Philosophy & Graphics + Philographics by Genís Carreras

 For quite a while now, I've been drawn to Genís Carreras's Philographics, where he combines philosophy and his graphic talents in order to produce simplistic designs- normally using geometric shapes. Now I'm no graphic designer but I enjoy the shapes, colours and how he's taken more complex ideologies and simplified it into an info-graphic.

In the first simester, I was working with a straightforward, dotted pattern which grew to be more complex when I added more layers of different sized polka dotted patterns. Seeing Philographics has sparked some new patterns shapes for me to print.

Here's more about his work.Genis Carrera's Philographics

Also, I'm still interested in materials that are transparent and reflective. This time around, instead of working with plastic, I'm aiming to work with perspex, mirrors and possibly glass if I can get my hands on it!

Wax + Foil + Gelatine = Disaster.

Okay maybe not a disaster, but the gelatine did not perform the way I had hoped. It occurred to me the other day that Gelatine would be such and interesting material to work with alongside wax. Since they both change/ solidify overtime.  Thinking more about the contingency between the two materials, I started to wonder "What if I poured hot wax into gelatine?" 

Covered a bowl with foil before removing it. 

The wax cooled down rapidly as I poured it onto the warm gelatine. 

After 3 hours, the gelatine was still quite soft and wobbly. I placed it in the freezer thinking that it may help. The wax and gelatine was much more interesting when frozen  because you couldn't quite tell what was solid or not.

Simultaneously, I did the same thing on a tray covered in foil. The gelatine did not solidify. Instead, it was a thick liquid. Feeling a bit hopeless, I got rid of the gelatine.

The result. Wax separated from the gelatine tray.

It's hard to tell in this photo, but there was some interesting texture created  you can imagine the wax cooling down as it was poured onto the gelatine.

Am I disappointed? Yes; but only because the materials did not respond the way I had hoped. On the plus side, I think I learned a lot more about the qualities of wax by pushing it boundaries with another material that acts similarly to it. Wax is difficult to control, especially when you mix it with gelatine. By pouring it into a cooler material, the wax cools down much faster, causing it to solidify at a faster speed.

Response to the little curiosities

After some thought, I found that the previous work that I made was leaning more towards the figurative, which is not what I want! I'm more interested in the delicateness of the wax as it peels of the foil, leaving me with fine, thin edges. As a step forward, I want to see how thin I can make my wax against the foil. Here's a video of me attempting to peel the foil off. It's difficult!

The result!

Making is Thinking

Making is Thinking is very similar to the Materiality drawing brief. After reading this article, I'm been more certain about the focus and purpose of this brief. Thinking through making is of paramount importance.

Making is Thinking explores distinct artistic practices engaged with notions of conceptual craft and intuitive industry. It seeks to collapse the persistent dichotomy between the practical and the intellectual, and presents a range of works that refuse the binary of concept and form.

Context:
European society has been marked by an increasing division between making and thinking that dates back to the industrial revolution. With the decline of urban guilds and rural cottage industries in the nineteenth century, and the subsequent mechanization of labor, workers were separated into blue- and white-collar jobs. Today, our education system privileges the creation of flexible “knowledge workers” over those with practical skills or manual know-how.

It is possible to trace a similar division in art since the beginning of the twentieth century. With Duchamp’s introduction of the readymade in 1913, the focus of avant-garde artistic practice shifted away from technique and the process of making to the transformative power of the artist’s vision. This saw the flourishing of conceptual art and the movement that Lucy Lippard famously labeled the dematerialization of the art object, culminating in Lawrence Weiner’s 1968 Declaration of Intent in which he announced that an artwork “need not be built.” For Weiner, thinking is making. Nevertheless, today artists are still making physical artworks and engaging with tangible materials. In our increasingly dematerialized world, how are we to engage with materiality? How might thoughtful forms of this insistence on making relate to our supposedly post-industrial society?

