SAILING SOLAR WIND PUBLICATION

Week 1:

Who am I?

An underlying question of my process-led, multidisciplinary practice is as follows;  If we can’t understand why we are here, we can at least try to understand where we are. This underlying provocation is fueled by a personal favorite reading – Annie Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. The collection of essays finds Dillard exploring the creek that runs through her hometown. She observes, stalks the muskrats and becomes a watchful eye. As Dillard interrogates her place in this world, so too does my practice.

A turning point was signaled by  a mentor asking  how my practice was generous. As I begin my masters project, I sense an answer belongs in how I see things – how can I elicit this view in others ?  It is my hope that by undertaking this research-led thesis I both uncover and express the answer.

 I create conduites to reveal/disclose moments that go unnoticed. They are invitations to attend to the small, unseen and infrathin. A bronze cast bowl (fig.1), inlaid with a 3D mapped texture of a sacred totara tree illustrates the multidisciplinary nature of my work, utilizing both digital and analogue (casting, forging) making methods. Beginning as a mortar to grind fallen petals into aromatice beads, the bowl would become integral to my installation work ‘Watershed Dark’.  Repurposed as a divination bowl within a burnt totora shed, an emphasis on primitive, ritualistic material expresses a methodology specific to my work. Public engagement with the work is critical, and never overlooked. Poetic narrative drawn from a site challenges me to lean into historical processes, creating work tied deeply to its context. No two projects are the same.  

Word Mapping Exercise

Essence: 

Noun 

1. the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, which determines its character.
   “conflict is the essence of drama”

Etymology: 

late 14c., essencia (respelled late 15c. on French model), from Latin essentia “being, essence,” abstract noun formed (to translate Greek ousia “being, essence”) from essent-, present participle stem of esse “to be,” from PIE root *es- “to be.”

Thesaurus:

Aspect, basis, bottom line, character, crux, element, lifeblood, meaning, nature, principle, root, spirit, structure, soul. 

Antonym: 

 Inessential 

adjective

1. not absolutely necessary.
   “inessential information”

Nomadic

adjective

1. living the life of a nomad; wandering.
   “nomadic herdsmen”

nomad (n.)

Etymology 

“a wanderer, one of a tribe of people who have no fixed abode,” 1550s (in plural, nomades), from French nomade (16c.), from Latin Nomas (genitive Nomadis) “wandering groups in Arabia,” from Greek nomas (genitive nomados, plural nomades) “roaming, roving, wandering” (from place to place to find pasturage for their flocks or herds), related to nomos “pasture, pasturage, grazing,” literally “land allotted” (from PIE root *nem- “assign, allot; take”).

Thesaurus 

Pastoral, peripatetic, wandering, drifting, gypsy, itinerate, migrant, migratory, perambulant, perambulatory, roaming, roving, traveling, vagabond, vagrant, wayfaring

Antonym: 

Native, settled, fixed, resident.

Metamorphosis

Noun

1. A change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one.
   “his metamorphosis from presidential candidate to talk-show host”

Etymology:

1530s, “change of form or structure, action or process of changing in form,” originally especially by witchcraft, from Latin metamorphosis, from Greek metamorphōsis “a transforming, a transformation,” from metamorphoun “to transform, to be transfigured,” from meta, here indicating “change” (see meta-) + morphē “shape, form,” a word of uncertain etymology.

Thesaurus:

Evolution, rebirth, alteration, change, changeover, mutation, transfiguration, translation, transmogrification, transmutation, transubstantiation.

Antonym:

 Stagnation sameness similarity uniformity agreement withdrawal decrease failure stabilization, fixation stabilization, stability idleness deconversion resemblance

Place

Noun

1.a particular position, point, or area in space; a location.
“I can’t be in two places at once”

Etymology:

c. 1200, “space, dimensional extent, room, area,” from Old French place “place, spot” (12c.) and directly from Medieval Latin place “place, spot,” from Latin platea “courtyard, open space; broad way, avenue,” from Greek plateia (hodos) “broad (way),” fem. of platys “broad,” from PIE root *plat- “to spread.”

Thesaurus:

location, site, spot, scene, setting, position, point, situation, area, region, whereabouts, locale, venue, locus.

Antonym: 

Benefit, office, whole, unemployment

Echo

noun

1. A sound or sounds caused by the reflection of sound waves from a surface back to the listener.
   “the walls threw back the echoes of his footsteps”
2. a close parallel to an idea, feeling, or event.

Etymology: 

1550s (intrans.), c. 1600 (trans.), from echo (n.). Related: Echoed; echoing.

Thesaurus: 

Reverberation, reflection, resoundin, ringing, repetition, repeat, reiteration

Antonym: 

original, question, proposition, statement, opinion.

REFLECTION

Key words:  drawing, intergenerational, interspatial, spatio-temporal, retracing, returning, alchemy, place.

