Plymouth Art Weekender takes place at the end of September and artists are invited to submit proposals for the 3 day event. Part of my MA module included a live project and although I had a number of socially engaged projects lined up I wanted to do something that reflected my current research...so my Witches Knickers project was born. Witches Knickers is a term used to describe plastic bags caught in trees, but my bags weren't going to be plastic. I was going to use Korean hanji paper printed with cyanotype. The print were a mixture of organic garden prints and takuhon take away food containers fashioned into vest style carrier bags..the type so thin and flimsy you are lucky if they last until you get home let alone being able to reuse them. Witches Knickers Takuhon and Cyanotype on Hanji Paper With reference to the mass of colourful plastic carrier bags seen fluttering in trees around the country, Witches Knickers. I have fashioned three vest style carrier bags that will spend the Plymouth Art Weekender in the trees at the entrance of Plymouth College of Art at the mercy of the windy city’s elements. An opportunity to test my ideas around materials, process and sustainability. And to question my own and society's difficult relationship with the disposable. Exploring printmaking through found objects, here takeaway food containers. Layering and overprinting, enables me to embrace the chance marks and focus on process rather than image. Forming part of my MA in Printmaking, Witches Knickers is a continuation of my research into accidental marks and the breakdown of images. And of my Allieurs 2 research around ‘Food to Go/Food on the Move’ culture, for Impact 10 Santander with Plymouth College of Art, September 2018. www.nickyharwood.co.uk The prints were supposed to have hung in these trees at the front of Plymouth College of Art however on the day of instillation the wind was so strong I chickened out and relocated them to the back of the college. They spent a very wet and windy three days in those trees... then when I took them down they looked like this. The great thing about hanji paper when it has been manipulated (joomchi is like felting paper) it holds it's shape once dry.
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Been experimenting with my prints outside this year.
Loving how they move in the wind and sea. Like drawings. Videos can be seen here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSVrY-zklhl4-3YRFXu156g but here are some stills as well. It's been nearly a year since my last blog...not just because I hate writing, forget to do it etc but also I've had some IT issues. Been very busy over the last year so will build up slowly and looking forward to reflecting back on what I've been up to as I am bound to have forgotten a couple of things. Firstly as it took up most of my summer there was Santander with Plymouth College of Art. I was honoured to be asked to attend Impact 10 (an international printmaking conference) as part of Allieurs 2 with the college. Taking the theme of food security/food culture we travelled to Santander to Takuhon (a Japanese dabbing printmaking technique) a tablecloth. https://www.plymouthart.ac.uk/blog/from-plymouth-to-santander-students-collaborate-for-impact-10-conference/ We arrive in Santander. Our venue for the week. My own research during the summer had been around the growing 'Food to Go' culture in this country and the waste created by it. Using take away containers as my printing plates I Takuhoned disposable table cloths and napkins. Takuhon workshops on opening night. Printing the streets! A little time off put to good use. An end of conference treat and a trip to the Guggenheim. A sunning building and Richard Serra's work was mind blowing. Homeward bound.
Graduate Residency Collaboration Day and Exhibition Opening Saturday, 27 April 2019 from 10:00-17:002/2/2019 Save the date!
I was lucky enough to be awarded a residency at The Clay Factory at my degree show in June last year. I've been in the studio since September and have been working hard on a number of 25m long prints using my vintage mangle and bits of driftwood found on my walks along the South West Coast Path. The idea of making these prints came from a number of questions generated by my graduate show work and my attempt to answer a few of them. Although all the prints are printed at The Clay Factory once the printing is done I have been taking them out and about. Sticking them in trees, letting them blow away in the wind and go for a swim in the sea. To celebrate the end of the residency I am having a collaboration day on Saturday 27th April, 10am to 5pm at The Clay Factory. I am inviting everyone to come and join me making the last print of my residency. I am also having a little exhibition, opening on the same day, to show the work done during the residency and experiments inspired by them. Come and join the fun. Not a natural writer however I am looking for a way of recording my printmaking journey, so please bare with. In June this year I graduated from Plymouth college of art. I was on the BA Painting, Drawing and printmaking programme.
I began the course with the aim to become a printmaker and after a wobbly start, the printmaker in me rose to the surface. A breakthrough in my practice happened when I found a bit of driftwood whilst out walking. Being free from the need to find an image to print allowed me to 'play' with print. In my degree show, Cornucopia, I showed prints and plate, which was a 8x4 piece of plywood I found on Tregantle Beach. I was honoured to be awarded a residency at The Clay Factory, Ivybridge at the show and will be there until March 2019. Since June we have had three Degree Show Pluses, Ivybridge, Bristol and London. And I was selected to show at the Blue Dot Generation, Arts for Education event at the House of Vans, Waterloo. In October I started a MA in Printmaking at Plymouth again. And it is this journey that I hope to document in this blog..if I can keep it up! Looking forward to sharing my experiments, successful and not so. |
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May 2020
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