Improvising Imprints

By

Nicola Anthony and Abigail Box

 

On 13 Nov 2011, at 16:22, Nicola Anthony wrote:

Imprint – collaborating ideas

So far I’ve made two date-stamp drawings responding to the Imprint theme, but it felt like something else should come from the theme too. Fellow Fabelister Abigail Box noted that we both have similar but unusual ways of organising our chaotic lives – a schedule or diary which becomes an imprint of our future plan or future hopes, an imprint of how we might hope to organize our ideas, inspirations, events and meetings, and then in hindsight an imprint of the path of our week, month, year – coupled with the knowledge of whether it strayed from that path or followed it to the letter.

We have decided to take this as a starting point for a collaborative piece, which is most likely to result in picking out the dialogue both between us and on Fabelist’s blog as a documentation of the creative process, (we both love that about Fabelist), and artworks from both artists that respond to this initial take on Imprint.

We both work in very different ways so we think the difference between our responses will be very interesting. 

And how do we Imprint our lives? Mine is planned in a paper diary (moleskin), however I have had to resort to cutting up post-its into little squares, and writing individual tasks/meetings/projects on each one. Result - very chaotic looking collaged pages full of scribbles!

Abi – I’ll let you explain yours…

On 13 Nov 2011, at 5:19, Abigail Box wrote:

Well explained!

I have a template grid that I print out on to two A4 sheets of paper to which I add the dates. It’s intended to be an easy way to look at around two months at a time and for it to get messy, it’s easy to reprint and make into some kind of sense again. It involves a lot of highlighter pen and mark making codes for different kinds of events or commitments

…and my first thoughts about our Imprint starting point… Apart from being entertained by both the ways we have come to organise out lives, thoughts, art practice – to anyone else they could only look like a way to exaggerate the chaos – is that my whole reason for keeping such an insanely detailed calendar which is on me virtually all the time is that I have this want for time to slow down.

In our chat today we spoke about time escaping. The way a meeting or event can creep up on you, and the way it’s wintertime before you know it. The way that I keep my calendar and my lists are my way of acknowledging time going by and being prepared for date in the diary.

On 15 Nov 2011, at 09:34, Nicola Anthony wrote:

 Thought I’d kick this off with a few words: Recording, remembering, reminders, scheduling moments, organising chaos, structuring, looking forward, path to future. Inspiration, chance, meeting, event, map.

On 15 Nov 2011, at 21:31, Abigail Box wrote:

Nice! - I started to write something last night but I ended up in circles – midday might be a better time to thing than at midnight (well it was midday – time seems to have very appropriately run away from me today)

Out of you list of word, I think ‘organising chaos’ is what chimes with me the most. I’m still hooked on the concept of being able to visualise/better understand how we approach time.

In reality time is either ahead of us or behind us, the present is bloody well illusive, an unquantifiable amount of time. People talk about enjoying/living in the moment, but these moments are gone as soon as they arrive. I know we work around this by having a memory of what just happened (most of the time) and I think it’s nice to notice that it can go on to make us feel nostalgic and such like.

However, it’s all still so intangible/abstract, and I think that why I find it both intriguing and satisfying that we put months on pages and days in boxes… and that way we make ourselves a visual for time scale …and we have a tick tock tick tock to measure it by.

I’m going to go away and think about how this might inform one of my paintings. gosh.

On 15 Nov 2011, at 22:08, Abigail Box wrote:

Having just sent that – I googled ‘visualising time’ and found a download for a polar clock - http://blog.pixelbreaker.com/polarclock

Instead of pages and boxes this works with Arcs… almost like on a watch but so that there is a hand for each the seconds, minutes, hours, days of one year.

It’s a good visual because it demonstrates how quickly a second goes by in comparison to say how quickly a day does, but then relatively, how slowly a day goes by in comparison to one year. 

