The big apple
Wow, amazing totally overwhelming!! This was my exact feelings when stepping off the coach at New York City. It exceeded my expectations. The first thing I remember seeing is huge grey buildings that surrounded me everywhere, the streets full of workers, suits with trainers, not what you would expect I know. The rush and excitement that buzzed around you was fascinating. Walking the streets was a thrilling experience.
I always remember being so nervous about going to New York with the crime you always heard about, however once there it was amazing how safe I felt, I don’t know if it was the excitement of being in this amazing city or if it was just the fact I wasn’t focusing on being scared any longer. The rush of taxis coming from all directions was like shots of colour ripping through the streets.
The buildings were like blocks; they were everywhere and looked so neatly organised, all different sizes creating a beautiful landscape. They were truly overwhelming and amazing to look at. Walking through time square was my highlight. The adrenaline pumping through my body, there was just so much colour everywhere; all the buildings had colours darting through them, some decoration, and some advertisement. I didn’t know where to look at first; my attention was being caught from all different directions. Everything was big; they didn’t do things in small!! The noise created by the traffic and the people that filled up the streets was buzzing and I could feel the energy bouncing from them.
Getting the subway was so frightening yet so exciting, the rush of it, and all the people literally running for their train and rushing from place to place, it was fascinating to watch.
I always remember one thing that really stuck in my mind from this trip, there was an actual full sized mini attached to a side of a building. I had to look twice just to make sure I wasn’t imagining things; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing and couldn’t help wondering how they got it there.
My place of arrival that I chose to work with for this task was Arillas in Corfu, this is where i spent my holiday last year. I chose this place as as soon as i arrived in Corfu there was amazing views from every angle. The entire journey from the airport to my hotel was full of interesting shapes and colours. I selected a few photographs to draw from to show a few of the things i found interesting.
This was the view not long after leaving the airport, I was fascinated by all the random towns situated inbetween trees and valleys, This one stood out in particular as the way the small buildings and houses gradually lessened as they got further from the road created a great angle.
I loved how the grouping of squares and rectangles also created an interesting cluster of shapes and could be the inspiration for many patterns.
This image is from when i had arrived at my hotel, It was more beautiful than i had expected and created great photo opportunities, this is apool side shot that i took as i thought the umberella and bridge created an also postc
ard like image. The bright colours and interesting shapes allowed me to use colour in a delicate way and create a very different drawing in comparison to the first.
This image was one taken by the pool side in the evening time, I really liked the sadows created on the water from the sunset, and as the air is so calm the water is still and creates an almost perfect reflection. The slight silhouettes of the umberellas and tables creates a very photogenic image.
Having lived by the countryside for my entire life, Manchester is a stark contrast, coming from green fields and trees, to a concrete jungle. The plants and flowers are what I miss most about home, so much so that I'd like to 'bring' a garden to Manchester. I'd like to explore what a city garden could be like, I know that they do exist, but they are far and few between. I'd also like to explore bringing the outside inside, creating a garden inside the studio perhaps. For me a garden is a place to escape to on a sunny day, to be surrounded by bright flowers and vibrant green leaves, it's generally a place of relaxation, which I think sometimes is needed within the studio. Sometimes it gets tiring looking at grey buildings and grey skys in Manchester, an injection of colour is what's needed, which I think could be achieved by bringing a garden to Manchester.
Colour plays a big part in why I'm so inspired by gardens and nature, there's so much colour to play with and mix, especially when looking at colour through the seasons, from the firey autumnal colours, the dark winter colours, the vibrant, hot summer colours, and with spring more delicate, flashes of yellow daffodils and green shoots, after a dull winter.
The growth of a plant can be fascinating, to look at the roots, and how they wind through the ground, and sprout through the soil, looking at the textures being created, the soft petels against the gravelly soil and the odd hard rock inbetween. Even looking at the more scientific aspect, through plant anatomy, looking at the structure and development of flowering plants.
To me it's at a hidden paradise that locks out the hustle and bustle of everyday life.
