Evaluation

The theme of my project is 'Memories'. I collected primary resourses, through collection of the objects throughout the summer and kept them in a box, such as photos, a top, a bow, a calendar, a candle etc. I also kept a journal through 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, which makes his works more personal to him. Due to the memories being emphasised through the use of colour, I found a relative artist to this idea, Charles M. Russell, who enhances colour to present his childhood 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. The moment I saw his works, I fell in love with them, I found so much inspiration and possibilities of what I could possibly do in my future works. 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 and spending as much time as possible with him as he suffers from incurable 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. This idea also links to Elsa Mora's presentation of childhood memories, I didn't exactly have to use my summer memories, they were only the start of inspiration, I then moved further to my childhood with my uncle, who I use to spend a lot of time with. Therefore presenting sentences from childhood would eventually link to Mora's works.

After collecting such research, creating mindmaps and connecting the ideas together, I have decided my work to be about my uncle and used the literal use of words, metaphorical use through the shape of a candle and metaphorical use through colour. I used 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 have also used 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 just as the wax is, yet as long as its taken care by the happy memories and experiences, which are the sentences, it will stay strong and so will he. I also used colour (Hodgkin/Russell) through the use of light, to emphasise how I felt when I spend the happy moments with him and the ones I hopefully will. I used an orange lightning purposely as it radiates warmth and happiness, combining the physical energy and stimulation of red with the cheerfulness of yellow. Orange offers emotional strength in difficult times. It helps us to bounce back from disappointments and despair, assisting in recovery from grief.

Before researching new artist after another, I always had different ideas influenced by each of them, that have always expanded 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 is a long distance one, which is of course very meaningful to me, yet I did not know how to clearly show it. After, I researched Callessen, who has completely changed my idea onto the theme of Hope, from his Life and Death, 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, 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 melted, creating words that all together are bendy would be a very difficult task to do.

The changes I made during the creation of the window are:
The letters broke throughout the making therefore, I had to fix them all and go over all sentences with another layer of wire, to make them stronger and more steady. Also, when I got to the window with all my sentences few of them broke, so I had to go back to fix them and then hang them up. Then at the very end, I planned to use little lights, put on each corner of the window, however, due to the fact that I could not change the colour of them by placing paper on top of them as it would then stop the light completely, therefore, I had to switch them to led lights, that were as effective as I hoped for them to be.

Final Outcome! Memories

I would like to present how I created my final outcome, by the help of photographs that I took on each stage of my work. First three images present the materials I had to use to create the wax letters, first one presents the pot which melted the wax by heating it up to a very high temperature, second image presents plastic letter frames that children use to play about with in the sand, and finally the third image presents the wax already poured in the plastic frames, with the metal wire dipped in each letter, so that it all stays together, and so that it would be able to hang later on. Me and Ms Jaffer decided to order two bosex of the plastic frames, one had large letters another small.

The image below presents a close up example of what I exactly did with the wire, purposely for it to be able to dip in the wax. I took a piece of wire about 20cm longer than the word it was used for, and bent it in the places of where it was ment to be dipped in, to be able to keep the letters next to one another, without falling apart. After few tries, I've realised how strong the wax gets when it dries (which takes over an hour) therefore, I had no worries of the wire to break out of the wax, as it was perfectly solid and strong.

    

After creating all the words, by the end bits of the wire that stook out on each end of the word, I joined them with other words, which eventually created sentences. At the begining and end of each sentence I also left about 10/15cm piece of wire hanging, purposely if I needed it in the window to hang them up. The image below presents all of the 9 sentences completed and ready to hang.

Also, at the end of creating each sentence I went over it one more time with a wire, as one piece seemed to be not strong enough to carry a whole sentence, which initially came out to be very heavy. Therefore, I have decided to go over it one more time, which was a good call as then the whole structure of the sentence seemed stronger and more stedy. The image below presents what I did.

However, just because the idea of going over the sentence again with a piece of wire, doesn't mean I had no problems during the development. For instance, the bottom image shows how strong the wire in the wax was as long as it stayed in the wax, however because the wire right over the wax was bended to move to another letter, the fact that it was bended and moved quite a lot, it easily broke (just like presented in the image, wire inside wax stayed unmoved, outside wax it broke).

Because those parts broke so easily, I had to overcame this problem by going over the whole letter with the wire, so that it could be connected to the ones next to it, not break, and be strong enough to keep the sentence together. Image below presents the idea.

There was also another problem I faced during the development of the structure of the sentence. Sometimes when I was adding another layer of wire, the letters broke in my hands, wchich was not as bad as the wire problem because then I could fix it by sticking it together with a hot wax, therefore, overcoming this problem was not that difficult.

Then, by the help of a trolley that my friend found in our school, I moved all the sentences to the main entrance to the window, so that I could begin hanging them up. However, I had a problem as few of them broke on the way, therefore I was capable of hanging up only few, then I had to go back to fix them and repeat the whole story.

Images below present myself hanging up the sentences.

On top of my window I had two, large wooden sticks so that I could hang my sentences on them, however, they weren't enough to hang all 9 sentences up as they were increadibly heavy, therefore I had to go to the D.T departament with my teacher, and ask for more wooden sticks, so that I could create a strong and solid base, that would be cabable of holding them all.

Two images below present the almost fully complete piece. All wax sentences are hanged, facing foreward so that they are easy to be seen/read. However, the only thing that was left were the lights, yet at that time I did not know which lights I was going to use in particular.

Then I had to decide what kind of lightning I wanted to use for the window, therefore I tried the small batterry lights, about 7/8 of them, covered wit coloured paper or tissue paper. However, when I tried to cover the lights, the light would not go through the paper nor the tissue paper, it was stopped instead. Therefore, then I had to figure out something else, and after talking to my dad, he gave me an idea of using led lights, which he then ordered in colour orange.