Maxine
Bristow
Sunday 1st June 2003
There is very little to report this month,
mainly for the reason that I have done very little! This is
the busiest assessment point of the college year and in addition
to the studio work and preparing for final year degree shows
there have been the Critical and Contextual Studies essays
and dissertations to mark.
Where I have managed to snatch the odd
day/half-day at the weekend I have still been sample casting
the light-switch boxes. The sampling is protracted because
of drying time as I only have a couple of moulds and for every
speculative decision I make I then have to wait for a couple
of days to see the results. I have now cast 18 and still haven’t
resolved the issue! The casting itself isn’t particularly
complicated [after all we are only talking about a simple
shallow box] but I am still not yet happy with the results.
I am looking for a ‘clean’,
accurate, sharp-edged cast but the white sand, though fine,
when mixed with the concrete still causes the edges to chip,
as do the fine granite chippings. As a result, I have gone
back to thinking about using plaster or a mixture of plaster
and concrete. In addition to the technical problems there
are the aesthetic decisions about the quality of the material.
Though I want the cast forms to be ‘clean’ and
hard-edged and a contrast to stitched wool inserts, I still
want them to have a material sensuality, I am thinking about
the smoothness and ‘warmth’ of the kind of concrete
employed in much contemporary architecture such as the new
stations of the Jubilee Line or the Manchester City Gallery
extension. I am also thinking about materials such as granite
and other forms of stone which can be simultaneously both
warm and cold. Indeed stone would my preferred choice for
the box element of the light-switches if it wasn’t for
all the resourcing and practical making difficulties that
I would encounter. I suppose in adding the granite chippings
or the carborundum to the plaster/concrete mix, I am trying
to make something which, whilst not pretending to be stone,
maybe has some of its qualities. I am also reminded of the
work of David Binns which I greatly admire. The problem is
getting the proportion of aggregate to plaster/concrete right.
I have tried two sizes of granite chippings, the larger ones
tend to read as incidents within a surface and have consequently
looked too fussy or decorative. To resolve this problem of
a contrast between the white of the plaster and the granite
chippings I have used the finer chippings and tried smaller
and smaller quantities of granite to plaster/concrete. I have,
however, just had a rethink and now have drying, a sample
where I have gone to the opposite extreme and used very large
amounts of chippings where the plaster/concrete is merely
used as a means of binding them together. If this doesn’t
work I will go back to sampling with the much finer carborundum
powder.
In making aesthetic judgements about
formal qualities, a concern with this, as with all my work,
is the balance between the two mutually modifying forces of
austerity and sensuality, how a strong material sensuality
can be communicated through the minimal of means. It is a
material sensuality made all the more powerful through restraint,
where minimalist strategies of reduction and systematic order
are purposely employed to deny any emotional engagement. The
minimalist strategies are a regulatory order superimposed
on the somatic sensuality of cloth, but cloth always has the
potential to disrupt any rational coherence. What is significant
is the fine balance between the two elements. In formal terms,
with the ‘light- switches’, it is the contrast
between the softness of the stitching against the smooth unyielding
surface of the cast plaster/concrete. What seems to be crucial
is the way that the stitched/fabric element physically cuts
into or is embedded into the smooth surface of the plaster/concrete.
This seems to have a resonance with the way [although in reverse]
that the crisp cotton/linen buttonholes cut into the softly
quilted fabric of the bags or the way that a tightly ribbed
cotton piping embeds into a panel of soft felted wool. However,
it is not softness alone, what also seems to be of crucial
significance is a kind of compactness or density - the density
of a quilted surface, a felted wool, or a tightly stitched
surface [which has itself been created on a grid through laboriously
repetitive action].
It is my intention that these pieces
have a quietness, an anonymity, but paradoxically I also want
them to have a strong material presence. Again it is trying
to get the balance just right!
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Kyoko Nitta
- May
Pockets are a necessity for me. This
season, I saw many of them on the streets. I’m quite
happy about it. The most recent ‘pockets’ I have
seen were at a gallery in Kyoto where an artist was holding
her solo tapestry exhibition. It was a navy dress and many
pink pockets were stitched onto it in various different sizes.
I asked her whether it was from Marimecco. And her answer
was of course, yes!.
If pockets were introduced as a trend
in the fashion industry, it could mean that at some point
in the future, pockets could become extinct. This idea bothered
me a lot. What could happen to all the pockets on my skirts?
If anyone from the fashion industry is reading this, please
let the pockets survive. They are useful, like a little bag.
Further, pockets are the entrance into
an unknown space. This reminds me of the nursery song about
the endless biscuits in the pocket. Regardless of the rapid
waves of fashion trends, there is still one item which has
always some pockets and which has been loved for such a long
time. It is jeans. Usually jeans have five pockets. It is
a wonderful thing when it has five doors into the unknown
spaces. It is a perfect item that one could wear almost anytime
and anywhere. I cannot imagine anything better than this.
I borrowed some jeans from my friends,
from the project actually. I’ve got five of them so
far. I make copies of those jeans with cotton organza. Now
I’m making the first copy of my corduroy ones which
I wore in Chester. I want to make more by the next month.
Recently I met the second artist on the project from UK, Ealish
Wilson, who has been taught by Maxine. I want to know more
about it next time when I see her.
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