Project Evaluation.

 "Ritual, Routine, Repeat"

(These are the guiding the words I jotted down on my sketch book at the beginning of this project, so it feels like a natural title for the work.)

Statement:

"This is a site specific work based on intuitive research at St Marys Church in the Lace Market Nottingham. Weaving together both physical and ethereal impressions from the site in an investigation of the women who remain here"

The imprints rising up into the fabric. Traces/ impressions/ contact with the source. 

A relic is something that has been in contact with a saint/ contact with the source

Who is Mary? Mother of god, wife of Joseph, virgin, pure, the perfect woman.

My project started with a location and my idea was to create work that gave a feeling of the location. I think initially i wanted to look at buildings and sky lines and try my hand at something a little more solid  yet as the project developed I was drawn back into a more organic way of working. However, the floor plan was essentially an exercise in technical drawing, also the technical aspect of making the apron involve following very precise instruction so I did challenge myself in those areas as I'm not partially comfortable with instruction and formal mark making but I did push myself as It felt important aspects to include

There are so many possibilities with a place like this so I conducted my research in a largely intuitive way, I have looked into certain aspect of history linked with items of interest and I have linked facts to a imagined history also. I let the project and research develop naturally and was led by curiosity and interest.

What I have tried to create for my final piece is an installation that is an interpretation of a sacred space. Made up of 5 main pieces of work;

The Apron,

The Flags,

The Floor Plan,

The Print

The Bird Bones

Translating traditional, christian and masculine symbols into the feminine and the pagan and interweaving facts and fictions.

The first work I created was the apron and the others works have grown around it as well as the colour palate. I had originally thought Id develop a more earthy pallet based on the initial research but I've relaxed into this project and let the details develop naturally.

White and gold, the pure and the sacred. surrender and power. The gold came from church interior and mainly my fixation on the lion and unicorn statues , where it all went a little surreal.

Gold has many connotations, what I hope comes across in this work is its link with the divine and worth in contrast to its connotations with greed and power

Ive displayed it along side white, bridal , virginal.

I have worked with gold leaf in on the Newstead project and I see lots of creative possibilities in this medium, its some thing I'd like to take forward and develop, along with lino print. In many ways, I feel  the results of this project are a real culmination of all the artists research, mediums and ideas have been playing with throughout this year. There are certain subjects, textures, colour, pre occupations that have a pull us, I suppose the discipline is to apply control and work with meaning to create context.

The floor plan was going to also be white and gold but the addition of green it to represent nature and the outdoors as that's where most of my research was done. the connection to nature, the old beliefs, paganism as a religion that was in tune with nature. The floor plan also looks like  a ruin, set in grass. The variation of the colour pallet  also makes it stand out as it was intednded to look like a runner, that you often see in the aisle of a church.

 The bird bones are on a plinth on the floor plan representing the alter. The sacrificial alter, Jesus as lamb. A relic of a saint, a golden cross. Represented here by my bird as a feminine/ natural alternative, the woman as a sacrifice? Nature as a sacrifice? there's a lot of room for interpretation. I enjoy that aspect in other peoples work and hope it is present in mine.

The flags, usually in churches are very masculine, celebrating the victory of wars of and king and country or the various territorial pissing's of the coats of arms.

My flags are fantasy and story telling,  in a feminised way, adding my fictional  "Mary" captured in her act collecting names for this this work to that story.Unlike the apron, the flags are not direct impression or contact pieces they are simulated graphite rubbings based on the site, so are reversed.

The print is enlarged from a scan of a pinhole camera shot I took, and though I was really happy with the capture and the look f the picture, its not the best quality to be blown up to such a large size and I just don't like how it looks when hung within the space, I've decided (with guidance) to lean it against the wall, adding a question mark, a feeling of he unfinished, where does it belong?

One of the questions I asked in this project is about belonging vs ownership.

On the whole I'm happy with the installation,  Initially I thought I would make something quite abstract. My worry is that this work is too obvious.Also I would have liked to make the accompanying book I had planned and so many other ideas.Given more time the project would continue to evolve, however,  its always , for me, so much easier to start a project than to finish it! I hope to carry some of these ideas forward to future projects, working on refining the practices that I enjoy as well as continuing to try new mediums and approaches.