Review and Outline Study Plan
The MA is already a wealth of insights and ideas, and I’m
glad I have recorded as much as possible in my blog. Not all realisations come
at once, and some ideas have a different cycle so that they become relevant
later. Looking back, I realise I have fulfilled my intentions while planning
this unit in maintaining and extending research, reading and reflection, while
involving myself in making an absorbing piece of moving image. I also realise
that research is a dynamic area of discovery for me – I find that the most
fruitful research is that which I happen upon and discover is relevant to my
work, rather than planned research.
Reflective Tool and Strategies
I researched and collated various reflective tools and
strategies, mostly from online University resources. My intention was to pick
out the best suggestions and combine them into a reflective mechanism which
would cover all angles and so be the most effective. This was not
straightforward, and became confusing and counterproductive. However, all the
reading and processing fed into my general awareness of reflection and helped
me to consider many sides and aspects of my practice. In the end I had to
revise my written reflections as they had become disordered, and I learned that
it is best for me to contemplate my compiled list of reflective questions, but
not necessarily to stem my reflective flow by attempting to answer all of those
questions every time I reflect.
Reflective Practice Questionnaire
At the beginning of the MA we completed a questionnaire, and
it was fascinating to reread that and consider how much has changed and deepened
in a couple of years. Answering questions is surprising and revealing, and a
useful measure of current state of thinking. There’s something about being
confronted with a question which elicits new thinking and responses. I
particularly notice how I am much more able to be explicit about my ideas and
influences, and how I can document my process. I also realise I am more clued
in to various aspects of working within the arts.
Group Seminars and Crits
The notes from these sessions are becoming an increasingly
valuable resource. I have always enjoyed talking to other artists about the
ideas within work. Despite the cohort’s variation in practice, we have much to
share. Some of the characteristics of all our work this year has been a
deepening sense of encoding which drives working process, and which dictates
the outcome of the work. It’s been fascinating to discuss this within the group
rather than a solitary practitioner, and I find that when one of us moves on or
has a revelation about their work, I feel that revelation also applies to
myself. There are underlying parallels in disparate work.
Tutorials
I have been reminded that I do not review all my MA
tutorials enough. I still have recommendations and research to follow through
from previous tutorials, but actually, the main benefit is the gist of talking
to my tutors, and the feel of how work and realisations are progressing. One of
the best insights this year came from tutor Caroline, when discussing music,
she made a comment about ruthlessly exploiting my past. This remark has had a
profound effect upon me, and allowed me to breathe more easily about using
music without feeling inhibited about trying to relearn all that difficult
music theory I have long since forgotten.
Practice Plan Review
Revising the Practice Plan and adding new responses to those
of the initial Plan in 2011 was above all encouraging. Some plans have altered,
but I have added much to my qualifications and experience, as well as
transformed the processing of my art practice. I am still determined that the
MA will be of great practical use, and it is timely to refresh the initial reasoning
and commitment to signing up. I have a better idea of maintaining a fruitful
career as an artist, and I enjoyed making the new five year aims – integrated
art practice and life plans, as it has always been my quest to live a
functioning creative life.
Formal Feedback
The art of statement writing is a continual exercise.
Usually there are word limits and audience considerations which require a great
deal of choice and editing. Throughout the MA we have practiced this in various
forms, and it is useful to learn from each other. Sarah in particular correctly
interpreted my statement about Myriad as a get-out clause against potential
criticism! There is no one correct formula, but a series of judgements. I enjoy
writing statements and the challenge of distilling my intention into words, and
I am keenly aware of matching the text to the work.
Reviewing Artists Statement and Incorporating Realisations from the MA
Meeting up with the curator Lucy Day was a timely chance to
review my artist statement – I looked at it last year, and found it was still
what I wanted. However, this time I had the idea of remembering and reviewing
key phrases, pieces of writing and ideas I had already written within the MA,
and using them.
The process of
reworking the statement still continues, as I now have a master-statement with
paragraphs I can choose according to situations and requirements. Even more
editing and summarising will allow me to distil my statement further. I want to
pack in as many key concepts as I can, while keeping it both readable and
poetic. I realise that I have a great resource in my MA blog of considered
thoughts and research which help me to express exactly what I mean to say in
art. My master-statement includes references to other artists and influential
ideas which I found a difficult thing to admit to before, as I felt that
deflected readers form my own ideas, but now I realise that it offers more
insights and understandings, and signals my areas of thinking.
Dyslexia Tutor
I had an enlightening talk with my Dyslexia tutor. Our
meetings usually work best when we don’t have a specific agenda or issue, and
we discussed the current Reflective Practice unit and the entire MA. I told her
how I had attempted to pre-empt difficulties by devising a Reflective Tool I
would simply fill in regularly which would then be straightforward to summarise
when it came to submission. Although I know allowing a reflective process to
grow organically as I make work and process ideas is most natural to me, I
understood the point of the MA exercise in more formally structuring and
documenting the reflections, and I wanted to participate in that.
However, I was also able to realise that I get into less of
a blind panic when facing a dyslexic mismatch in information than I did at the
beginning of the MA, and I have more inner trust that I will be able to sort it
out easier.