A distant place that you may think you could only imagine or dream of.
The air is fresh and clear as though it may have never been breathed in before. The winding maze like lanes lead you down to unknown coves where you can stay for hours on end and not be disturbed. A narrow lane packed in by fields of cows on either side leads you to a hidden farm, a plank of wood suspended from two long pieces of rope tied to an old oak tree gently moves in the summer breeze.
A large old barn sits besides a stone farm house with ivy crawling up the walls. Stacks of hey are built up to the roof and a slightly rustling noise catches your attention. A little sandy donkey glares at you with his wide brown eyes as though he is welcoming you as birds scatter around above your head in the lofts of the barn.
Through a wide wooden gate is a small caravan that sits between thousands of strands of grass and looks over a sea of patchwork fields. At night the stars glisten and shine through a vast black velvet sheet which rests upon the tops of fields. It's as though your nearly in space.
The beach is buried underneath a large cliff with steep deep steps cast in the side leading down, a large stretch of wet sand with sinking foot prints in covers miles of ground, the violent sea crashes up against harsh grey rocks which break up the view and section off areas so they become caves and rock pools where people who appear like scattered dots of colour sit.
'Contour States is the first major UK public solo show by British artist Samantha Donnelly. With a strong interest in the images presented in today’s media that continue to idealise and objectify the human form, the exhibition features new work that explores representations of female identity in photography, TV, film and advertisements.'
http://www.cornerhouse.org/art/art-exhibitions/samantha-donnelly
Although this work isn't something that usually interests me I think it tied in with the idea of expression through sculpture... something which we are thinking about? The idea of representing our identity as students in a new educational environment. Food for thought...
Lucy
I found the Hotspur house talk/tour interesting. I like the idea of working in a run down building and creating exciting and creative things. This links really well with our group "Living It" as we can come up with some really interesting ideas about filling a space...
'Yarn bombing' is something that has interested me for a while now.... to be it is the perfect way to transform something everyday... the best way we tipsters know how? Why not transform a space in Hotspur house? A great way to make our mark and start bringing some life into that old basement. Get your knitting needles out girls?
Whilst walking down Oxford Road I seen something that really caught my eye. The art work that was on the street walls really excited me and inspired me. These wall paintings are expressive and interesting. I like the way the boring brick wall has been transformed into something alive and full of colour and energy..
We can think about the exterior of a buliding as well as the interior..
Creating an exciting exterior for a building can give it character and make it almost come alive..
So every Wednesday at 7pm there's a film night at Hotspur House, I've been to two so far. It's such an interesting building to have a film night in, it has quite an eery feel with the lights out!
The first film was The Cook, the Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover - probably not the best film to start on, as I think a lot of people would be put off by the gore of this film & presume that every film after it would be the same!
The film was about a really awful & disgusting man, who owned a restaurant, where he took his wife to dine every night. You can tell from the beggining that his wife no longer wants to be with him, but she cannot stand up to him as he will beat her. Across the restaurant is a book shop owner, a regular diner, who the wife begins to have an affair with. This continues throughout the film, with the help of the workers of the restaurant, they sneak off into the back numerous times. The husband, of course, finds out about this affair, and tortures a young boy who works at the restaurant to find out where his wife is, the boy is carrying a book from the lovers bookshop, which of course has the address of the bookshop. The boy is taken to hospital, which his wife learns of, & she goes to visit him. Whilst she's away, her husband storms the bookshop, to find his wife's lover, and when they do, they torture him to death by force feeding him books. - this part was awful!!
The wife later finds the body, and as revenge on her husband, asks the chef to cook the body and serve it to her husband to eat, he eats a bite, then she shoots him in the head.
Not a particulary cheery film, but it did keep your attention the entire way through, I did really like the way the film was shot, the wife was wearing some gorgeous outfits designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, which changed colour everytime they entered a different room, which was a really interesting touch. Most of the film had quite dramatic music throughout also accompanied by a young boy soprano, singing opera most of the way through. It was definitely full of odd touches!
