Window Proposal

The theme of my project is 'Memories'. By collecting primary resourses, I collected objects throughout the summer and kept them in a box, objects such as photos, a top, a bow, a calendar, a candle etc. I also kept a journal throughout the summer, annotating, adding photographs, tickets, food packs, drawing and painting, to present every single day of my summer. It was all my own personal primary research. Me and my peers Johnny and Eva created 3 mindmaps of different subthemes, which were about the obvious that we all went through during the summer, which were; 'Being close to friends and family', 'The end of summer' and 'Enjoying youth'. We all gave several personal ideas to each subtheme, yet in the end we all chose our favourite that linked to our memories the most. I decided to go with 'being close to friends and family' as my experience during the summer was only surrounded by those two.

When I came back to school, I began to create an artist research and found 8 artist that all link to my theme in several ways. At first I researched Andy Warhol who linked to my theme by the collection of objects that meant something to him and kept them all in boxes, which I have then linked to Audrey Flack, who presents objects in different compositions very thoroughtly, linking to my idea as once again, she collects objects and uses them to emphasise her memories. These two artists perfectly link to my summer box, which gave me the idea to chose my one object from the box and expand it further in m future artist researches, however at that time it was too early for me to chose that one particular object.  Then i moved to Howard Hodgkin, who uses colour to emphasise his meaning or memory, yet doesn't explain what his works are about. Due to the memories emphasised through the use of colour, I found a relative artist to this idea, Charles M. Russell, who enhances colour to enhance his memories, from what he saw when he was a little boy, living between cowboys. The painting techniques of Hodgkin and Russell are completely different from one another, Hodgkin is dreamy and distorted, whereas Russell's is realistic, yet the idea of emphasising a feeling or a memory through the use of colour are very similar aspects of both of their works. This research showed me that I do not have to use an actual object to present my idea, I could use colour to emphasise the meaning just as well as the feeling that I felt in a memory of mine. Then I moved to Peter Callessen who cuts patterns from paper focusing on the idea of Life and Death. I linked this idea to my theme and came to a conclusion that most of my summer I spend at my uncles (Godfathers) house, keeping him company as he suffers from uncurable cancer. The idea of Life and Death made me think of my uncle straight away, as this was the most powerful and meaningful memory to me, this made me think that I could expand this idea further. In reference to Callessen's work, I found Elsa Mora's work who also cuts patterns from paper, transforming them into childhood stories such as Red Riding Hood or Alice in Wonderland. She does it to emphasise her childhood memories. The idea that I took from her work is if I plan to use paper in my final work, I should use colour to emphasise the feeling behing my work, which also links to the ideas of Howard Hodgkin and Charles M. Russell. The final artist I have researched is Ebon Heath, who cuts words from paper transforming them into a big pattern/sculpture, which I could use in my work to use the literal emphasis of an idea, and the pattern I would then transform the words into would be metaphorical. In my view, this is an amazing idea to consider in my final outcome. I have also used Tom Phillips to relate to Heaths work, as Phillips chooses meaningful words from a text, scraching all the words around them, emphasising that the meanigful ones should only stand out. This gave me an idea that instead of choosing random meaningful words, I could use this technique to circle words that in the end create a sentence that would be meaningful, which I could use in my final project.

After collecting such research, creating mindmaps and connecting the ideas together, my work will be about my uncle suffers from uncurable cancer, the idea is to emphasise happy memories I had with him and hopefully will through the literal use of words, metaphorical use through the shape of a candle and metaphorical use through colour. All will emphasise hope and that no matter what is happening now, as long as the light on the candle will burn there will always be hope for the better. I will use a candle from my box (Warhol/Flack) which I collected at a cementary at my aunties and uncles when I went with them to visit my greatgrandparents, which are their parents. I will use wax to create words/sentences (Callessen/Heath) from it at a large scale and transform them into a shape of a candle. The idea of wax initially came from the use of an actual candle. However, after the consultations with many different people, I came to a conclusion that wax on its own has a lot more meaning to this work, it could imply how fragile the situation is, yet as long as its taken care  by the happy memories and experiences, it will stay strong and so will he. I will also use colour (Hodgkin/Russell) either through the use of light, background material or colour of wax, to emphasise how I felt when I spend the happy moments with him and the ones I hopefully will. However, I still have a problem with the choice whether which one I should choose, or if I should perhaps use it all.