On 15 Nov 2011, at 22:19, Nicola Anthony wrote:

Wow, I really love that and have just downloaded it as a screensaver, I love the movement of it and the reference to the cyclical nature of days, seasons, time. I guess that cycle/watch motion is different to a traditional way of imprinting time on a journal/calendar because we usually visualize it as something lateral and forward moving.

I’m liking the ideas of organizing chaos / cyclical time / arcs / intangibility of time /and moments needing to become tangible or visual to us.

I also think that the organising descends into chaos again when pushed too far. For example this week I’ve got so much planned in that my normal system of organising (task per post-it in moleskin pasted onto days) has made my diary look like it’s full of scaly post-it coloured feathers and it’s so full it might at any moment turn into a bird and fly away with a rustle and a flap.

On 17 Nov 2011, at 3:23, Abigail Box wrote:

I’ve been nocturnal since Monday. Painting ran on until around 4/5am on both Mon and Tue and then this Wed morning I couldn’t get up at a normal time and slept until 2pm. Now, even though I’m ready for bed and trying to sleep I can’t, so I’m adding to our dialogue. I have until the Nytol kicks in.

I’m naturally a night owl, I focus better when I know nothing else is going on, when everything and everyone else has switched off for the day. Perhaps because I’m easily distracted. Having previously spoken about wanting to slow time down and living in the moment, night is the time when I feel that the most.

I read an article once about how to avoid procrastinating, and part of it advised against doing lots of jobs at once and instead to focus on one task at a time. During the day I do have a tendency to attack everything on the to do list at once and before I know it’ll be 5 o’clock. Whereas, at night when I’m set on just painting for hours on end, I’m in no hurry and I feel more aware of time. It feels like I have more of it. Although I don’t feel like that when it hit 5 am and I forget that when you stay up all night there isn’t a back up night to replace it.

Distraction is something I’m interested in, ‘I don’t need distracting’ and ‘A thirst for distraction’ are titles of some previous work of mine. Although conflicting both are angled towards the notion that a conventional busy and fast paced life is packed with enough distractions that it can be easy to lose track of time and the grand scheme of things.

And I wouldn’t call that wrong, I enjoy being busy and having targets and goals to achieve but I like to think ving a balance keeps me sane. Being curious about things, even things I’ve done time and time again, to reconsider something I thought I knew, is sometimes what I need to snap back to reality and to exist in the present as much as I can do. 

On 18 Nov 2011, at 16:55, Nicola Anthony wrote:

I like the idea of distraction – I’m a bit like that too – tackling a million things at once, but my mind gets a bit fragmented – its nice when things pull together or circle back round again to become part of a more cohesive whole – rather than this week which has been pulling in many different directions! If it was a shape it would be spiky, dense, and unbalanced. Let’s hope the weekend is more spherical & cloud-like.

I’ve been thinking about the idea I always believe:  that writing it down makes it happen – the words or intentions that we imprint upon ourselves, our plans, or the world – once it’s out there, then it has to get done! That’s why I’m constantly writing lists and ideas on scraps of paper… makes them more tangible (and tackles my forgetfulness).

This week has also brought to the forefront the sour taste of running out of time, or not having enough time left to do the things you really want to. I have this impression of all my scraps of paper jiggling about for space in a big box that’s too small for them… trying to escape through the cracks.

On 29 Nov 2011, at 17:19, Abigail Box wrote:

Memory = history – maybe have some thing that acknowledges this

But how do I slow down a moment through a painting…

Thinking about imagery which I have had on my wall for ages, thinking about when I first pinned it up there, thinking about how nostalgic I can get over images – story a day has made me think of this…. 

I have taken one of these images of another artist – had it for ages – its been up there so long that I don’t even notice it anymore… Going to add it into one of my usual colleges to mix together my current with my past.

I like also that it has this beginning all those years ago but has just stayed the same until now… like sticking something to the fridge… or drawing height marks on the wall, they don’t change and just stay there as a echo of a past event.

