Building my research and working with lino

 

Yesterday I focused on making a lino print from an edited work by George Clausen.  The blog image this week is my lino, all marked up ready to start detailing with ink before cutting. I'm enjoying working with the lino and am slowly changing how I approach it, to add shading detail with the linework.  It's becoming more familiar. It was a good choice of medium for the space.  It keeps me really content while it's quiet but I can stop and chat with visitors really easily too. A couple of visitors have been interested, one referencing how she'd seen it being used on portrait artist of the year and another interested in the medium itself, and we spoke about the soft cut I was using.

Head of a young girl. 1912 George Clausen. (Dolly)

Now that I'm content with my activity throughout the day, I've been able to turn my attention to how my pop up space is used.  It's turned into a practical working space which reflects the research that I've done into the paintings by Currie of Dolly Henry.  Because I feel more comfortable, I've put a sign on reception when I'm there to basically say, come and see me and I've put posters up in the space to say that images are being recorded. I've put some more business cards out as I've had some taken by visitors and I've put out a comments book. 

           

A lady from the pinc college said hi and was keen to catch up. I've been meaning to find out more about what they're doing and found this today -I'm definitely interested in getting involved with this as I have a loved one who is neurodiverse. .  It's made me think about what I do with the rest of my time.   I anticipated that I'd only have another day or so at the PMAG and then would start working on the zine and a blog that they'd requested.  How things are going at the moment, I've established a good amount of research and created work in relation to it so I feel that, if I use my pop up space as a more professional looking exhibition area next week, then the week after, the curator has mentioned that we could take a store tour (which sounds amazing ) and then I could tap into some activities with the pinc college around the Staffordshire hoard. 

I'm a little sad that I've not worked with other artists and their works in the PMAG collection but there's just SO much scope! So much information!! Research and artwork takes you in so many directions. 

I'm going to try and start working on the zine now, based on the research I've done into the Dolly Henry paintings and then hopefully, on my last day I can spend some time with the curator and the collage, whilst the exhibition runs, and I can pop some zines into the space to wrap things up nicely.

So.. my timeline has changed. I need to start creating the zine alongside the artwork and I'm wondering if I'll need to reference my zine information.  The curator shared an exhibition catalogue of Curries work from 20 years ago with me which is of course all referenced.  My timelines is not.  I spent soooo long at the weekend, pulling information from lots of different sources to create a separate timeline accounts for Dolly and Currie - to show different perspectives- and I put them in the space to share with visitors. They're not referenced.. and it feels like a huge job to do...

The placement has been a lot more time-intensive than I anticipated, I expected to go along for a few days, make some sketches independently and then take them back to the studio to paint up and they'd form part of my end of year exhibition -  but I'm creating information to share  - because I realise how important art narratives are to me and I want people to know about them too. The experience has been amazing and has already taught me so much about myself and what's important to me about art.  From engaging with people to feeling strongly about arts in Stoke on Trent.  

I have been adding information to my Instagram account, any stories relating to the placement, telling people when I'll be in to chat to or sharing information about my work, have been saved to a Placement Highlights section.  You can find this information here: @lorna_lakin

One of today's lino prints on the easel that I'm now using as a studio display board

Slides that I've put together to show Curries self-portrait and the different portraits of Dolly - this is intended to complement the timelines of Dolly and Curry and to illustrate how Dolly was depicted in such different ways. I was going to print them out to display but the Powerpoint worked well and I talked to some visitors with it.

Chatting to a security guard about the timelines.

Timelapse video. 

Here I'm working with lino and I'd checked into a university teams briefing but stopped when visitors came over to chat.  I shared some information and a little girl made a lino print from one of the lino cuts that I'd done the week before. She seemed really chuffed and took it home with her. 

I hand-signed my name at the bottom of this printer poster, which told people I was using cameras - but actually, I only actually captured my pop-up space and my interactions - sometimes you could see hands and shoulders but I felt that the poster made me feel that I was being honest about the tripod in the corner and I had my business cards on hand if anyone wanted to get in touch about it. 

My reception information that was put out whilst I was there.