Initial sketchbook pages

At this point I am just experimenting with different figures which I could potentially use within my pages; I am not thinking too much about the composition or the ideas yet as I'm focusing a little more on my essay as I'd like to get to a good stage before the christmas holidays. Although, I am already starting to see some of these working with some of the ideas I came up with which is exciting. As you can see they aren't refined at all at the moment but it's good to practice, and to get an idea of the shapes I can use and which figures will work best. 

IDEAS

IDEAS FOR MY BOOK/ZINE:

• draw something big, small and something small big: what about a mouse next to a house? or a great dane next to a pomeranian?
• if you could grow anything, what would you grow? (draw in a pot)
• (make a grid) draw a shape in each square, then pick your favourite shape and try and make it 3D!
• draw an animal with your eyes closed, get your friend to guide you. give it a name
• (draw a figure) draw this person a hat!
• draw or pick a piece of fruit...turn it into a person
• pick a colour, do a drawing in all different of that one colour
• draw the sky
• (empty vending machine) what would you like to see in a  vending machine? draw in the spaces
• draw something within the constraints of a shape, square/circle etc
• draw your day! (a number of empty squares on the page with times at the top, 6am, 7am etc)
• latte art? draw a picture into a latte
• (a figure doing yoga/meditation with thought bubble) what are you thinking about?
• make a new emoji
• what is your favourite piece of art? re-create it (include images of famous pieces of art work in a gallery setting?)
• you're having a clear out, draw 10 things you would throw away
• you're going somewhere, what are you taking in your backpack? where are you going?
• maybe a 'make a mess' page? instructions to find materials to make a mess with
• prompts throughout: use bright colours/'you don't have to stick to the shapes'/use different materials/'don't worry about making it look nice'/'be messy if you like'

NEXT STEPS?

the idea I have in mind to use collage, hand drawn and digital all combined together. I think i'd like to include character design into it somehow, as I think this could make it quite fun and playful. so I think my next steps are probably to start sketching some characters and thinking about how i'd like to layout my pages. 

A conversation with an Art Therapist

Recently I got in touch with an art therapist to ask a couple of questions about the practice of art therapy but also for some information about my dissertation topic. It was really interesting talking to someone with this kind of insight, and it has definitely informed my essay; it it almost an 'against argument' that open work can be beneficial within this context, so that is an interesting point for my essay. 

CASE STUDY: Keri Smith

LINKS:

• https://makezine.com/2007/06/04/interview_with_keri_smith/
• http://www.kerismith.com/WishJarTales/brainfactor_interview.pdf
• http://www.kerismith.com/bio
• http://about-creativity.com/an_interview_with_keri_smith/

USEFUL QUOTES:

• "for most people working in a journal can be intimidating- many are afraid to make a mistake. The journal itself becomes a precious thing. The blank page a big hurdle"
• "make a journal where the context was solely based on experimentation"
• "the book itself is filled with prompts of this nature which instruct you to systematically destroy it. For some people this can be incredibly freeing"
• "wanted to create work that was very much a physical experience connected to daily life"
• "doing work in a controlled way does not make for interesting results"
• "our culture teaches us that there is a standard that is most desirable and that things that are imperfect are less desirable"
• "You can also see this applied to the emotional realm - dark, ugly, or negative emotions are deemed dysfunctional"
• "I love the idea of creating books that give people more of a direct experience with life instead of walking through it passively"
• "creativity is the ability to perceive things (and the world) from many different angles in a non-judgemental way"
• "by 'wrecking' something we are transforming it"
• "the book is a place for ideas and processes to exist without judgement"
• "I like the idea of creating a work where the reader becomes a participant in an experience (as opposed to a passive witness)"
• "there may be hundreds or thousands of possible solutions to a problem, the 'book' then has many different 'lives or permutations and will change depending on the depending on the perceptions of the user"
• "I am interested in what the writer Umberto Eco has called "the open work", works of art that call upon performers, readers, viewers or listeners to complete or realise them"

INSPIRATION: Keri Smith, Wreck this Journal

A reply from nousvous !