Reflecting Through Work
There have been a lot of echoes of previous work, concerns
and themes throughout this year- more than before. I am more consciously aware
of picking up the threads of lifelong ideas in work while I’m doing it. I am
also allowing references to previous pieces in my documentation. I feel it
strengthens all the micro-connections in my thinking and recurrent themes of
work. I often rework ideas about light or pace in different ways, and can
present my art more as an entire body of work rather than a series of individual
pieces.
MA Making Day
The making day was an enjoyable microcosm of practice. The
reflective filter of this year allowed me to question every action, and unpeel
it further to notice my deeper motivations and tendencies. I particularly
allowed myself to be process-led, and found that I concluded with an
interesting kernel of work, the Found People Vermeer moving image sample, whose
stages of development and conceptual shifts I could track. The following images
show the progression of ideas from object to photograph with shadow, to moving
image stills:
(Here various images of Found People -http://eleanormacfarlane.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/making-day.html)
Reflective Interviews
I found the interviews immensely useful and surprising. It’s
a great way of stimulating apt thoughts and phrases about work and practice
which would have not occurred otherwise. Although we had prepared questions,
and probably internally answered these of ourselves, I found myself dredging up
new responses to questions, and reviewing my notes, found some were useful for
incorporating into my statement. It’s the other like-minded person which is the
catalyst. Those phrases and insights we give ourselves and each other become
more precious nuggets of meaningful text.
Seminar Reflective Practice Review
The Reflective Practice has engendered more trust and
honesty amongst the MA group. The work has been much more self-directed this
year, which suits me well, but punctuated with a variety of group exercises and
discussions. Although I have been working and writing as I go along, I now find
that because of the nature of reflection, most of the work for assessment comes
at the end of the unit, rewritten retrospectively.
Student Conversations
All of us have gone through an intense journey of working
through reflection, and like the interviews, it was the unexpected questions
amidst much self pondering which gave fruitful responses. Significant to me was
my talk with Jo. She had started the unit by planning a series of paintings of
a young woman, by way of getting to know her better. Jo recently realised she
had never been painting this girl at all, and that all the work about her had
really been about herself. She was realising that her work is deeply personal,
and revealing of her inner self, which she found exposing and terrifying. I had
just finished the completed visuals on my moving image piece, which I found moving
but unexpectedly sad. Talking to Jo made me realise how searingly personal that
work is, and how, despite what might be seen as the neutral imagery of bricks, it
exposes some of my deepest thoughts and fears about my own psychology.
Making Construction
This moving image piece was enormously time consuming and
intricate. It involved many bulk and repetitive tasks, and thousands of
individual choices in frames and sound moments. Making it in the midst of
reflecting gave me many hours of examining all the layers of choices I was
making, and thinking about why I make the work I do. My conclusions on this are
for another place, but I notice that in my initial planning for this unit I
stated that I wanted to reflect through making a large work, and I have done
that.
Unit Reflections
My written reflections turned out to be a lesser element of
this unit, partly because I got into such a muddle with the mechanism. The main
reflections were integrated into other writings and reflections, but I
recognise the value of the struggles I had, and how they deepened the quality
of how I reflect generally – I am more able to consider a range of questions
and points rather than simply being reflective without critique.
Towards the Final Project
I have started collecting imagery for my final project –
Found Paintings, which lead directly on from Street Compositions and Bricks. I
have been practicing how a 24 hour moving image piece could work in my head all
year, and I am ready to immerse myself in the practical and meaningful aspects
of it.
I also plan investigation and research into the area of
creativity, especially issues around artists making work for themselves, or commissioning
other to realise their ideas. Although I have a personal preference in this,
and believe that involvement and engagement with making is a reflexive process
for the artist, and that is by wrestling with media, learning and adapting
techniques that new forms of art are forged, I am not suggesting all artists should
do this. I have been reflecting much upon my own process during this year, and
would like to challenge, understand and deepen my thinking in this.
1998 words
Reflective Review Bibliography
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http://compendium.open.ac.uk/institute/library/briefings.htm. Last accessed 1st
May 2013.
Davies, C. (2013). Kolb Learning Cycle Tutorial. Available:
http://www.ldu.leeds.ac.uk/ldu/sddu_multimedia/kolb/static_version.php. Last
accessed 26th April 2013.
Moon, J. (2000.) Reflection
in Learning and Professional Development: Theory and Practice. London,
Kogan Page.
Myers and Briggs. (2013). Understanding MBTI Type
Dynamics. Available:
http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/understanding-mbti-type-dynamics/.
Last accessed 1st May 2013.
Open University. (2013). Postgraduate Study Skills. Available:
http://www2.open.ac.uk/students/skillsforstudy/postgraduate-study-skills.php.
Last accessed 26th April 2013.
University of Bradford. (2013). Reflection models
and frameworks. Available:
http://www.bradford.ac.uk/wimba-files/skill-space/Reflective_Writing_HTML/page_04.htm.
Last accessed 26th April 2013.
Southampton Solent University. (2013). Reflective Writing
Tools. Available:
http://mycourse.solent.ac.uk/mod/book/view.php?id=2732&chapterid=1107. Last
accessed 26th April 2013.
Weintraub, L. (2003). Making
contemporary art : how today’s artists think and work. London, Thames &
Hudson.
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