Practice based research day

 Still testing - paints to see which are opaque and which are transparent, and acrylic as a base. Really liking how this reads like light.

Still playing with this to see if it goes anywhere - need to rework the dandelion eyes.

       

Used some masking and carried some testing through to small paintings on board - I've enjoyed doing these - I feel like I need to get me sketchbook head on - and stop putting pressure on myself to make something contextual - and I'm struggling for references.  MSB mentioned tapping into the PMAG's photo archive - which is a genus idea so I'll contact them.

The black hog is in there because I pulled out an animal from the witch trial records of Salem, and there was reference to a black pig. In the 16th century you were more likely to see a black hog, the black pigs recognised as traditional country pigs now didn't land till the 18th century. Tapped in to some Irish origins story about land; Black Pigs Dyke- a ditch created by the tusks of a pig.

 Finished messing with this crow.. I do feel these practice paintings help when I approach others,,.

This painting is a little larger and taps into what I've being playing with in swatches. I don't want to move from photos- but I'm still trying to combine real references with the realities that play out in your mind from abstraction. I wanted to leave sections of c canvas after going in with an acrylic base so used gesso to protect some areas -

Think it needs bigger brushes and bolder marks - too small and it starts forming its own details. I was thinking about Helen Molesworth, in Machines for slowness..talking about a cartoonist exhibition that she saw as a child - the cartoonist painted his daughter into the work and left a number by his signature so that people knew how many girls to find; she says this taught her about "Looking" 

Slow art and it's need in todays fast world is really important to me, and I creeps into croK. 

I'm thinking about what I can hide in my work to make people look - I've explored this before with the iconopgraphy but its something I'm keen to explore further -almost as a statement to art as protest and an educational tool.

There are some gorgeous artists appearing in the lineup for the we would be witches exhibition, with many using naturally foraged items to create art and activities. made me consider tapping into folke more.

There's no definitive on witches, folk tradition and paganism - they bleed into each other... I came across something today that referenced the devil as the Dark Lord, the embodiment of free will.. I've literally scratched the surface of what I'm looking at.

Found this paper Cultural Appropriation in Contemporary Witchcraft and Neopaganism, when trying to figure out any separation between folk tradition and witchcraft. (What was preserved and why v what was feared and erased?)

Folc - from proto-germanic fulca - common people - back to social class and superstition being kicked out of the labour resource. Music, dance, literature (fairy tale, fable, myth, legend) passed orally through generations (from medieval times until tales were written, compared and recognised as literature - which removes the creativity of always being able to embellish the stories as they were told.. (bloody chamber) 

) v cunning folk (healers) v witches - black /dark magic. .... embodiment of free will?

Dimensions :

common people / social class / bread and earth (land being taken and carved up) nature knowledge passed through matriarchal lineage