Feeling really happy that I got a lovely, long reply from nousvous after I emailed them some questions, such a quick response too! After reading through the answers I got I knew it would be incredibly beneficial in my research, and quite a few quotes jumped out at me that I will definitely be including in my essay! These are some quotes that stood out to me the most:

• "we find that people engage a lot more in what you're trying to communicate if they enjoy doing it"
• "we also try and avoid doing things that have been done lots of times before"
• "you have to strike a fine balance between it being fun and simplistic, but create a gateway for a more intellectual rigour"
• "we tend to feel that if we're not introducing something new people more easily fall into their comfort zone and don't engage as much as you'd like them to - if we just said go and draw some stuff in the gallery (like a lot of gallery guides do), people are so well versed in this and bored by it to some extent"

Carolina A. Drake 2013, Umberto Eco, What is an 'open work' of art?: The Open Work and its Constraints

• https://areyouhungup.wordpress.com/2013/07/31/umberto-eco-what-is-freeing-what-is-liberating-about-an-open-work/ 
• "The work created rejects the definitive, concluded message and rather multiplies the formal possibilities of distribution and performances"
• "the author seems to hand them on to the performer more of less like the components of a construction kit"
• "The work is completed by one performer, but it is not closed because there are hundreds of other performers who will give it different closures, selecting from Stockhousen's options provided by his work"

I found this article really helpful while researching for my essay- and definitely found some valuable quotes. As the book itself is quite a difficult read it was it's good to get another persons take on it; I'm definitely starting the idea of 'open work' properly, even though I thought it might of been impossible when I first opened the book!

NOUSVOUS: HEADEYENHEART summer school

I think this is a pretty perfect example of the type of thing i'd like to create for my COP practical. This is a little workbook which accompanied some workshops over the summer by NOUSVOUS collective. I love how abstract the ideas within the interactive workbook are and it's something I've never seen be done before- I feel like creating something super original can be a lot more engaging. I also love the aesthetics of the book itself, combining some handmade textures and marks with photographs and grids.

I decided it would be a good idea to compose an email to send over to nousvous asking some questions about headeyenheart as there isn't a whole lot of information about it on their website . 

This is a draft of an email i'm going to send over to them:

Hi there ! 

My name is Marnie and I'm currently studying at Leeds Arts University in my third year and working on my extended essay. The topic I have decided to focus on is open ended work and creative expression, and while I was researching my tutor suggested I had a look at the project you worked on over summer; HEADEYENHEART. I absolutely loved what I saw of the little workbooks that were made and this is exactly the type of thing I'd like to base my research on and potentially produce something similar myself.

I was just wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions about the workbooks and the workshops that accompanied them? As this would be super useful to me for my research and essay writing!

The questions I'd like to ask are:

What were the most important aspects for you to include while producing the workbooks/workshops? What did you try and include to engage people?

Did you have a specific target audience in mind (if so, who was it?) or did you try and make it as broad as possible?

Where did you get the inspiration from to produce this? and where did you get the inspiration from while creating it? I love how abstract the ideas are on some of the pages, they feel very contemporary, nothing like anything i've seen before! 

What kind of workshops did you run? & who seemed to engage the most?

Thank you! 

I'm not sure how likely it is they'll reply as i'm sure they get a bunch of emails everyday although i'm keeping hopeful.

THE OPEN WORK- Umberto Eco

• "Internal art is open in that it proposes a wider range of interpretive possibilities, a configuration of stimuli whose substantial indeterminacy allows for a number of possible readings" p84
• "the more improbable, ambiguous, unpredictable and disordered the structure, the greater the information" p93
• "certain forms of communication demand meaning- others, instead, seek to convey to their readers sheer information, an unchecked abundance of possible meaning" p94
• "does not proclaim the death of the form; rather, it proposes a new, more flexible version of it" p103
• "Every performance exploits the composition, but it does not exhaust it. Every performance makes the work an actuality, but is itself only complementary to all other performances of the work" p15

COP3 PRESENTAION: my proposal revisited