Re Height marks… I like how they might also reference a way of looking at time.

and are an imprint of time passing…

Perhaps use a grid – but keep the grid visible.  - a trace left of the progress behind making it.

On 23 Nov 2011, at 01:26, Nicola Anthony wrote:

I know it’s late but my brain is whirring now – had to get out of bed to scribble my ideas down. I’m thinking of the perfect metaphor for the sort of illustration of life that I want to express – Rubik’s Cube. More soon.

On 23 Nov 2011, at 13:39, Abigail Box wrote:

Gosh – yes – in a similar short note to self/dialogue

I’ve been reminiscing over keeping a height on the door as I was growing up and the imprint that has left on our old house and how it shows a passing of time.

On 23 Nov 2011, at 4:23, Abigail Box wrote:

Children have neither past nor future; they enjoy the present, which very few of us do.  ~ Jean de la Bruyere

On 23 Nov 2011, at 17:01, Nicola Anthony wrote:

I think we’ve gone from discussing schedules to thinking about the philosophical nature of time and how one experiences it. Lovely!

I think I am going to focus on this Rubiks idea – the whole chaos becoming order fits in (and the ‘cube’ I have in mind is rather chaotic) I like the fact that it can just appear as a higgledy piggledey jumble with no order, and then a few swizzles and you have something regular. (There’s hope for me yet).

I’m thinking also of using transparent materials to add to the confused nature / one square melting into the next / one day blending into another. I envision a shimmery sculpture built of many tiny cubes.

Wouldn’t it be gorgeous if you could just step out of your life and look back on the days, and realise that if you just reorder them slightly, squint and view from the north-east, that an obvious message/path or pattern was there all along.

On 27 Nov 2011, at 14:27, Abigail Box wrote:

Thoughts – perhaps not quite as well organised as I’d hope but better to get them down!

20:50 by Richard Wilson, a disorientating oil installation [http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/artpages/richard_wilson_oil.htm]

S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E a light installation by Cerith Wyn Evans which was shown at the Whitecube, 2010[http://whitecube.com/artists/cerith_wyn_evans/]

I find both of these experience-based pieces of work immerse me so completely in the experience that they offer that I find myself really appreciating the moment, I am ‘taken out of myself’.

Getting involved in the ‘Story a Day’ Project and reminded of some of the children’s literature I used to read growing up and it’s strange how nostalgic I feel about some of the imagery.

On 27 Nov 2011, at 14:43, Nicola Anthony wrote:

Yes I love both of these – I never got to experience the R Wilson when you were allowed to walk down it, but loved most of all the view from above and the reflection of the ceiling in the oil. The flute/sound sculpture I recently experienced at White Cube too – amazing! I love the slight jiggly movement of it and the fact that it’s transparent and so visually subtle.

I’m just testing with materials today – some glass, perspex and glass resin. I have found I can compress these into little cubes – just working out the most logical way to do it. This whole sculpture is a bit of a brain teaser – working out how to do it technically as it is taking a lot of planning!

I’m toying with the concept of having certain patterns ‘randomly’ within each cube, but from one certain angle they come together to outline a pattern/form.

I’d love to make a working/whirring/moving ‘Rubik’s Machine’ built think that’s out of the realm of possibility at the moment! Kinetic sculpture is an avenue I must venture down soon though…

On 28^th Nov 2011, at 17:07, Abigail Box wrote:

What you’re saying matches up very well the element of orderly chaos – it’s actually very to the point! And I’m pressed that your description is clearer than the last project description I heard you talk about – ‘there’s a thing which does something attach to another thing… ‘

Today I’ve hunted down the photograph below. It’s a height chart that my flat mates and I kept at our old flat.

