After a very useful meeting with Susan it’s clear that I am coming to the culmination of this project. My default panic button is saying “do more, do more!” THAT is my comfort zone, work is my escape, my identity, my existence, if I’m making I must be doing something right? To paraphrase Descartes “I make therefore I am”  Gather..make..gather..make..gather..make. But what I need to do is refine, reflect, and resolve. This is the hard part, this is where I struggle….

Since the Pecha Kucha I have made a lot…

• Brushes made from La Herradura beach
• Ink drawings made using the brushes
• Photographs of drawings
• Concertina book recording journey from Spain to UK
• Printing plates using the brushes to create textures: collagraph and photopolymer etched.
• Prints; long, thin and on a range of papers, abaca tissue, duralar and watercolour paper.
• Fragments of prints on paper
• Fragments of drawings on acetate, presented as transparencies.

What they all share is the brushes made from the things I found on the beach. The marks they make, and the different forms in which those marks can be made visible.

Susan kindly sent me photographs she took at a recent show. Refined artwork, quiet and contemplative.

I now need to work towards a refined outcome. To use the best of what I have made, the experiments that reflect My ideas of place, journeys, and the environment. My initial thought is it will be in book form, a concertina with etched metal ends to frame it. The content will be fragmented prints, further fragmented by windows of acetate containing marks from the brushes. Concealing within the book but revealing within it, and through it…..

In addition (yes I know..another thing!) I will make four square encaustic paintings, embedding the inked watercolour paper and acetate in wax, concealing and revealing. 

In the remaining time I will build on my research, reflect on my outcomes and…… tidy my studio.