Before researching new artist after another, I always had different ideas influenced by them, that have always expand each time I researched a new artist, wheather it was the meaning or the technique. For example, after researching Warhol, Flack, Hodgkin and Russell, my plan was to focus on the momories I had with my boyfriend during the summer and the fact that our relationship was a long distance one, which is of course very meaningful to me, yet I still did not know how to clearly show it. After, I researched Callessen, who has completely changed my idea onto the theme of Life and Death which is a main theme of his work, however it has influenced me a lot to focus on my uncle instead, who is my family. Next researches of Mora, Heath and Phillips was nothing but the enhancement, improvement and most importantly inspiration for the idea of my uncle. The idea has slightly changed from life and death onto hope, and technique from the use of paper, onto the use of wax.

The location I will place my work in will be a window placed in my school, right at the front of the main entrance on the left wall, where everyone passes and can clearly see it. There are four windows right next to each other on one side, mine is second from the left, Johnny's third from the left and Eva's fourth. The measurements of the window are; height 60cm, width 29cm and length 35cm giving me a wide space to create a massive, 3D, strong piece of work. Large space on the inside, divided from other windows through a large board, the outside frame of the window is wooden (light), with a lock therefore no one will be able to open it apart from me, and a glass window, dividing the outside from the inside, therefore all locked up yet allowing the viewers to see the work clearly.

I have created three different sketches of how the work may look like, first one presents an average sized candle, fire hanged from the top, material/fabric all over the walls and the background, with lightning coming from the bottom. Second sketch shows a candle that's tall enough to almost reach to the ceiling of the window, which would allow me to create more words/sentences, everything else would be the same. Third image shows the words/sentences of the candle being slightly bend, creating a dreamy feeling of the candle, yet even though wax is easy to manipulate when mented, creating words that all together are bendy will be a very difficult task to do.

The materials that I am planning to use in particular is wax, I do not know yet weather it will be plain white or coloured wax. The whole sculpture I am planning to create will be made from wax. The background will be a large piece of black or white fabric, that will be covering the whole base of the window, the back, sides, bottom and if possible the top part over the ceiling. I am mainly considering a black background due to the fact that when I use lighting, it will only bounce off the wax, and the background will stay clear, whereas on white, the colours will bounce off the walls just as well as of the wax. However, the main problem is that if I use black then it will give a dark, sad, depressing impression to the viewer, and that is certainly not what I want to emphasise, as I do not want to focus on the sad aspects of his life yet on the happy aspects and memories that will give him hope. The lightning will be used either way, whether I use coloured or white wax, white or black background, I will use white light (as long as it does not end up being too hot, not to melt the wax) in purpose of the meaning to emphasise hope, and technique for the light to bounce off the wax and perhaps the background, depending on their colours.

What I must focus on however, is the maintainance of the materials I am planning to use. For instance, the light will be probably charged by the battery, meaning that when it runs out I will have to change it every once in a while. Fabric from the walls, if not attached properly it may fall anytime, risking that it will ruin my whole work. Therefore, it is increadibly essential for me to make sure that the fabric will be properly attached to the walls. What is also important is the thickness of the letters of the wax, if it ends up being too thin, it will break easily, which will be a massive problem as I want one line of words/sentences to be almost as long as one meter. Therefore, I must make sure that the letters are thick, carefully joined enough for them to stand straight, however, to make sure that it stays still, I could also put a line of wire behind the line of words, drag the wire all the way to the eiling, keeping the wax still and yet still not recognisable to the viewer, unless if they look closer. However, I could also use a metallic string, from the wax to the ceiling so that it was not recognisable by the viewer, and normal wire behind the words.

I do not want to use a lot of the wire, just about 10-15, one meter long pieces of wire to attach to the back of the wax, this should cost about 5/10 pounds. The fabric will be quite a large piece yet thin, easy to rip, therefore should cost about 5 pounds. I will use a large amount of wax to create the words/senteces, depending on how large the font will be, will depend on how much I will use it, however, by the size of the window, to be proportionally correct, I will use a large amount of wax, which should cost about 10-15 pounds. Plus the plastic frames for the wax shall cost about 5 pounds.

In conclusion, as always during the making something always ends up being changed, hopefully, after I create the testers, and everything will work just the way I hope it to, the whole project will end up looking just the way I wish it to.