I drew a connection that each word had slight echoes between them. To me, each word had within them had the potential for change. They  each contribute to the overall soul and perception of something. This novel discovery led  me to think of the fundamental aspects in what gives something  identity and place. How does identity fit within a place? Speaking from my own experience as part of the queer comunity, this could prove and interesting avenue to research further. As my practice is defined by drawing methodologies, just as a tide line drawn in sand or cliff face register as drawings of alchemy, I am interested in how this relates to Tāmaki Makaurau, a place whose edges continually meet water. Change is explicit in this place, Auckland is redrawn over and over. It becomes a repetitive, ritualistic act. It signals a return, a coming back and re-drawing.

 I time my days in accordance with the tides, swim in ancestral bodies of water. I retrace the same lines over and over. I swim in lakes my mother swam, and her mother swam too. I am offered  a space through which to think about inter-generational and inter-spatial connection. I can be Ralph Waldo Emerson’s transparent eyeball , a representation of an eye that is absorbent rather than reflective, and therefore takes in all that nature has to offer. Being held by those waters is the closest experience there is to being in the presence of god. I am reminded of the italian term pentimento, where an artist redraws their work but a trace of the original remains visible – a ghost beneath the skin. The Maori term Tūrangawaewae defines places where we feel especially empowered and connected. They are our foundation. This intersection between returns,  re-tracing and  Tūrangawaewae conjures  a form of self-portraiture. 

We trace sun paths, cosmological alignments, have ordered our years  around solar events, aligned  pyramids to the stars with the use of plumb lines… Lines/tracing/drawing have been integral through history and the basis to this research proposal. I would like to investigate epistemological ideas on tacit knowledge in context to my place in the world.  My research will call on toponalytical and phenomenological methodologies and the relationships inspired by this word exercise are proving fruitful. How can this research call on an investigation of the infathin, change and poetics to inspire iterative inter-generational and inter-spatial connection.

Essence appeals to the senses and phenomenological aspects of my research. The conflict between material and the immaterial. Nomadic offers anthropological insight into my work. What ties or repels people from place. What cognitive ties can people have to a land?  Metamorphosis captures how my drawing methods render objects in new forms. There is a retracing at play. Place is explicit in my works  vocabulary, the crux of it all. Finally, echo continues this idea of repetition while standing in place for iterative making – each attempt an echo of the former. 

As I begin to make these connections, materials immediately begin to emerge. Sea water, salt, sand, clay, pearl,  perhaps even toweling… As I melt, cast and forge metal, burn wood, strip back or alter a material in an way – I draw it in a new form.

 I am left with these disparate thoughts: 

Infrathin change, ritualistic acts, retracing and returns

In retracing, I am drawing  in a new form.  A becoming. A new self. A shell.

WEEK 2

Echo 

1. Forged copper 
2. Thumbnail lines on steel plate 
3. Velvet horizon acid etch
4. Water ripple cyanotype on velvet 
5. Moonlight on water  cyanotype on velvet 

Nomadic 

1. Tide line muslin cloth simulation 
2. Hand tied rope nets 
3. Sea glass and flax plumb line 
4. Shell beads on flax
5. Rock coiled in wire 

Metamorphosis 

1. Chain evolution 
2. Silver lead and bark 
3. Silver world 
4. Shell pinecone 
5. Shell reflection 

Essence 

1. Found glass candle holder 
2. Whittled wood 
3. Burnt Palo Santo 
4. Tide Line acid etch 
5. Tide Pool acid etch 

Place 

1. Found wood stake with 4x interventions (wax, carve, burn, inlay) 
2. Handprint in clay

Reflection  (Thinking broader, laterally) 

After a discussion with Jyoti, I realized my approach and reflection of the word matrix was quite linear, and needed to be thought of more broadly. 

In this vein – Essence becomes Personality, echo becomes hereditary, place becomes earthing, metamorphosis becomes coming out, nomadic becomes perfect places 

New definitions: Personality, hereditary, earthing, coming out, perfect places 

In simply changing these words to synonyms or similar terms, it’s offered  a new perspective of thought. Im now challenged to think of practise in a queer light, and Ive never thought of my work as being political. This also ties into personality and spirit – what’s the energy I’m bringing to something, how can the methods embody a personality? The term perfect places speaks to flower children, 70s ideas on utopias, what making methods could reflect these values, and connect to a time? Research could be spent looking at crafts, methods that prevailed at this time.

Potential avenues remain the same – each of the words I find still speak to a sense of change and variability. Change is the thread that links them all together. Variables remind me of mathematical/scientific processes – changing outcomes. What would it mean having variability as the broadest research avenue? And  from there whittling it down to the more specific? When I think of variability, I think of something distinctly  human. By our hands, variation comes easily, as we could never produce a perfectly straight line for example. Variation could be seen aas an error, or at least there is room for error… A room for error ! how cool would that be… 

I am also making a connection that each word has a sense of source, or an original. ( an echo comes from a source, and so on) each word has versions which are  a copy of the original. 