This visit was very useful and gave me lots of ideas for the project, such as
My window is wound down in the car, country air blowing through my hair brushing against my sun warmed skin. All I can see around me is greenery. The car turns off down a gravel path, the bush fences give way to a large field filled with busy bodies and cars. Families start unloading their cars. I see the ocean on my left, calm and still, nearly blending with the blue sky, clear of all clouds. I step out of the car grabbing my bag, following the other tourists down the steep declining pathway, dusty mud whips up in the air by the movement of peoples eager feet. We finally get to a platform where you can view over the whole cove. This feels like no where else in Britain, the air clean, no stench of rotting fish and seaweed; the water and sand so clean, the sun shining so strongly it warms your body right through. I continue down the pathway toward the sand, large boulders start to appear so we have to clamber over them. I finally reach the sand and take my sandals off to feel the warm, soft dry sand envelope my feet. 
This talk was very interesting as he spoke about how important it is to get connected with Manchester and as an artist/ designer to get your work and ideas seen by the public. He told us about the companies such as Crowdfunder and Kickstarter that help fund unknown artists to get exhibition space. Also different artists studios such as
He also told us about the Skyliner blog that he works on with another artist.
I went to the second film night at Hotspur House last night, and i'm pleased to say that this was a much more cheerier film! I'd really recommend everyone going to at least a couple, as they seem to show films that you wouldn't normally watch. This week it was a comedy called 'Airplane!', I had heard of the film, but never watched it before, and don't think i'd ever have picked it out to watch.
This film was basically about a couple who were on the verge of seperating, as the man is 'too stuck in the past' and his partner says she can no longer deal with it. She works as an air hostess, and says she's changed her shift to go to Chicago, so she can no longer see him. He cannot bare to lose her so buys a ticket onto her flight.
What was to follow throughout the film is hilarious, I found it a really fun film. The whole thing was a parody of a disaster film, with absurd jokes and slapstick comedy throughout.
I don't want to say too much about what happens incase anyone fancies watching it at anypoint themselves, but I'd really recommend it.
I really enjoyed the talk from John Davies about the slide library, and I think it's great that he's so enthusiastic about saving the collection. I think it would be such a shame for a collection of over 300,000 slides to go to waste. I'm really keen to try and make use of slides within my project.
It's given me all sorts of ideas about making my own slides, using acetates etc, and projecting them, using layerying, projecting imagery onto walls to draw from.
www.flickr.com/photos/mmuvisualresources is the link to look at just a section of the collections!
I went in myself to ask about slides to do with gardens, and the amount that he came up with was amazing and I ended up spending at least 2 hours going though them all and choosing 30 slides to take out. He was so helpful with it all, you can take the slides out for 2 weeks, but that can be extended if you want, and also you can use the projectors and take them to the studio to draw from etc just need to check when it's free first!
It's really worth just asking him if there's anything at all relevant to your project just to get new inspirations. I found some images I would have never thought to look for before if I hadn't had a look through the slides.
Rhian and I were lucky enough to be able to attend a Fashion Fringe roadshow talk on Wednesday.
Fashion Fringe is an annual award platform – founded by Colin McDowell in 2003 in conjunction with IMG Fashion – offering talented emerging designers the chance to launch their label in London through a combined programme of mentoring, studio space, financial support and a catwalk show at London Fashion Week.
We were lucky enough to attend a talk with one of Britians most celebrated designers, who started off his education here in Manchester, before moving to London to attend Central St.Martins. Everyone seemed in awe of the designer and what he has achieved. He was extremely down to earth and appreciated that he did really land on his feet. Talking about Jade Jagger and Kate Moss walking in his very first show in 1997 and his first time in the Vogue offices, strolling in with his first collection in big bags- surreal!
The conversation mainly focused on young designers today trying to make their mark in the industry. Willamson was nothing but encouraging.
A very inspiring man.
http://www.fashionfringe.co.uk/apply/apply-here/
Lucy