I’m nostalgic over the height charts my mum kept for my sister and me as we grew up. Looking at the change in our height every few months was always a mixture of how much we’d both grown and how much time had passed, with an added dash of competitiveness, my younger sister was always taller. Looking back at a mark on the wall and remember the day I was only a meter or so tall certainly makes me think ‘where did the time go?’, and that is only emphasized by having made a new one – I’m still the shortest!

http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/26867_519225768106_286500051_1053193_5857655_n.jpg

On 28 Nov 2011, at 17:40, Nicola Anthony wrote:

Yes that’s such a lovely idea to measure growth – we had a similar one that my parents drew on the wall of our upstairs landing. I still remember the feeling of your back pressed against the wall and a pencil moving side to side on top of my head where the mark was being made.

I also remember doing a similar(ish) thing when I was in primary school – we all grew sunflowers from seed and measured them every day, making marks on the classroom wall where they came up to – mine was tallest! I was probably less than a metre in height at that age so I remember being very proud…

On 4 Dec 2011, at 17:17, Abigail Box wrote:

I’ve just watched one of the TateShots on an exhibition at the Tate Saint Ives with work by Roman Ondak- Measuring the universe. “Starting as an empty white room, Roman Ondak’s Measuring the Universe at Tate St Ives has grown through the contribution of around 90’000 participants to a constellation of black marks.”

 Image location: http://www.tumblr.com/photo/1280/10762196740/1/tumblr_ls86krsWe51r2iolz

Video: http://channel.tate.org.uk/#media:/media/1138400754001&list:/channel/playlists/45927933001&context:/channel/playlists

I like the idea of creating a piece of work which is my own height, something which is ‘built up’ to this measurement, I kind of totem pole of paintings — I’ve been a interested in the visual appearance of totem poles for a while, here is an alternative one I made whilst at an art event in France

I’ve started to paint a series of small canvases; each will make up a section of the height chart, totem pole- esque painting, come sculpture. The canvases should stack up to 4ft 2″ …  .5! It’s a very alternative way for me to present paintings, vertically.. this plan is very different to everything that I’ve painted recently.

On 4 Dec 2011, at 16:50, Abigail Box wrote:

Totem poles are “built out of symbols assigned with a certain meaning”. The totem pole I made in France was made up of old soft toys and teddy bears, this was coincidentally apt considering my paintings at the time were using bears as a reference to contradicting associations (comforting childhood toys / in reality instinctually savage animals). I’m using images of owls in this totem pole, having been brought up with owls as a characteristic symbol for wisdom they suit the concept of time passing, and the knowledge and experience we gain as we grow older… and taller. Not to mention that they are brilliant looking. 

A wiki note on owls: ”The modern West generally associates owls with wisdom. This link goes back at least as far as Ancient Greece, where Athens, noted for art and scholarship, and Athena, Athens’ patron goddess and the goddess of wisdom, had the owl as a symbol.” 

And a very amazing owl by Albrecht Dürer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Albrecht_D%C3%BCrer_-_The_Little_Owl_-_WGA7367.jpg

I did want to mention that I also really like totem poles in a visual sense; I like their structure and their ordered presence. I’m enjoying making a painting that copies the same format.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 28 Nov 2011, at 17:40, Nicola Anthony wrote:

I love the vertical canvas idea, has it been done before? It’s so simple but is such a drastically different way of viewing/ordering things! Especially relevant to all this is your penchant for painting bricks and walls which has turned to drawing on walls, and finally transformed into the building of walls out of canvases. Can’t wait to see it!

 

I’m off to put the finishing touches on my Rubik’s Sculpture (It now has lots of dates embedded within it and a form emerging. The tricky thing is that until I fix it all together the whole thing could be re-ordered in billions of ways, hope it doesn’t take me too long to finalise! I’m just playing with the words ‘I Love you’ and ‘I Love you not’ – remember that game with the petals? Not sure if this will make the final cut, I’m going to experiment…

To see the finished pieces of work follow.. Nicola Anthony - http://www.thefabelist.com/mneme-nicola-anthony/ and Abigail Box - http://www.thefabelist.com/abigailboxtotem/