It was interesting that a synonym for metamorphosis was translation. Thinking of language itself as the thing changing. This made me think of the phrase lost in translation – what gets muddied when something changes?

I began my making from the word echo, as to me, it had the most potential for iterative making. In re-defining it, it meant an expression of pattern and trace. For the models in this series, I spent time in the labs learning new metal etching, transfer, and cyanotype techniques. For some reason, the sound of echo made me think of nails on a chalkboard. I used my thumbnail to inscribe repeated ‘echo’ lines up the page in one wax plate I made with a hard ground. Each line though not a replica attempted to duplicate the former. I thought of light bouncing across the water as an echo of sorts and tried to create subtle cyanotype prints on velvet, which didn’t turn out too well, but almost looked like a hand had brushed the velvet into slight water ripples. I also tried etching a stip of the velvet into metal, an echo of the ‘real’ material and forging metal (creating echoes across a surface).

Nomadic was interesting. Many threading and splitting methods were used to speak to the word, and the outcome ended up looking quite nomadic – almost like artefacts. The shell beads I found were thread on dried flax fiber. I enjoyed making for place, though it was a word I struggled with at first. The outcome was a handful of making implemented on one found wood stake. Wood chip, dripped wax, inlaid beads, and wax moulded in seashells all spoke to my local sense of place. 

Overall, this exercise was quite challenging for me, but I tried not to get too hung up on what I was making. I’m usually interested in creating just the developed end form, rather than process models like this. But the connection I’ve gathered across has been interesting, particularly in the methods that came to reflect the word through making. 

Making More Connections!

As my attempt at cyanotype printing moonlight did not transfer well onto the velvet, it made me think perhaps such an elusive thing should remain just that – ineffable and untransferable in a mere image. It called to mind Gaston Bachelard’s statement in The Poetics of Space that “The poetic image […] is not an echo of the past. On the contrary: through the brilliance of any image, the distant past resounds with echoes.” Of course, as I was reading, I was struck by Bachelard’s use of echo. It made me dream of this word exercise, sounding echoes between a novel I was reading and my activities within my practice. I’ve discovered through this making that echoes are boundless, elusive, and ineffable. I dreamed of my life as a palimpsest of echoes, shimmering across the surface like the moonlight. Its inability to transfer onto the velvet revealed that echoes are intangible – but manifested through action. Echoes are tacit knowledge.

I find visual connections compelling between echo and nomadic, where the surface printed on in the former becomes animated with life in the latter. The fabric is lifted from beneath in the digital renders – suggestive of a spirit/eternal wanderer. Revisiting it, I realised it appeared that the surface had redefined itself to become this wondering figure. In echo, I used my thumbnail to draw repeated lines in wax, and the cloth of the Nomad also appears scratched. Better yet, I dreamt it to be that scratchy type of wool! There lies a synonymous register with the terms scratch and nail, stirring even more connections to the acid-etched ‘horizon line’ of fabric on steel. Each fray of the rough cut edge, like a hairline, looks like a scratched mark. 

There is also a recurring method of threading, running through each set. There is a synonymous register between the appearance of the threads imprinted on metal – and the act of threading. It revealed that the prints existed on a surface, and the threading existed through a surface. As I referred to the thesaurus to define this term, threading sees a connection of things! So, as I thread, I connect. This could lead to new methods of making, perhaps going to the textile lab to learn some new techniques. Also, as I’m on this topic, I think of drawing metal ( as in heating and forging) into a wire coil. Is wire a thread? Perhaps I could experiment with this too. In reflection – I’m proud of myself for creating and making without projecting the end outcome, expressing how this making has deviated from my default design thinking. I kept it fluid by having thoughts/hunches and running with it. The connections discussed above have miraculously emerged through the making and reflecting process – so that must be a win! 

WEEK 4

Rough concept sketch planning potential exhibition artefact. In reflecting on the past few weeks it’s become apparent that I just need to keep going with the direction I set out, not worrying about a ‘final’ artefact. Instead – a publication will be made which documents my making processes and frames an analogy of ‘sailing solar wind’ as my design strategy. The idea of light having a force has sparked an observation in what I’ve made so far, particularly the metal plates, which only become animated or visible in and angled light. The images imbedded in the plates are effectively echoes ( their visual emergence being temporal like a sound)…

PLANNING EXHIBITION :

I’ve aimed for the work to speak in one language across each material. In this way, the pieces of the process will be grouped on the floor, with final print work displayed on the wall. After discussing with artist Lucas Nicholas, he likes to treat the paper as the material it is, by lifting it off the wall to the edge of the pins. Small detail like this really align with the project. 

After seeing the space where in, I’ve rethought how the work will be engaged with. A small altar set up will provide a spatial translation of the work. The alter will be made of salt blocks I will carve a small ‘reflection pool’ in, to connect to the idea of echo and impression being ephemeral. The floor will hold a bed of salt, which elevates the process work, sounding an entropic connection – or what if? The materiality between the metal and silver will be particularly evocative of ideas of change.