more about how the industry communicates - How to get onto the ArtCommunity Radar if you like

I brought some new acrylic paints and medium today so that I could play  - I really want to understand more about transparencies of pigment and how I can use them to layer further. I also want to play with lines and backgrounds and potentially bring a bit of fun into my work - I often choose dark colours to work with - which I like - but I'm interested to see how brighter colours make my work read - 

Stumbled across some neons.  Drew on Laura Williams paintings from last years degree cohort, and thought I'd give them a go - but I really want to keep things loose and play with contrasts of charcoal lines more. 

I'm thinking about how Ian talks about the process of changing the photograph into the painting - so I'm thinking about what I redact - what I'd normally feel I need to fill in or to detail.. I instinctively went to put in the hair and the hat and block out some areas but I prefer the contrast between the charcoal and detail in the face. I'm hoping she sits as if she's in an illustration.

I'm not sure about the bat wing at the moment and may try and remove some of this later ... after a couple of days of really loose playing with ideas from my imagination around the Pendle witches - using a photo reference was SO welcome and made so much more sense than what I was fighting to put down on paper by grabbing random visual imagery from my research (swans, dandelions, cockroaches, baby's and children, the Madonna, the 9 year old daughter that testified against her mum in the Pendle Witch trials...everything's floating about up there)  

This is acrylic neon on board - charcoal, and a sealant.

I went to add Paynes grey in acrylic because its a transparent acrylic and its a colour that features a lot in my palette but it just did not sit on the sealant so I went straight to oil with thinners.

I'm liking the white t-shirt collar and expression.. on the way home, I considered that I had leaned away from thinking about painting witches because I was thinking about roles and paintings that I could respond to. I was thinking about croK. and podcasts about women making social change, and do I want people to see my work and just think "halloween" or "pagan" but actually... I want images of women and girls dressed in witches hats.  I want to ask for people to submit them to a project that collectively shows our contemporary relationship with dressings as the witch. 

I think this painting does something..so I'll keep playing.