In recent years, craft has been held up to epitomize an alternative set of social values in the face of industrial production, global capitalism and mass consumerism. Yet this idea of craft is broader than that defended by John Ruskin or William Morris at the start of the previous century. Incorporating many elements of Modernism and informed by postmodernism, it offers a radical way for rethinking questions of work, both within and beyond the artistic field. Many artists are turning to this expanded notion of craft as a paradigm for making that seems to fuse previously oppositional positions – such as the trace of the artist’s hand and conceptual reflection – and are exploring its potential for reconsidering broader questions of production.

Cara Barer

 Cara Barer is known for her works involving book photography and sculptures. To me, she is focusing with the materiality of the object rather than the figurative or even aesthetic qualities that the book may hold . She doesn't rely on the the pages to inspire her creativity. Instead, she works with the durability of the book by bending its limits.  I would love to try something like this out with wax and foil.

These photos originate from her website.

Little curiousities

Notice the litte bits of fine glitter? It's foil that been broken down and mixed in with the wax.

Some bits of foil are harder to peel off than others.

Wax & Foil

First pour of wax onto a tray lined with foil.

Building up layers

Wax heated onto a pan. The gold bits were from the candle.

Done and left to cool down.

Wax removed from the foil. The gold bits come from the outer skin of the candle.

Notice how the wax has picked up the textures from the foil!

Drawing Notes

Thinking through making points:

- Wax melts while foil does not. However, when foil is heated in a pan, it breaks down into fine glitter.

- Wax can be very delicate. The slightest impact against another surface can chip the wax.

- The foil peels of the wax fairly easily unless the foil is crumbled.

Area of exploration:
Using wax to bind/ fuse/ join with foil. Looking at how they support each other.

Ideas/ elements to incorporate in the experimental process:
1) Using foil as an object and wax to mould in and around it.
2) Heating wax and pouring into a mould made from foil.
3) Repetition
4) Gravity and time. How they affect each other using wax.
5) Lay a flat sheet of foil, pour wax, peel- in order to get textures
6) Foil rocks- wrapping foil and dipping into wax.

How It's Made

How It's Made: Aluminium Foil

Skip to 1:30

Decorative Candles! Not only is this video fun to watch- Wax must be at a state where it is not too cool or warm in order to shape.

Rebecca Stevenson

Rebecca Stevenson graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2000 with an M.A. in Fine Art Sculpture. She mostly works with polyester resin and wax. Her pieces combine incredible detailed and colorful flowers with traditional portrait busts and animal figures. Stevenson sculpts plant and animal forms as if there is no separation between the two.  I am amazed at the forms of wax that look organic as if they have grown themselves.

Wax, resin 45 x 51 x 41cm

Wax, resin 70 x 45 x 50cm

Studies in Material Thinking (SMT)

 'As a developmental process, drawing is useful in revealing relationships and potential connections.' -
Nancy de Freitas, Editorial: Materiality of Drawing/ Thinking, Volume 4

SMT's current editorial is titled Making, materiality and knowledge in creative research.  It was interesting to read about the role of the maker who shares knowledge about the material thinking experience and process. ( The article links to different specific articles written by the maker themselves.) It has made me realize that the is no right or wrong in choosing a method or system when approaching a new material.

Richard Serra's Verb List

Richard Serra's Verb List include various action words. Serra described the list as a series of “actions to relate to oneself, material, place, and process,” and used it as a kind of guide for his subsequent practice in multiple mediums. The list has helped me think about alternative ways to approach my material.

Richard Serra. Verb List. 1967–68. Graphite on paper, 2 sheets, each 10 x 8" (25.4 x 20.3 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of the artist in honor of Wynn Kramarsky. © 2011 Richard Serra/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Visual diary: Foil.

Initially, I started a notebook for my drawing paper but having gone through some making processes, I found that I was moving too fast a pace to jot down everything onto a book in a systematic and organized way. Having my DVR ( Developmental Visual Record) in a blog format allows me to switch things in order if I need to. Additionally, I may include a video of my work in the making.

Below are the first responses to my selected material: Foil. Click on the images to expand them. They are a bit blurry.

These experiments were inspired by Richard Serra's Verb list which you can also find on my Drawing Research page.