developing piece in the studio

There are no transitional images between the last picture from the previous post, showing the piece I'm working on with several layers of papier-mâché, and its current state with a cloth and plaster coating. It's a shame, but that's just how it happened.

This isn't the only thing I've been doing in the studio though. I continue to put together my visual poem boxes. I have also, as part of my general getting my life in order drive (throwing away lots of crap, sorting my passport, rearranging my flat, taking the studio etc.), been applying for residencies - mainly centred around sound poetry/text work. I expect that the first things I apply for I won't get. The idea is simply to get used to the process, work out what's required, and to get used to making these submissions on a regular basis. Essentially I need to get a lot more serious about developing my work. So while a lot of the work on bringing applications together and sending them out is done on my computer the actual writing and sketching is done in the studio.

In fact today I was in the studio for six hours (from 11:20 - 18:20 with an hour to dash home and do a couple of jobs). About an hour and a half of that was work on the grave forms thing I still haven't got round to naming, about half to three-quarters of an hour was cleaning the studio, the rest of the time was work on completing the detail of one submission, and notes towards two others.

But the most photogenic part of the day was definitely the grave forms piece. I'll start off with a shot of the back, and then three shots of different sections of the back. I'm not sure I'll leave it like this, but haven't yet thought of what I might do.

Now a shot of the whole piece from the front. It still needs more plaster once the current layer has dried, and once that's accomplished it will have to be painted, but I'm really pretty happy with how it looks at the moment.

It isn't quite how I imagined it, but that's probably a good thing. In fact given that I originally thought it might be made from wood with grave holes that were scorched it's quite a long way from what I originally imagined.

Some slightly closer views of a few of the individual grave forms:

Then some detail of the areas where there are a number of grave forms close together:

I especially like these closer details: